Take Control of Podcasting 9781947282605, 1947282603

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EBOOK EXTRAS: v1.0

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TA K E C O N T R O L O F

PODCASTING r u o Y e t a e r C n o t s a c d o P Own d a P i • e n o h Mac • iP

by AND Y AFFLE CK $14. 99

Table of Contents Read Me First ............................................................... 4 Updates and More ............................................................. 4 What’s New in This Title ..................................................... 5 Learn More and Discuss Podcasting ...................................... 5

Introduction ................................................................ 6 Podcasting Quick Start ................................................ 8 Plan Your Podcast ........................................................ 9 Listen to Podcasts ............................................................. 9 Decide What You Want to Say ............................................. 9 Monetize Your Podcast ...................................................... 10 Establish a Production Schedule ........................................ 12 Pick a Format .................................................................. 13 Listen to Your Audience, Listen to Your Show ....................... 13 Learn Podcasting Terminology ........................................... 14 Consider Common Techniques ........................................... 16

Set Up Your Studio .................................................... 18 Pick a Platform for Podcasting ........................................... 18 Choose a Mic and Supporting Hardware .............................. 19 Choose Headphones ........................................................ 25 Choose Audio Software .................................................... 39

Record Your Podcast .................................................. 48 Use Good Microphone Techniques ...................................... 48 Interview People Successfully ............................................ 49 Record with GarageBand .................................................. 51 Record with Audacity ....................................................... 55 Record with GarageBand for iOS/iPadOS ............................. 57 Record with Ferrite Recording Studio for iOS/iPadOS ............ 63 Record with Voice Record Pro for iOS/iPadOS ....................... 68 Record with Audio Hijack .................................................. 74 Record Online Interviews .................................................. 79 2

Edit Your Podcast ...................................................... 93

Edit with GarageBand ...................................................... 93

Edit with Audacity .......................................................... 109

Edit with Ferrite Recording Studio for iOS/iPadOS ............... 118

Encode and Tag Your Show ...................................... 126

Encode Your Podcast ...................................................... 126

Learn About Tags ........................................................... 130

Create a Logo ............................................................... 133

Tag Your Episode ........................................................... 134

Host Your Podcast ................................................... 140

Understand Bandwidth Costs ........................................... 140

Choose a Hosting Service ............................................... 141

Understand Syndication Formats ...................................... 142

Set Up a WordPress.com Blog for Podcasting ..................... 144

Set Up a FeedBurner Feed .............................................. 152

Publish and Promote Your Podcast .......................... 159

Upload and Publish an Episode ........................................ 159

Add Your Podcast to the iTunes Store ................................ 160

Promote Your Podcast ..................................................... 162

About This Book ....................................................... 165

Ebook Extras ................................................................. 165

About the Author ........................................................... 166

About the Publisher ........................................................ 167

Copyright and Fine Print .......................................... 168

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Read Me First Welcome to Take Control of Podcasting, version 1.0, published in September 2020 by alt concepts inc. This book was written by Andy J. Williams Affleck and edited by Geoff Duncan. This book gives you all the information you need to begin your first podcast quickly and without spending much (if any) money by suggesting which software and hardware to buy for better results and teaching you how to use it. It covers macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. If you want to share this ebook with a friend, we ask that you do so as you would with a physical book: “lend” it for a quick look, but ask your friend to buy a copy for careful reading or reference. Discounted classroom and user group copies are available. Copyright © 2020, Andy J. Williams Affleck. All rights reserved.

Updates and More

You can access extras related to this ebook on the web (use the link in Ebook Extras, near the end; it’s available only to purchasers). On the ebook’s Take Control Extras page, you can: • Download any available new version of the ebook for free, or buy any subsequent edition at a discount. • Download various formats, including PDF, EPUB, and Mobipocket. (Learn about reading on mobile devices on our Device Advice page.) • Read the ebook’s blog. You may find new tips or information, links to author interviews, and update plans for the ebook. If you bought this ebook from the Take Control website, it has been added to your account, where you can download it in other formats and access any future updates.

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What’s New in This Title

The three major editions of Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac covered the Mac with a few side trips to discuss using the iPhone as a portable digital recorder. Because this edition adds the iPad and iPhone as full podcasting tools, this book has a new title. But if you have read the earlier versions, much of this will be familiar to you. Here is a quick rundown of what’s new: • Updated the content to bring this book into the current era. • Added additional coverage of using iPads and/or iPhones including advice on how to Pick a Platform for Podcasting, how to Record with Ferrite Recording Studio for iOS/iPadOS and how to Edit with Ferrite Recording Studio for iOS/iPadOS. • Updated descriptions of My Home Studio Gear and My Mobile Podcasting Gear. • Added a section on how to Choose Headphones. • Added a section on Monetize Your Podcast. • Added a section on why you should Establish a Production Schedule. • Added instructions on how to Set Up a WordPress.com Blog for Podcasting.

Learn More and Discuss Podcasting

I’ve set up a new site called takecontrolofpodcasting.com, which I intend to be an online community of practice for Mac, iPad, and/or iPhone podcasters to learn, share, and improve. Visit the site to go beyond what you learn in this book, share your experiences, and get further advice.

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Introduction When I was 11, I was a DJ on WZKU out of Bronxville, New York. That is to say, I had a tape recorder and I created tape after tape of radio shows, skits, copies of music I recorded off the radio, and more. My next door neighbor, David, helped me out, too. It was a lot of fun creating those tapes, and I dearly wish they were still around today. Later, in college, I studied and composed electro-acoustic music in Dartmouth College’s Bregman Music & Audio Research Studio through multiple classes taught by the wonderful Jon Appleton. My interest in sound equipment, music composition, and having fun with audio tools has waxed and waned over the years, but never left me completely. And then 2004 arrived. In August 2004, Adam Curry, a former MTV VJ, began producing a daily show from his home in the Netherlands in which he talked about topics that interested him and he played music he felt like sharing. Others had produced “audio blogs” before, most notably Dave Winer, who created subscription and update standards first for text and later for attachments—including audio—without which podcasting couldn’t exist. But it wasn’t until Curry wrote some primitive software and Winer popularized it that something gelled, making podcasting a fad, then a trend, and now a part of tens of thousands of websites. Today, as I write this, the world is largely in lockdown due to the pandemic and podcasting is undergoing a renaissance thanks to people being home needing hobbies and wanting to communicate with the outside world. In its simplest form, a podcast is a downloadable audio file. It could be as simple as a song that a podcaster wanted to share, or it might be a full-blown audio show edited together in the style of a radio program. Most podcasts are free to listeners. Subscription and automatic downloading capabilities make the podcast listening experience distinct from the experience of listening to 6

audio files linked from websites. Listeners typically retrieve individual podcast files, also known as episodes, using tools such as Apple’s Podcast App, Spotify, or any number of podcast apps on iOS, iPadOS, Android, and other platforms. A podcast file is usually in MP3 or AAC format, though some podcasts use other audio formats. The publishing side of podcasting is syndication; the retrieval side is subscription. Most podcasts can also be downloaded manually. Podcasting combines elements of several disparate technologies— audio recording and editing, content syndication, and internet file transfers—into a single process that retrieves audio from a website onto listeners’ computers or mobile devices. One click or tap can often initiate the whole process. Note: You can read about the history of podcasting in a TidBITS article I wrote called Podcasting: The People’s Radio.

Creating your own podcasts can be highly rewarding. Podcasts don’t need the professional veneer of a commercial radio broadcast. Just start recording. If your content is worthwhile, you’ll find an audience. You can always improve your format and production as you discover what works and what doesn’t. What’s in a Name? The name “podcast” came about only because Apple’s iPod was the most popular digital audio player on the market at the time. iPods still exist (in the form of the iPod touch) but you can use virtually any device on any platform to listen to podcasts.

Apple’s GarageBand app is a major player in this book. To keep pace with Apple, I’ve provided directions on creating podcasts using GarageBand 10.3.5 for Mac and GarageBand 2.3.8 for iOS/iPadOS. These versions of GarageBand run on macOS 1o.13.6 High Sierra and up and iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 and up respectively. I also cover a variety of other tools useful for recording and producing podcasts on macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. See Choose Your Audio Software for the full list.

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Podcasting Quick Start This book shows you how to plan, record, edit, encode, and publish a podcast. You can learn about these steps in any order, but I encourage beginners to read the material in sequence. Plan your podcast: • Understand the process; see the Introduction for an overview of what podcasting is, and then Plan Your Podcast, Establish a Production Schedule, and consider Monetize Your Podcast. • Brush up on your vocabulary in Learn Podcasting Terminology. Record your podcast: • Make sure you have the hardware and software that fits your needs and budget; see Set Up Your Studio. • Consult Use Good Microphone Techniques in order to avoid common mistakes. • Find advice and procedures for how to Record Your Podcast on your Mac or on an iOS device. Edit and encode your podcast: • Learn basic audio editing techniques in Edit Your Podcast. • Decide which encoding settings you want to use and encode your podcast for uploading; read Encode and Tag Your Show. Publish and promote your podcast: • Understand Bandwidth Costs so you don’t go broke if you become popular. • Set Up a WordPress.com Blog for Podcasting to share your show with the world. • Upload and host your show; see Upload and Publish an Episode. • Syndicate your show; consult Understand Syndication Formats and Promote Your Podcast. 8

Plan Your Podcast Proper planning produces podcast prosperity.

Listen to Podcasts

They say that to become a writer, you need to read a lot. The same is true for being a podcaster. You need to listen a lot. Listen to as many podcasts as you can. Find podcasts about news, comedy, drama, politics, science, art, technology, and anything else you are interested in and given them all a good listen. Take notes if it would help. Find out what it is that you really like, and notice what doesn’t work for you. This is important: if you don’t like a certain style of podcasting or topic, then making your show in that style or on that topic, will not be enjoyable for you and your audience will know it. Love what you want to podcast about and the audience will pick up on your enthusiasm.

Decide What You Want to Say

Do you want to talk politics? Music? Cooking? Make an audio version of your blog? There’s no restriction for what a podcast should and should not be. Of course, you may find it harder to find an audience if you cover all these topics at once than if you focus on a narrower range and cover it well. Finding listeners is simpler if your podcast can be summarized in a sentence. More people will sample your show if it fits in a category in a podcast directory—like that found in the iTunes Store—than if it ends up lumped in a catch-all list. Listeners aren’t likely to tune into your random thoughts unless the podcast is recommended, or those random thoughts happen to fall very neatly into the listeners’ areas of interest.

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You also need to decide if you want to do a show where you record everything carefully (re-recording when you mess something up) and then editing everything together, or if you want to do a live recording, possibly even a live-streamed recording where you have an online audience listening in. Should You Use Video? A picture may be worth a thousand words, but before you start

building a film set in your basement, there are some things you

should consider.

First, most video production is much more time- and resource-intensive than audio production. I have edited 4-minute-long videos for my community theater that took days, whereas I have edited hourlong podcasts in just hours. Similarly, today even modest devices have more than enough power to produce audio podcasts, but producing video often requires an order of magnitude more horsepower and storage. Second, depending on your show, you may need a set (and lighting!), or at least a green screen. These can be expensive and take time to set up. Third, you need to ask yourself if your show warrants video at all. Most conversations work just fine as audio. But showing how to use an app or how to make a macrame umbrella stand (sure, why not?) would require video. Just be sure video is worth the extra cost and time and there are real, tangible benefits to doing so.

Monetize Your Podcast

Aside from publishing this book, I have never made a cent off of podcasting. But I have seen a few ways other people have earned money from their podcasts. Here is a survey of some of the morecommon ways to generate income from on podcasting: • Run Advertisements: Many of the larger podcast networks (Maximumfun.org, Libsyn, Blubrry, or Spotify to name a few) have services that, if you meet certain requirements (usually how many 10

subscribers you have), will either automatically insert ads or let you select ads to run in your podcast. • Perform Advertisements: This is similar to the item above, but instead of the ads being inserted into your recordings automatically or an advertiser delivering pre-recorded audio files for you to insert yourself, you get a script and/or specific points the advertiser wants you to cover. Then it is up to you to present it to your audience. Many podcasts use these ads between sections of their show. They can be quite entertaining when done well. • Solicit Donations: If you do not want to run ads, you can always rely on direct listener support. Asking in each episode to help defray the costs of your show and providing easy-to-use ways for listeners to donate can help. Of course, people are not likely to donate regularly, so this strategy may be somewhat limited. • Use Patreon: Patreon is a service that enables people to subscribe to your content at various price points. Many podcasters use it to provide subscribers with benefits like exclusive premium content and direct access to them (in a forum setting), while still providing their main podcast for free. It essentially amounts to a donation program where subscribers commit to a monthly donation. • Require Subscriptions: You can require subscriptions to listen to any of your content. If you are well-established and have a loyal audience, this could work. If you don’t, you almost certainly need to provide something for free to entice people to try out your show. Direct subscriptions are most practical for producers who already have subscription-based service and a solid audience, but if you have the right marketing acumen and a quality show, you may be able to make this work from scratch. • Become Famous (Go Viral): This is one you cannot plan on, but there’s always the chance something you do will go viral, potentially giving you the freedom to monetize your show using any method you like. But be careful: fame is both fickle and fleeting.

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Establish a Production Schedule

I do not listen to a great many podcasts, since I work from home (even before COVID-19 made that mandatory for many people) and do not have a commute during which I can listen. However, with the podcasts I follow, I appreciate knowing when episodes are going to be released. My daughter and I are fans of the McElroy Brothers’ My Brother, My Brother, and Me and look forward to Monday evenings when new episodes drop. I love All Songs Considered’s weekly new music episode and make a point of setting aside a half hour every Friday morning to listen to it. Publishing your podcast on a regular schedule lets your audience know when to look for episodes, and they will come to look forward to them. If you have a haphazard schedule, you run the risk of people not realizing that they have missed more than a handful of episodes and start being unwilling to continue listening because they are missing things. It behooves you to be predictable. Another benefit is that a regular schedule enables you to integrate the show into everything else in your life. Once you get an idea of how long it takes to plan, record, edit, mix, write up show notes, and publish your show, you can fit it into your busy week. That said, publishing a show regularly all year long can lead to burnout. It doesn’t matter how much you love doing something, if you don’t take a break from it, you can grow bored of it or worse, begin to resent it. Many podcasters find releasing their show in “seasons,” similar to TV series, works very well for them. To do this, they limit themselves to some fixed number of episodes (perhaps ten or twenty) and produce and release them on a regular schedule until the set is complete. Then they take a break for as long as they need to before starting it all over again. This approach can even help build an audience, since listeners can catch up between seasons rather feeling they will be behind forever.

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One final piece of advice: don’t publish your first episode until you have a few completed episodes “in the can.” The exact number will vary with your format, but try to give yourself a safety buffer of at least a few weeks if you aren’t able to make a deadline or, for whatever reasons, you are unable to record for a while.

Pick a Format

Decide how simple or complex you want your show to be. Do you want each show to start with the same opening (called the intro) and finish with the same closing (outro)? Do you want music to segue between topics much the same way NPR’s All Things Considered does? Will you be the only voice or will you have co-hosts in roundtable discussions? Will you interview people, either in-person, over the phone, or via internet? Will you play a lot of music? These elements help determine the format for an episode or even your entire podcast. A consistent show format will simplify producing your podcast and help your audience know what to expect. But you might want to mix it up and have each episode be completely different.

Listen to Your Audience, Listen to Your Show You may have neither the equipment nor the time for the highest level of professional production, but that doesn’t mean you must eschew quality. For example, you can rerecord any major flubs, especially technical gaffes such as sound levels being too far off or the dog barking at the wrong time. But you can also leave smaller mistakes alone, and maybe a small child wandering into the room adds some humor to a given moment. Your audience will dictate what level of quality you strive to achieve. They’ll let you know what they like and don’t like, and they’ll make

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suggestions. How you respond is your own decision, of course, but an audience that’s listened to should continue to listen to you. An important method for improving your shows is to listen to an episode a few weeks after you produce it. With a little distance between yourself and a show, you hear things you missed the first time around. When I listen to my earliest shows, I recoil at how often I said “um.” That reaction helped me stop saying that filler syllable.

Learn Podcasting Terminology

Like any good hobby, podcasting has its own collection of terms you should know, mostly borrowed from the world of radio. Many terms describe techniques that make for a more polished, professional sounding show: • Intro: The intro is an introduction—how a show starts. In music podcasts, it can come before or after the first song (based on your personal style). Use the intro to tell your listeners what they are listening to and who you are. One tradition is to begin your show with a quick note of the title and date before going into the title music or first bit of content. This lets users know what they are listening to if they don’t have (or can’t see) a screen. • Outro: By the same token, the outro serves as a final farewell to your audience. It often contains useful details such as the URL of your show’s website, how listeners can contact you, and legal information. • Stinger, bumper: A stinger or bumper is a short sound or, more commonly, a piece of music that bridges two segments of a show. Often stingers serve to end one concept and introduce another. Longer transition sounds or music are sometimes called interstitials. Tip: GarageBand comes with a fairly large collection of professionally made stingers, bumpers, and sounds you can use royalty-free.

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• Mixdown: When you mixdown, you take a finished show and mix the separate tracks and processed audio into a single, final audio file in your chosen encoding format. Mixdown is also a noun describing the final file. • Lag: Lag—or latency—is a gap in time between two actions. Lag describes a delay between when you say something and when you hear it in your headphones. If you can’t minimize lag so that you hear your voice as you speak, you’re better off not listening to yourself. (You’ll slur your speech—try it, it’s true!) • Playhead: In audio editing apps, the playhead is a vertical line indicating the point of a sound recording that is being played. You can move the playhead as needed during editing or playback. Some apps also call the playhead a wiper. • Scrubbing: Some apps scrub the sound as you move the playhead, by playing snippets of what is under the playhead. In this way, you can find specific audio without having to move, play, stop, and move again. • Ducking: Ducking is when you lower the volume of one audio track so as to better hear another one. The most common use of ducking is when a voice speaks over a piece of music. The volume of the music goes down, or ducks, to make the voice more intelligible. • Plosives: Sharp blasts of breath on a microphone from words with “p” or “b” in them—and sometimes even “k” or “d”—are known as plosives. Plosives sound like loud pops in your recording; you can avoided them with good mic technique or a windscreen, discussed in Use Good Microphone Techniques. • Sibilants: Sibilants are high-pitched sounds and hisses caused by spoken “s” sounds, along with “t,” “sh,” “ch,” and other phonemes. You don’t want sibilants to overwhelm your recordings, but speech is hard to understand if you eliminate them entirely. You can keep sibilants under control if you Use Good Microphone Techniques, and sometimes with audio processing tools.

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• Clipping: When the volume of a sound exceeds the capability of a microphone or other device to process it accurately, the sound becomes distorted or clipped. (The term comes from looking at the audio waveform: in clipped material, the peaks of the waveform appear to be clipped off.) In the analog music world, sometimes clipping is desirable: “distorted” or “overdriven” guitar tones are all produced by various forms of clipping. However, in the digital audio world clipping always sounds terrible and should be avoided by monitoring your levels. Erring on the side of too quiet is better than too loud. You can always increase volume, but, once recorded, clipped audio cannot be restored.

Consider Common Techniques

Podcasts use a variety of formats but there are general common elements: • The intro: Shows generally start with an intro to identify the show, the topic, the host(s), and, sometimes, the episode number and/or date. Formats vary wildly. Some podcasters like to begin with the hosts in mid-conversation and slowly segue into the intro and theme, others do it formally. • Using music and/or bumpers: You can just talk for the entire length of your podcast, but you can add polish by including music or sound effects between segments. Theme music of some kind also helps identify your show. • Mixing segments: Mixing adds a professional sound. For example, I created a podcast for my community theatre where I interviewed people involved with a production. From my intro, I brought up the ambient sound effects of a scene being rehearsed. Then I lowered the volume of the scene and spoke over the sounds to introduce my guest. As she began talking, I faded out the rehearsal sounds entirely. That kind of volume control can help a show feel very polished. (See Mix Tracks, later.)

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• Splitting long segments: Break long segments into multiple parts to keep things interesting. A 12-minute interview can be three 4-minute segments with other small segments (perhaps separated by bumpers) in between. For a good example, see Add Audio, later. • Handling guests: Some podcasters pan the audio of guests (and themselves) to improve audible distinction between speakers. For example, I might be slightly to the left and my guest slightly to the right. I wouldn’t recommend putting anyone fully over to one side or the other, because that gets difficult to listen to after a while. • Starting the next episode: You can save time producing your show by building a show template. This file might include the opening and closing music, a few regularly-used bumpers, and elements common to each show. You record the new bits, move the old bits around, and save yourself a lot of work. My approach is to duplicate the previous episode and use it to begin my new episode. This way, I can carry over any new elements I introduced in the previous show. If I always used a static template, my show would not evolve quickly, or at all. The subject of your podcast may dictate your show’s structure, but whatever form it takes, these basics are all worth your consideration. Podcaster Profile: Chuck Joiner Podcasts Produced: MacVoices. MacVoices are in-depth discussions on tech-related topics, with a focus on the Apple user, offering developer interviews, analysis, opinion, discussion, and more, with extensive coverage of several industry events throughout the year. Tools Used: Chuck produces video interview shows on Skype or Zoom depending on the number of people. He uses Call Recorder for video recording, Auphonic to improve the audio, Final Cut Pro X for editing, and Apple’s Compressor to prepare videos for upload. Chuck uses Libsyn for generating the feeds and distributing them to iTunes, Spotify, and other services.

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Set Up Your Studio The format for your podcast determines the technical setup of your studio. Some people want to record while mobile. Most people podcast in front of a single computer with a single microphone and mix in sounds from other applications, such as Apple’s Music, Skype, and Zoom.

Pick a Platform for Podcasting

If you only have a Mac or an iPad or an iPhone, then your decision is pretty much made for you. But if you have more than one, then you have some choices to make. But let’s get this out of the way up front: while it is possible to do an end-to-end production process (recording to publishing) on an iPad or iPhone, it is markedly easier on the Mac—especially for mixing and publishing. Even iPad advocates (myself included) have found that production on the iPad is still limited at times. While the Ferrite editor is wonderful to work with (especially if you have an Apple Pencil), the recording process is remains clunky. Jason Snell of Six Colors podcasts a great deal and recently posted about the limitations of the iPad in Toward an Easier iPad Podcast Workflow. It is well worth a read. I find that I use my iPhone or iPad (depending on what is handy and where I am) for recording—much the same way journalists do with their own phones. Both devices are capable portable recording devices, and the audio quality of their built-in mics is surprisingly good. Both iPhones and iPads support separate USB microphones for even better audio quality. I personally wait on editing until I return home to my Mac. I find it’s easier because it has all the tools I need, and I have the muscle memory for common actions. You may find you do just fine working fully end to end on an iPad or iPhone. 18

An issue I encounter on the iPad and iPhone is that you cannot always have a different input and output device like you can on the Mac. If you connect a USB microphone, by default iPhones and iPads use that microphone for both audio input and output; fortunately. GarageBand provides a way to split your inputs and outputs on either device. Further, on the iPad, you can monitor your recording by connecting wired headphones via the audio jack, but you can’t do the same on the iPhone as there is no audio jack. You can monitor iPhone recording with AirPods, but you’ll hear your voice with a disconcerting quartersecond (or longer!) delay. If you use an app like Voice Record Pro, you can use the onscreen volume meters to ensure your sound levels are good without having to worry about live monitoring your recording, but issues like these can be frustrating when working with the iPad and iPhone. Tools evolve constantly: what’s important is that you find a workflow that works for you. If you can do your complete show on a portable iDevice, that’s great! I hope you’ll let me know what you did! For myself, I plan to use my iPhone for on-the-fly recording when I am out and about and the Ferrite editor when I do not have my Mac handy. Otherwise, I will continue to do the majority of my work on my Mac for the foreseeable future.

Choose a Mic and Supporting Hardware The only essential tools for podcasting are a computing device and a microphone. An audio interface might be a helpful addition: they’re designed to provide external inputs that aren’t built into your Mac or iOS device, like connectors used in analog audio. Some podcasters use an external mixer to control multiple sound inputs. Let’s start with the mic, and then Decide on an Audio Interface or Mixer.

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Pick a Mic For podcasting, two types of microphones are important: • A condenser mic: Condensers provide accurate sound but they’re somewhat fragile and require power, usually from a battery or phantom power from a mixer or interface. • A dynamic mic: Dynamic mics generally provide less accurate sound than condensers (and a lower output level), but they stand up to abuse (they’re often used for concerts) and do not require an external power source. Deciding which to pick may come down to whether or not you can power a condenser mic. If you are using an interface or mixer (I talk about mixers in Decide on an Audio Interface or Mixer) that provides phantom power you can use a condenser mic. If you plan to do a lot of in-the-field recording, you likely don’t want to risk an expensive condenser mic. And many dynamic mics have surprisingly good quality (such as the Sennheiser e835 I use). Another distinction is the style of microphone. Examples include: • Lavalier or lapel mics: These microphones clip to clothing, typically within a foot of a speaker’s mouth. They provide some freedom of movement (particularly when used with a wireless pack) and are good for video shoots (since they’re visually unobtrusive) and situations where larger microphones are impractical. • Standard mics: This is a very broad category: think if a typical microphone you might hold in your hand or see on a stand at a concert. Most are a cylinder with the mic head at one end, though they come in many shapes and sizes. Most of the time, these are what you will be using. • Shotgun mics: These are specialized mics often used by journalists recording people from a distance, or by boom operators recording sound for a movie or video. They specialize in picking up sound directly in front of them while ignoring much of the surrounding sound. Their applications in podcasting are limited. 20

• Headset mics: Like lavalier mics, these are small microphones worn on a headset (with or without corresponding on-ear or in-ear earpieces) with a boom that puts the mic very close to a speaker’s mouth. Some are bulky—think about gamer headsets—but others designed for video or stage use and can be very unobtrusive. Most offer good audio quality for speech, but are prone to being bumped and plosives (see Learn Podcasting Terminology, earlier) can be a problem. Some professional units are very high quality. • The microphone in EarPods, AirPods, AirPods Pro, etc.: These are a subset of headset mics, and I recommend avoiding them where possible. Be especially wary of wireless systems like AirPods as they switch to a lower-quality mode to reduce bandwidth. These mics are ubiquitous and can be used in a pinch, but if you care about descent audio quality, invest in a good microphone. The final distinction that is important is the pickup pattern of the mic. The two main types we need to consider are: • Directional mics, which record sound from one specific direction. Shotgun mics do this but to a much higher degree. • Omnidirectional mics, which picks up sound in all directions.

Directional Directional mics, sometimes called unidirectional, capture sound from one primary direction. Directional mics are great for general speech because you can focus them on a speaker and make many nearby sounds (like a computer fan) less intrusive. But directional mics can be a liability: for example, in an interview, each speaker needs their own directional mic. Also, directional mics are generally more likely to distort wind noise, plosives, and sibilants.

Omnidirectional Omnidirectional mics work well for recording ambient sounds outdoors, such as when you create a “soundseeing” tour (see Take Your Show on the Road, ahead). They’re also good for interviews if you have only a single mic. However, omnidirectional mics pick up surprising

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amounts of sound from all around, including room noise, computer fans, traffic, birds, distant voices, chair squeaks…the list is endless.

Mixed Types Some microphones provide other listening patterns. For example, the Yeti microphone series from Blue can switch among four patterns (Figure 1).

Figure 1: My Blue Yeti mic can switch among four patterns.

The four patterns are (from left to right): • Bi-directional: With this pattern, the mic picks up sounds from the left and right side only. This is useful for capturing stereo sounds because each side is pushed into its own channel. • Omnidirectional: An omnidirectional mic picks up sounds from all directions. • Cardioid: The most common form of a unidirectional microphone, a cardioid mic captures sounds in front of the mic in a heart-shaped pattern. This is the most common setting for one person recording his voice for a podcast (and how I generally use this mic). • Bi-directional: Unlike the first bi-directional setting, this one captures sound from the front and back only (use it to interview someone sitting across from you).

Pricing Microphone prices range from cheap to astoundingly expensive. The main difference, of course, is sound quality. Low-end mics are typically intended for basic speech, and provide adequate, but not great, quality. Higher-end mics capture a much wider spectrum of sounds. 22

For my home studio, I used to use a simple headset mic that retailed for $12 and was perfectly happy with the sound. Later, I bought a $120 Sennheiser e835 directional microphone, and I love how much richer my voice sounds. I also own a Samson GoMic ($39), a Giant Squid ($75), a Neewer NW-7000 ($50), and an original Blue Yeti ($130). And let’s not forget Apple EarPods (Free with iPhones and iPads, $30 new), AirPods ($150), and AirPods Pro ($250), handy in a pinch when nothing else is available). Other podcasters use and recommend microphones that I haven’t used, including the Shure SM58 ($130), Røde Podcaster ($230), the Blue Snowball ($70), and the AT2020USB+ ($150, which provides both USB and XLR connections). Each has pros and cons. Ultimately, you need to identify your needs and decide what sound you want for your podcast. The Subjectivity of Sound “Great sound” is highly subjective. What one person hears as fantastic may sound terrible to another. Some people (like my daughter) prefer the sound of vinyl LP albums to CDs. Other people think that Apple’s encoding of songs in the iTunes Store sounds great (I’m one of them), but others find it unacceptable and prefer CDs. Of course, a CD itself is usually lower quality than a master recording. When I write that something produces “great” sound, I mean most

people would agree that it sounds good to them. Some people will

never accept the quality of any compressed format.

When I write that something sounds “bad,” I mean that I can identify certain characteristics that most people would agree reduce the sound quality. The audio may be noisy with hisses or strange highpitched warbles, or it may have odd noises like loud pops or static. Great sound starts with audio that is free from these defects. As always, you need to decide what level of quality you desire. Or, more to the point, you need to decide what your listeners will enjoy.

To learn more about microphones, read the excellent Wikipedia entry about them. For something much older but still relevant, read the article What Microphone Do I Get?, by Jeff Towne at Transom Tools. 23

The article is from 2001, so some specific products mentioned are no longer available, but the information about microphone technology is still quite useful.

Sound Samples I recorded a number of tests with my various microphones and devices. I recorded some multiple times from different positions to show you how mic placement can affect sound. Some are also shown before and after post-processing to show what that can do. Click each link below to hear what they sound like (headphones are recommended, MP4 format): • Sennheiser e835: (Dynamic, 45° angle, pop-filter) • Sennheiser SC30 Headset: (Condenser, various positions, raw recording) • Sennheiser SC30 Headset: (Same recording, processed in GarageBand) • Samson Go Mic: (Condenser, 18 inches away and down on surface of my desk) • Samson Go Mic: (18-24 inches away, at forehead level) • Samson Go Mic: (Handheld, close-up) • Blue Yeti: (Condenser, Cardioid Pattern, 18 inches away and above mouth level.) • Blue Yeti: (Cardioid Pattern, 18-24 inches away, at forehead level) • Blue Yeti: (Same recording as before, but processed by iZotope RX Elements) • Blue Yeti: (Ambient room noise, unprocessed) • Blue Yeti: (Ambient room noise, processed by iZotope RX Elements) • Blue Yeti: (Stereo Pattern, Close-Up)

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• Neewer NW-7000: (Condenser, 12 inches away, at forehead level, windscreen, pop filter) • Neewer NW-7000: (Close up, windscreen, pop filter)

Consider Additional Mic Hardware A few additional items may make a big difference in your recordings: • A windscreen, a foam shield that covers the mic to help prevent plosives (see Learn Podcasting Terminology) or wind noise when used outside. • A pop filter, a screen placed between your mouth and the mic to reduce or eliminate plosives (some people even make their own using old t-shirts or even nylon pantyhose!) • A mic stand, something that holds your microphone so you can place it exactly where you need it. For instance, any mic on my desk picks up vibrations from my computer’s fan, so I use a mic stand that sits on the floor and holds the mic in front of me: no hum. • A shock mount is an elaborate microphone holder that suspends a mic (usually with elastic cords) to help insulate it from bumps and rumbles transmitted over a mic stand. If I were to bump my floorbased stand with my foot while speaking, I’d probably record a loud thump. A shock mount can reduce or eliminate that problem.

Choose Headphones

Headphones come in handy in different ways. Examples include: • Recording Yourself: It is helpful to listen to yourself as you record so you can check your levels and general sound quality, and know immediately if you bump your mic or pop a P. However, you almost certainly want to use wired headphones: see below about latency. • Recording a “Double-Ender” Podcast: When you are recording a two-person conversation over Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, etc., 25

where both parties are recording themselves, both parties need to wear headphones. The reason is simple: isolation. You want the recording on each side of the conversation to be as clean as possible with no “bleed” from the other side. Otherwise, it is nearly impossible to clean up a recording when one person talks over the other (something that happens quite often!). • Editing and Mixing: Your computer’s speakers can give you a reasonable idea of how your podcast sounds, but when you wear headphones you can hear and notice so much more. Maybe there are low-level noises you can filter out that you wouldn’t otherwise notice. Or maybe the relative volume levels are off enough to make transitions awkward. Maybe there are creaks, taps, or mouth noises you want to edit out. There are hundreds of reasons I can think of for wearing headphones during post-production. There are different types of headphones that can range in price from free-ish (the EarPods or similar that came with your phone) to incredibly expensive. Different brands cater to different audiences as well. For example, Apple’s Beats emphasizes bass, as they came out of the rap and hip-hop world of Dr. Dre. Studio monitor headphones (also called cans) are usually designed to give transparent sound that doesn’t emphasize any particular part of the audio spectrum. Interestingly, a lot of studio engineers tend not to use headphones, preferring to use monitor speakers in their acoustically-treated studios. But unless you do the same for your home studio, you will want to stick with headphones. I have found great results with wired headphones that are under $100 from Grado (SR-80), Phillips (SHP 9500), and Sennheiser (HD 280 Pro). I have also used AirPods Pro and EarPods for editing in a pinch. You also have choices in how the headphones connect to your Mac, iPhone, or iPad: • Wired: This is kicking it old-school and is the best choice for listening to your recording as you make it. Any kind of wireless connection is going to have latency in which you will hear your voice a quarter-second (or longer!) after you speak, causing you to slur your 26

speech as your brain tries to make sense of things. For live recording and active monitoring, use wired headphones. • Bluetooth: You can get away with wireless headphones for editing and mixing as latency isn’t as big of a concern. Long editing sessions will eat your batteries, though. That may be a good thing: to get up and move around while you wait for them to recharge! Studio headphones also have some differences beyond wired or not. The three most common are: • Over-Ear: These headphones have large squishy cups that completely cover your ears: they’re great for reducing ambient sound so you can focus your audio, and can also emphasize bass frequencies. I prefer these when mixing podcasts as I can hear everything, enabling me to tune my recording to sound the way I want. On the downside, they trap heat and can become uncomfortable with extended use. • On-Ear: These headphones have a large pad and sit on your ears, rather than encapsulating them. On-ear headphones admit more surrounding sound and provide more open, speaker-like audio. For podcast work, these would be fine. I am not sure I would want to use them for music production, but I find they are generally more comfortable than over-ear headphones and less likely to trap heat. • Open-Back: Also called semi-open, these headphones are generally like on-ear but allow sound out the back of the earcups. I find these terrible for listening to anything at night when someone nearby is sleeping, but they provide a natural speaker-like experience. I prefer these for listening to music over the over-ear kind but they have a possible disadvantage for podcast recording because they can “leak” sound into a nearby microphone. I do not recommend using active noise canceling during recording. It increases latency even more and gives you a distorted view of the sound. Noise canceling can also prevent you from hearing annoying sounds around you that are ruining your recording. For basic editing, noise canceling can help you focus on the podcast. 27

Learn About Audio Cables You may encounter a variety of cable types as you build your studio. When speaking about cables, the male end is the end with the prong(s) and the female end is the end with holes. Figure 2 shows the most common cables you will encounter.

Figure 2: The different types of audio cable you may run into. The numbers correspond to the numbers below.

The numbers in the picture correspond to the numbers here: 1. XLR: The 3-pin XLR cable (female on left, male on right) is a standard in audio, video, and stage lighting equipment: audio pros love XLR because cables can carry phantom power and run long distances with little to no noise. Professional mics generally use XLR connectors, though a growing number of mics use USB ports to connect directly to computers. 2. 1/4-inch: The quarter-inch connector (so-named because of the approximate diameter of the prong) is commonly used to connect audio devices together over short distances. The example pictured 28

above is from my daughter’s electric guitar: she uses it to connect to her amp or to my mixer so she can record using GarageBand. Sometimes called TRS (for tip-ring-sleeve) or phone connectors (because they were originally used for telephone switchboards way back in the 19th century). 3. 1/8-inch or 3.5mm: The eighth-inch or 3.5mm connector (also named based on its diameter) is probably the audio connector people use most, thanks to its near-omnipresence in portable electronics. It’s used for most headphones and earbuds, and it appears on many computers, portable devices, personal audio equipment, games, and televisions. 4. RCA: RCA connectors are most often found hooking up older audio (or, with a third yellow plug, video) equipment. You won’t run into RCA as often these days unless you work with AV receivers, oldschool tape decks, or turntables, where they’re usually called phono connectors) but it’s good to recognize RCA connectors when they turn up. Traditionally, red is for the right channel and white is for the left channel. In this particular case, the 1/8-inch connector in #3 is the other end of this cable, meaning it converts from RCA to 1/8inch. They’re named for RCA Corporation. 5. 1/8-inch to 1/4-inch Adapter: This gold-colored connector is simply a converter from 1/8 to 1/4-inch. This is useful when you have, say, headphones that you need to plug into a mixer that provides a female 1/4-inch connector (also called a jack). And that’s exactly how I use it.

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Code of the Rings 1/8-inch and 1/4-inch connectors have rings that act as insulators between the cable’s shielding and audio signal(s) on the cable. Notice the two different 1/4-inch connectors in Figure 2: the plug in #2 has only a single ring while the adapter in #4 has two rings. One ring means a cable is monophonic (one connection for audio, one for shielding) while the adapter’s plug is for a stereo signal (two connections for audio, one for shielding). You don’t need to worry about this too much, except to make sure you use the right cables with the right sources. Don’t connect a monophonic cable to a stereo source: it would only carry one channel of the stereo pair. A stereo cable can work with a mono source, but you’ll only get one side of a stereo signal (probably the left).

Converting Analog Audio to Digital Audio I am using an older Behringer Xenyx 802 Mixer that does not have a USB option. I use a Griffin iMic to convert the analog audio to digital and move the converted audio into my computer via USB. Alas, the iMic is no more, but there are plenty of choices that range from $10 and up that you can find online. You generally want something that can take the appropriate analog audio output from your mixer (in my case, I use a cable that is RCA on one end and 1/4-inch on the other). Make sure the converter has a specific input for a microphone (many are only intended to support headphones) and you get the correct flavor of USB for your computer (for example, modern MacBook Pros all require USB-C). The Griffin iMic was $40 when it was available and while that may seem expensive compared to $10 options on Amazon, read reviews carefully. Inexpensive analog to digital converters can be great, but they can also be awful. You get what you pay for.

Decide on an Audio Interface or Mixer If you want to ramp up to more expensive professional tools, you can find other hardware appropriate for advanced podcasters, including a audio interface and even a mixer.

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Audio Interfaces An audio interface (or external interface) puts audio-in and audio-out jacks for your computer in a convenient form factor—a separate box— which keeps you from messing with the back of your computer—or dropping your iPad on the floor—when you plug or unplug audio gear. This is especially useful with computers you keep at a distance to reduce noise. More importantly for some people, audio interfaces handle analog-todigital (or AD) conversion—turning an electrical signal on a wire to the ones and zeros that computers process—separately from your computer. This usually means that less noise is introduced during conversion, since the audio interface isolates the process from any components that cause interference, such as displays and hard drives. Also, external interfaces almost always use higher-quality converters than inexpensive USB converters or your Apple devices. Although Apple does better than some manufacturers, it doesn’t take much to improve on the AD converters in a typical computer. Audio interfaces often support connections for professional audio—like 1/4-inch and XLR (see Learn About Audio Cables, earlier) and contain pre-amps to better control your input signal. Many enable users to record more than two tracks at once. Audio interfaces are also handy for people who do not have a sound input port on their computer. These days, almost all audio interfaces send audio to your computer using USB, Thunderbolt, or FireWire. Survey your equipment to make sure an interface supports the options you need, as their inputs and outputs vary widely. Tip: A plug is the male end of a cable and a jack is the female receptacle, usually a connector on your computer or on an external device such as an audio interface. Generally, a mic plugs into a jack.

Mixers Like an audio interface, an external mixer provides input and output jacks, but it also allows you to manage multiple input devices, control each device’s volume and equalizer settings, and combine the sources 31

in a single stereo (or mono) signal. For example, if you have more than one microphone because you have multiple people speaking, or want to record audio that is not already on your computer but on another device, then you may want a mixer to bring these different sources together into your computer. Most multi-channel audio interfaces and external interfaces can function as mixers in combination with software on your computer. If you are all alone and all audio is coming from your mouth to your computer, then you do not need a mixer.

Mics, Audio Interfaces, and Mixers Some condenser microphones require phantom power, electricity that runs along the same cable used for audio signals. Phantom power comes from a mixer or preamplifier. For all practical purposes, these mics don’t work if they’re plugged directly into a computer. Note: Wikipedia has a helpful article about phantom power.

Unless your podcast is your voice and no other sound, you need a software-based mixer to combine your voice with other audio on your computer. I cover these apps ahead, in Choose Audio Software.

My Home Studio Gear My home studio has changed surprisingly little in the 16 years I have been podcasting. I have used the same mic, mixer, and USB connector. Only the computer and headphones have really changed (and the latter only because my daughter destroyed my Grado headphones). But this speaks to how if you choose carefully and take care of things, they can last a very long time. Figure 3 shows my podcasting gear and how I connect it.

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Figure 3: My home podcasting setup.

The numbers in the picture correspond to the numbers here: 1. Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones ($99, $79 at the time of publication). I connect these either to my Mac or iPad Pro directly or to the Blue Yeti mic. 2. Blue Yeti USB Microphone ($129 for the base model, the one I have). I attach my Blue Yeti directly to the Mac via USB. 3. Samson GoMic ($39). I connect this directly to the Mac, iPad Pro, or iPhone via USB. (I usually use it for mobile podcasting). 4. Giant Squid Podcasting Omni Stereo Microphone ($75, I added the $6 Neutrik Right Angled Gold Plated Plug as well). Useful for interviews: we each get our own mic. It connects to the Griffin iMic or a computer’s sound input jack (sadly, few Macs have these anymore). 5. Sennheiser e835 directional microphone ($129). I use this highquality mic for studio work. It connects to my Behringer mixer with an XLR cable. 6. Behringer XENYX 802 Mixer ($60). My Sennheiser mic plugs into this mixer, as does an electric guitar. (The latter is for my eternal quest to learn the guitar.) The mixer connects to the Griffin iMic using an RCA to 1/8-inch cable.

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7. Griffin iMic (No longer available, but there are alternatives. See Converting Analog Audio to Digital Audio). Anything with an 1/8inch output cable plugs into this. It connects to the Mac via USB. 8. Apple 16-inch MacBook Pro. Note: Find out what other podcasters are up to in the four profiles featured in this book: Podcaster Profile: Chuck Joiner, Podcaster Profile: Louis Trapani, Podcaster Profile: Jason Snell, and Podcaster Profile: Kirk McElhearn.

Set Up Your Physical Space I enjoy reading Sound on Sound magazine, seeing all the expensive gear I will never be able to afford, and these gorgeous recording studios that I wish I could build in my house. But unless you want to be the next hip place for a cool band to come and make an album, it’s all vastly overkill. You can do quite a lot with very little. My own home studio is also my home office, tucked away in one corner of our large basement. I face into the corner (it’s a corner desk) with my back to the room. My Sennheiser mic is on a mic stand that is not touching my desk (so my bumping the desk with my leg won’t be picked up by the mic), and I position it in front of my mouth so that I am speaking very closely to it (through a pop filter). The Proximity Effect No, it’s not a Michael Crichton book. The closer a sound source is to a microphone, the more pronounced the bass end of the sound spectrum becomes. This “proximity effect” is like the difference between someone speaking a few inches from your ear compared to speaking from a few feet away, and often makes speech and singing sound richer and more intimate. I do not have a particularly bass voice (I’m a baritone when I sing, for example) but by speaking very close to my mic, my voice sounds a bit deeper and richer. You should experiment with mic placement to find what works best for you.

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Having my back to a wide open room works well for me in my basement. It does almost everything I need to have great sound quality. If only I weren’t sitting so close to the house’s air system. Some people buy (or make) sound baffles to reduce reverberation in the room. I haven’t felt the need for it myself. Instead of spending money, try the following: • Sit in front of a closet: If you can open a clothing closet and sit with your back to it, or face the closet with the mic in the closet. The clothes will act as a great sound dampener. • Record in a parked car: A parked car can be a fantastic recording space. The interior is very small but has almost no reverberation. Just don’t try this on a busy street or when it is raining! • Get cozy under a blanket: Get into bed and put a blanket over your head and your mic and record there. Or, if you can, hang a blanket behind you (and maybe on the sides or in front of you) in your home studio space. Of course, within minutes you will be very hot. So this tip may be best saved for recording short clips. These are just a few suggestions. Experiment and see what works for you.

Take Your Show on the Road Many podcasters like to take their show on the road, bringing their setup to do an interview face to face outside their home studio. Others like to conduct “sound-seeing tours” by walking through a place and narrating what they see and hear. Mobility can be an exciting way to spice up a podcast. For mobile work, I use an iOS device (whichever is handy at the moment, and has enough free space for potentially large audio recordings) paired with a USB mic, though, as you can see below, I tend to bring a lot more along with me when I hit the road. I  subscribe to the idea that it is better to overpack and not use everything than it is to bring too little and be left wanting.

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My Mobile Podcasting Gear Figure 4 shows the equipment I use for mobile podcasting (field work).

Figure 4: My portable podcasting gear. The numbers correspond to the list items below.

Refer to the numbers in the figure above as you read this list of gear: 1. My 16-inch MacBook Pro is a pain to set up, and I get excellent results with the same GoMic mic with my iPhone. Often if I am going out to record things, I will just leave it home and use my iPhone or iPad Pro. 2. I don’t use my iPad Pro for recording often because it is bulky. When I do, I use the Samson GoMic or the built-in mic. I am more likely to use the iPad for editing the recordings. 36

3. Apple Pencil: This makes editing so much nicer in Ferrite. 4. Level8 Atlas Backpack. Any bag will do, of course. 5. EarPods: These are handy if I need to make sure something sounds good. I also always have my AirPods Pro with me but because batteries can die, I always carry these as a backup. 6. USB Mini cable: I use this to connect USB microphones to my Mac, iPhone, or iPad, along with the USB-A to C converter in number 14. 7. Lightning cable: You never know when you need to charge your device or connect it to your Mac to offload audio. 8. Power cable, brick, and outlet adapter for the MacBook. If you don’t bring these, your battery will die (ask Murphy!) They also let your Mac double as a charger for your iOS devices. 9. AirPods Pro: I use these to listen to test recordings to make sure everything is set correctly, or if I am doing editing in the field. 10. iPad/iPhone power brick: I use the one that came with my iPhone 11 Pro Max as it has the highest wattage and thus is the best one for both devices (the iPad one is much lower power and would take forever to charge the phone). 11. An Anker Selfie Stick ($25) can serve a triple role: it can be used to hold my iPhone out as a mic where I might not be able to reach, it is also a tripod, and I can clip my Samson Go Mic to it as well. 12. The Samson Go Mic USB microphone ($49) connects (via my USB-A to Lightning adapter) to the iPhone or the iPad. 13. Altoids or other breath mints. Don’t be that interviewer. 14. USB-A to USB-C adapter: This lets me plug USB-A cables into my MacBook Pro. 15. USB-A and Lightning to Lightning: This cable lets you plug both a Lightning cable and a USB-A cable to your iPhone or iPad, enabling you to plug in a microphone and still also power the device. 37

16. USB-A to Lightning: This is the same as #15, but without the extra port for power. 17. Notebook and pen: It’s helpful to be able to take notes—without switching apps, interrupting recordings, or needing batteries. 18. (Not Pictured) iPhone (Price varies by model). My iPhone 11 Pro Max is my workhorse. I use it with the Samson GoMic or by itself. I have had great results with the built-in mic in a pinch. Consider a Dedicated Digital Recorder I am part of a community theater. We got a grant a few years ago to set up a digital creative lab mainly to do videos (but also podcasts, though the only podcasts are my own and I have my own gear!) For recording people when shooting a videos, we use a Røde Shotgun mic on a boom pole connected to a Zoom H4n digital recorder (discontinued but they make similar models). This handy recorder can take two mic inputs and, when connected to your computer as an audio device, deliver both inputs in separate channels. Finally, it has its own built-in stereo mic that is surprisingly good.

Expenses can add up quickly if you need both a portable and stationary studio setup. Here are some suggestions for keeping your costs down: • Use your portable studio for everything: Many podcasters do just fine with a simple recording device, a good-enough mic, and little else. You can record the bulk of your audio in the field or in your home studio and then transfer the audio to your computer and do your final mixing there. The downside to this approach is that inexpensive, small microphones you might be willing to risk in the field usually offer lower audio quality. The Giant Squid mic that I use is good for field work where I want ambient sounds (birds, cars, background noise in a café, and so on), but awful for my basement home studio with the air system, echoes, and dehumidifier. I much prefer a higher quality, highly directional microphone for my at-home work.

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• Use a high quality microphone with an iOS device: You can improve your iOS recordings by using a high quality microphone. However, you find other issues. First, many high quality microphones are delicate and not suited for field work. Second, a good home studio mic is likely highly directional, which means recording man-on-the-street interviews requires constantly moving the mic back-and-forth between two speakers. If your aim or distance is just a bit off you won’t pick up your subject (or yourself) very well. Some high quality microphones can switch between directional and omnidirectional (for example, the Samson GoMic), so if you shop around you may find something that meets all your needs. • Put the effort into your home studio and use an old tape recorder for field work: There’s no law that says your podcast must be 100 percent digital end-to-end. If you have an old memo recorder, consider using that for field work and then connect its line out or headphone output to your computer using the correct cables and capture the audio. It takes longer (an hour of recording will take an hour to digitize) but will get the job done. I suggest beginning with the least-expensive setup for what you need. Unless you are a professional audio engineer (or aspire to be one), there’s no reason to break the bank (see Set Up Your Physical Space). You can always start out modest and then slowly upgrade as your show gains popularity or your interest grows. I started with a $12 Labtec headset with built-in mic.

Choose Audio Software

Next, you need software. Some podcasters record only their voice—or multiple voices sitting around the same mic—and don’t mix in other audio sources. Others record music, sound effects, or remote voices coming in over Skype, Messages, or even an old-fashioned phone.

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What Recording Apps Have in Common The main recording apps I cover—GarageBand for Mac, GarageBand for iOS/iPadOS, Audacity for Mac, and Ferrite for iOS/iPadOS—have certain features in common. Each displays your audio as a linear waveform moving forward in time from left to right, each enables you to select and delete any part of that waveform, and each can cut or copy any piece of audio and paste it elsewhere in the recording. GarageBand also provides non-destructive modification of the sound, in which the original audio file remains untouched. You can add reverb, echo, or other audio effects, and modify the volume without changing the underlying recording at all. GarageBand also provides some non-destructive editing, enabling users to remove sound and adjust the beginnings and ends of regions without losing any content from original recording. Conversely, those same actions in Audacity are destructive, changing the original audio file. Always save a backup copy so you can restore the original if needed.

Choose Your Audio Software For recording and/or editing audio, I recommend one or more of the following apps.

Mac Applications and Tools On the Mac, there are a number of excellent options: • GarageBand: Apple’s GarageBand (free) is an excellent tool for playing around with music and recording audio. It’s not the best audio editor I’ve used, but it’s an excellent starter tool and many podcasters continue to use it. Tip: If you want to try GarageBand 10, be sure to not only download it from the Mac App Store but also launch it well before you start your first session. On first launch GarageBand downloads additional resources that can take a while (even hours) to download.

• Audacity: Audacity (free) is a powerful sound editor and mixer that can manage the entire podcasting process end to end. It pro40

vides multi-track editing, allowing you to mix your podcasts. It also has an excellent (if awkward) noise removal feature. However, it is a cross-platform tool and looks it, with a complex and inelegant interface that eschews many Macintosh conventions. If you don’t care about aesthetics and want lots of power right in front of you then Audacity is hard to beat for the price—and, since it’s crossplatform, you can share projects if you’re collaborating with others on Windows or Linux. • Audio Hijack: Rogue Amoeba’s $59 Audio Hijack specializes in mixing audio from multiple apps and audio sources. Audio Hijack can capture sound from a playing DVD, music streaming from an internet radio station, explosions in a video game, or audio from your microphone—or all four at once. The “hijack” in the app’s name refers to its capability to grab audio in digital form from multiple applications and audio sources at the same time and save it to disk. Audio Hijack can also add effects in real time, and encode directly to several audio formats. Plus, it can record Skype, Zoom, FaceTime, Google Meet, and any other tool for having an online conversation (making it a lot more versatile than Call Recorder, below in this list). • Loopback: Rogue Amoeba’s $99 Loopback is, in some ways, similar to Audio Hijack in that you can take audio from one source and pass it to another. But where Audio Hijack is focused on recording, Loopback is focused on creating virtual audio devices. For example, you can route audio from Music and Spotify, multiple web browsers, and a USB mic into a single virtual device named, say, “Apps for Zoom Call.” Then you can Apps for Zoom Call as an audio input in Zoom so a remote guest can hear everything from those applications as well as your regular microphone. Another use might be to connect multiple USB mics to your computer so that you can interview one or more people locally and let each person have their own mic (something that otherwise requires an external mixer or audio interface).

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• Call Recorder: Ecamm’s Call Recorder ($40, free seven-day trial version) does one thing: records the audio (and video!) of Skype calls on your computer. It works quite well but it requires you to use Skype and does not work with other apps. The following are not covered in this book but are worth considering (I use Sound Studio quite often): • Fission: Rogue Amoeba’s Fission ($29) is a reasonably priced, elegant, simple audio editor that can open, edit, and export a wide variety of audio formats. Its greatest feature is editing MP3 and AAC files without degrading them, a feature not found in most other editors. However, it cannot mix multiple tracks, nor can it edit the left and right channels of a single track independently. Of all the sound tools mentioned, it is the only one that can create chapters for enhanced podcasts (see Adding Chapters). • Sound Studio: Felt Tip’s Sound Studio ($50) is a sound editor that can do almost as much as Audacity but with a much nicer interface. It is my personal choice for editing sounds and doing some cleanup on them. It also provides excellent recording capabilities but lacks the capability of mixing multiple tracks together. • Amadeus Pro: Amadeus Pro ($60) is more expensive but is a fantastic sound editor. It can do everything that Audacity and Sound Studio can do. It is a multi-track editor so you can use it for mixing podcasts. Like Audacity, it also has an excellent feature where it can sample room noise in a recording and remove it very effectively. Watch for Big Waves with macOS 11 Big Sur! As I write this in mid-2020, macOS 11 Big Sur is in public beta testing, and its final release is only about one to two months away. As with every major update to macOS, it may take some time for apps to catch up. For example, Rogue Amoeba has indicated Audio Hijack is not yet compatible, though they’re working on it. Expect many audio apps to be a similar situation. If you have a suite of tools selected that you like, make sure you review their compatibility with Big Sur before taking the plunge and upgrading. 42

iOS/iPadOS Apps All apps I cover work on both iPad and iPhone. The only real differences between them are how they handle displaying their interfaces on the different sized screens. I cover the following: • GarageBand: GarageBand for iOS/iPadOS (free) is an excellent version of its Mac big brother. Technically you could do most of the podcast recording and mixing process with it, but I prefer to use the iOS version for recording on the road, then edit projects in GarageBand on my Mac at home as I find the Mac version easier to use. • Ferrite Recording Studio: Ferrite Recording Studio from Wooji Juice (free, $29 in-app purchase to unlock pro features) strives to be an end-to-end podcasting solution for iOS and iPadOS. It has a fantastic multi-track editor (using an Apple Pencil on an iPad is very nice), the capability to record up to 13 tracks at once (pro version, requires appropriate hardware), and much more. • Voice Record Pro: Voice Record Pro, from Dayana Networks, Ltd., is a free and powerful tool for using your iPhone or iPad as a digital audio recorder and my personal choice for on-the-road recording. It supports multiple quality settings and an impressive number of ways to transfer and share your recordings. It has a $7 in-app purchase option to remove ads, but can otherwise be used free.

Additional Post-Processing Tools for the Mac In some situations, your recordings may need a little help that goes beyond what the tools recommended above can offer: • Izotope RX Elements ($129). Izotope RX Elements does an amazing job of analyzing sound and removing noise and other problems from the clip. I highly recommend it if you have clips you need to fix up. I provide some before and after examples in Sound Samples. • SoundSoap: From Antares Audio Technologies, SoundSoap is a $99 tool that does one job but does it very well: remove noise from recordings. SoundSoap analyzes your audio to find what you con43

sider noise and removes that sound, leaving everything else (mostly) untouched. The price is a bit steep, and I eliminated my noise problems using a better mic. However, if you have other needs for noise reduction—like cleaning up archival audio from LPs or old tapes—SoundSoap can be very useful. • The Levelator: The free tool Levelator from Singular Software evens out differing volumes of audio. If you’ve recorded an interview and ended up with speakers at different volume levels, The Levelator can be an invaluable tool for evening out the entire recording—and the price can’t be beat.

Software for Recording Remote Interviews To conduct any interviews with somebody not in the room with you, you need to use software to speak online. Your choices may be limited by whatever the other person or people have available (or is willing to install): • Zoom: In this particular moment in history (mid-2020), I doubt there is anyone who hasn’t heard of Zoom (free, with a paid subscription option). It was already one of the most common tools for video conferencing but with so many people working from home and unable to travel to visit family and friends, it has become ubiquitous. Zoom allows you to have video conversations with multiple people at once. I have been on Zoom calls at work where our CEO answered questions town hall style where there were nearly 400 people on the call. Paid accounts come with the capability to record the audio and video of your call making it handy for recording podcast interviews, among other things. • FaceTime Audio: Apple’s FaceTime is normally used for video chats but does support an audio-only mode (of course, you can also use the video mode and just record the audio). You are limited in conversing only with people who also have a Mac or an iOS device, and both parties must also have a camera even for audio-only conversations (seriously). Audio Hijack can record FaceTime Audio conversations directly (see Record with Audio Hijack).

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• Skype: Microsoft’s Skype for macOS provides surprisingly good audio quality for conducting interviews over the internet. Skype is free for Skype-to-Skype calls, with a per-minute rate for outbound phone calls and a flat monthly rate for unlimited incoming phone calls. Skype can connect to the phone network, enabling you to interview (and record!) people who aren’t running Skype. Audio Hijack and Ecamm Call Recorder can both record Skype calls (see Record with Audio Hijack and Record Skype with Call Recorder, later). The tools listed above are the most widely used. Audio Hijack can record any online conversation from any application (including your web browser) so you can also use it to capture audio from Google Meet, Slack, Microsoft Teams, GoTo Meeting, and so forth.

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Other Tools to Consider There are a number of services offering macOS, iOS, and/or iPadOS apps that can make the process of editing and mixing quite simple. The most interesting ones are: ✦

✦

✦

Anchor.fm: Anchor.fm is a macOS, iPhone, and iPad app with a companion website. You can use any of the apps to record, add additional audio via drag and drop, then mix, edit, host, distribute, and monetize. Anchor.fm is free but requires that you either let it run ads in your show or request listener support; in either case, Anchor.fm splits the revenue with you. Descript: Descript does much of what Anchor.fm does including recording, mixing, and editing (but not hosting, ads, or RSS feeds). It adds a number of interesting features. All audio (whether made in the macOS app or dragged in from a file) is quickly transcribed using cloud-based speech-to-text services. You can then edit your recordings simply by editing the text transcript. Selecting and deleting text removes those words from your recording. Where Descript gets really interesting is the overdub feature: speakers can train Descript with a ten-minute recording of their own voice; once that’s complete, users can type new text into a transcript and Descript adds that content in the speaker’s voice. It’s not perfect, and for full sentences can sound obviously artificial. But for a few words here or there, it is pretty amazing. Alas, these features come at a price. A basic account (without the overdub feature) costs $12 per month per user (billed annually, $15 per month billed monthly). The next level account includes overdub at double those rates. Talkshoe: Talkshoe specializes in live podcasting with (or without) audience participation. Using YouTube live streaming and dial-in numbers for your audience, you can do a live show, bring in other callers, and go global in real time. Talkshoe also provides unlimited free storage and handles the RSS feeds for you as well. The service is free.

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Podcaster Profile: Louis Trapani Podcasts Produced: Doctor Who: Podshock (the longest running Doctor Who related podcast), The Sonic Newsdriver, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to British Sci-Fi. Tools Used: Louis records most episodes across the internet with hosts in different locations (United States and UK). For most shows, hosts use Skype. If hosts have a live audience, they will use Talkshoe instead. In either case, Louis records the audio on an external digital recorder going through his audio mixer. The other host also records their end as a backup in case the original recording isn’t great. If Louis needs to add audio clips live, he inserts them live using Soundboard (no longer being maintained) or adds them later during editing. For editing and post-processing, Louis uses Audacity then creates the final product in GarageBand 6. Finally, Louis uses Feeder to create the RSS feed. Hardware Used: AKG Perception microphone (No longer available) with shock mount, an Alesis MultiMix8 USB mixer, and a Zoom H2 digital recorder Sometimes Louis uses the Zoom H4 on the road if he needs its XLR inputs.

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Record Your Podcast Ultimately, recording a podcast is about capturing audio. You may record your voice, include a song, interview somebody over Zoom or Skype, or play sound effects. No matter the source of the sound, it has to be captured and recorded by software on your computer. In this chapter, I start with good microphone techniques and using audio plug-ins and effects, then walk you through several apps I recommend for audio capture: GarageBand for Mac and iOS, Audacity for Mac, Ferrite Recording Studio for iOS/iPadOS, Voice Record Pro for iOS/iPadOS, Audio Hijack for Mac, and Ecamm Call Recorder for Skype on the Mac.

Use Good Microphone Techniques

Before recording, let’s talk about a little physical reality: setting up and speaking into a microphone. There’s an art to using a mic, but these quick tips cover most of what you need to know: • Keep the mic away from your mouth: Position the mic a few inches away and somewhat above or below your mouth so you do not breathe directly into it. This helps prevent plosives and sibilants (see Learn Podcasting Terminology). • Angle the mic: If possible, point the microphone down toward your mouth from above to reduce plosives, nasal tones, and lipsmacking sounds. • Set the appropriate input levels: Almost all recording apps offer input level monitoring directly in their interface so you can raise or lower the input signal to avoid clipping (see Learn Podcasting Terminology). Test your levels by starting a recording, then speaking normally. You want to fill most your app’s input indicator, but never all of it. Indicators in many apps will turn red if you’re too loud. 48

Interview People Successfully

Many podcasts include interviews. Regardless of your topic, you can almost always find people who can add value to your show by sharing their unique perspectives with your listeners. Good interviewing is an art. Consider the following tips: • Research: There is nothing more painful than an interview where the host isn’t familiar with the guest or even with the subject matter. Take the time to research your guest and the topic that you will be discussing in as much detail as possible. • Prepare: Carefully think about what you want to ask your guest, and write down questions beforehand. Check off the questions as you go through the interview. • Ask your guest for topics: Before you begin an interview, ask if there are specific points or topics your guest wants to cover. Add these to your list of questions if they aren’t represented already. Also ask if your guest would prefer to avoid any subjects. If so, respect his or her wishes. • Consider getting a release: You may want your guest sign a release so you are covered legally if something goes wrong down the road. This usually applies only to interviewing famous or controversial people, and you should consult a lawyer if you feel there’s any risk of a guest alleging libel, invasion of privacy, or even copyright infringement. Some podcasters obtain a simple, verbal form of release where they say something like, “I am now recording, but we have not yet started. When I say ‘we are live’ we will begin the interview. Is this okay?” and wait for their guest to say “yes.” Remember, a guest may not be famous (or infamous!) when you conduct your interview, but that could all change tomorrow. • Let your guest know if you plan to edit: If you plan to edit your interview (and, generally, you will, for reasons I describe in this book), let your guest know before you begin. Tell your guest not to worry about stumbles or messed-up answers: it’s fine to just stop 49

and start over because you will edit out the mistakes later. This will put your guest greatly at ease. • Remember who the interview is about: I’ve listened to many interviews in which the interviewer doesn’t let a guest get a word in edgewise. Keep your questions generally short and let your guest do all the talking. This is not to say you can’t ask a long question or go off on a tangent, just don’t do it so much that your guest gets annoyed. The interview’s focus should be on the guest, not you. • Listen and take notes: As your guest speaks, listen carefully and take notes. You’ll often find your guest addresses topics you were planning to go into, or that he or she says something that sparks a new question you want to ask. Stay on top of things and remain engaged fully with the interview. • Ask the dumb questions: This technique works well for complex and technical subjects. By asking questions that a neophyte might ask, you avoid having the conversation veer into jargon and then move to the downright esoteric. By setting a tone of asking simpler questions, you subtly encourage your guest to respond in kind, keeping the material accessible to your audience. • Use silence to pull more out of your guest: Sometimes guests answer in short, declarative sentences, which makes for a boring interview. If your guest gives a short answer and you think there’s more to be said, stay quiet for a moment. The uncomfortable silence and the sense that you’re waiting will often inspire your subject to say more. The tactic doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a shot. • End the interview gracefully: When you are done, thank your guest and remind listeners how they can learn more about your guest, along with his or her book, podcast, website, movie, or other projects. You could also ask your guest to tell listeners where they can find out more. • Edit your interview: In most cases, interviews should be edited. Raw interviews contain long pauses while a subject stops to think, awkward sections where a speaker stumbles and starts over, and 50

interruptions like a car alarm or a dog barking. In addition, you want to make your guest sound good: removing “ahs,” “ums,” and “you knows” can make your interview subject sound polished. If your guest sounds good, he or she will want to promote the interview—and that can only help you. Also, you can often trim your own comments, leaving less of you and more of your subject. Making your subject sound good can only help you.

Record with GarageBand

GarageBand used to have podcast-specific tools that, sadly, vanished in GarageBand 10. Nevertheless, GarageBand for macOS is still a powerful app that can handle the entire end-to-end podcast production process. Each part of your podcast can be set up as a separate track, giving you fine-grained control over editing, production, and transitions. GarageBand can record up to eight audio tracks at a time—if your interface supports it—but only from a single input source. That means GarageBand won’t record from your microphone while, say, simultaneously capturing output from iTunes. To do that, you are better off using Audio Hijack. (See Record with Audio Hijack, later in this chapter.)

Start a New Episode It’s simple to start a podcast episode in GarageBand, since you just choose a few options, and GarageBand does most of the heavy lifting: 1. In GarageBand, the Project Chooser appears by default unless you had previously been working on another GarageBand project. If you do not see the Project Chooser, choose File > New to open it. 2. Select Project Templates on the left, select the Voice icon on the right, then click the Choose button (Figure 5).

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Figure 5: In GarageBand’s Project Chooser, click Voice, then click the Choose button.

3. GarageBand opens a new project window that contains a number of different tracks, each with a different voice effect applied to it (Figure 6). You can delete any track you don’t need by Controlclicking the track’s name and choosing Delete Track.

Figure 6: A new, empty Voice project in GarageBand looks like this.

4. One simple change will be helpful: GarageBand’s main timeline, located just right of center on the toolbar, counts in bars by default. 52

That’s great for recording music but podcasts are nearly always measured by time. Change this by clicking the downward facing caret on the far right and choosing Time (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Change the display to count by time.

5. If you are working from a script or prepared notes, you can use GarageBand’s Note Pad to display your notes (Figure 8). Choose View > Show Note Pad or click the Note Pad button on the toolbar.

Figure 8: My GarageBand window with my script in the Note Pad on the right.

6. Feel free to modify audio settings and effects on each track to meet your needs (for some advice, see Use GarageBand Track Presets and Use GarageBand Smart Controls). Now you are all set to begin recording your show! 53

Tip: Once you have created your first show, you can duplicate that file in the Finder and use the new copy for your next episode. This saves you from performing all your track setup again, and will leave your intro/outro, sound effects, music, and other audio intact so you just need to remove the old episodic content and record new content.

Record the Show To record a segment in GarageBand, follow these steps: 1. Before you hit record, begin talking into your mic as if you were recording. Watch the sound meter on the track’s control panel on the left. If you see the bars moving past yellow into orange and red (Figure 9), you are too loud and causing clipping (see Learn Podcasting Terminology). Use the control in the level meter to reduce your gain by moving the control to the left.

Figure 9: My Microphone is too loud (note the orange at the right end of the level indicator) and the resulting track will sound terrible.

2. Once the sound levels look good (the bar is staying green and not going into the yellow or the red), click the Record button (or just press R) and start talking. 3. When you’ve finished, click Play (or press Space). If you click Record again (or press R), you will stop recording but the playhead will continue to move forward. If you don’t like what you’ve recorded, you can select the audio in your voice track, press Delete, and start over.

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Otherwise, once you complete all your vocal tracks, you are ready to Edit with GarageBand. Or, if you want to edit your track in a different app: 1. Choose Share > Export Song to Disk 2. Name the file and choose a save location 3. Select AIFF format, then choose either 16- or 24-bit format. (For most podcasts the 16-bit format should be fine, but if you plan to play music or add effects, you may benefit from the larger, higher quality 24-bit files.) 4. Click Export. GarageBand can handle all podcast production, but once you have your AIFF file exported, you can also Edit with Audacity or with almost any other audio app (including Sound Studio, Amadeus Pro, and Fission).

Record with Audacity

Audacity is very powerful but can suffer a bit from being a crossplatform tool—the interface is not clean and friendly like many Mac apps. Fortunately, the basics needed for podcasting are easy and accessible. When you first launch Audacity, you will have an empty project window (Figure 10).

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Figure 10: A new, empty Audacity window has a lot of blank space.

To record from your microphone, follow these steps: 1. Choose your audio input. As you widen and shrink Audacity’s windows, the tools shift position. In my example above, my audio input is in the left center of the bottom row of tools. What you see may differ. Look for the microphone icon next to a menu of choices. For example, in Figure 11, I have chosen my iMic (which connects my Sennheiser e835 to the Mac).

Figure 11: Choose the audio input.

2. Enable Audacity’s audio input monitor so you can test your input levels. This is a large area with two rows of numbers and “Click to Start Monitoring” in the middle of it. By default, it is the right-most option in the top row of tools (Figure 12).

Figure 12: Click to enable Audacity’s audio input monitor.

Click anywhere in the box to begin monitoring. 56

3. Speak into your microphone and adjust your input level, if necessary (Figure 13). You’ll want the monitor to go no further than -12 or so.

Figure 13: Audacity’s audio input monitor showing live audio.

4. Click the Record 5. Click the Stop

button and record your voice. button when you are finished.

When you are done recording, you can save your audio file for use in another app, or you can Edit with Audacity.

Record with GarageBand for iOS/ iPadOS GarageBand for iOS and iPadOS is an excellent app and great for recording if you don’t have access to your Mac. However, I find the interface just picky enough that I do all my editing and mixing on the Mac and use GarageBand for iOS only for recording on the road. (And playing with virtual instruments, which is always fun!) In this topic, we’ll look at how to make a recording (next) and how to Move Your GarageBand Recording to a Mac.

Make a Recording Here are the steps to record with GarageBand 2.3.8 for iOS/iPadOS 13 and up: 1. When you launch GarageBand, it should list all your saved files (called “Songs,” Figure 14). From there, tap the plus icon in the upper-right corner and select Create New Song.

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Figure 14: My saved songs. Create a new one with the + in the upper-right corner. Note: The images shown are from GarageBand for iOS version but the process is the same for the iPadOS version.

2. Choose an instrument for your first track. Just like on the Mac, you want the Audio Recorder. And specifically, you want the Voice icon in the lower-left corner of the tile (Figure 15).

Figure 15: My Pick Instrument screen, showing the correct choice for voice recordings (namely, the Voice icon in the lower-left corner).

GarageBand opens the recording screen, which contains input and output meters on the far left and right respectively, recording and playback controls along the top, and (in the center) some settings for modifying your voice (Figure 16). 58

Figure 16: The recording screen.

3. Before you begin recording, you should change a few default settings. Tap the gear icon, then tap Metronome and Count-in (Figure 17).

Figure 17: GarageBand for iOS song settings.

4. Turn off Count-In (you can leave Visual Count-in on; I find it useful). Then on the iPhone tap Done; on the iPad, tap Back. 5. The default voice profile is “Lead Vocals” and is designed for singing. You should switch this to the “Radio Ready” settings. To button and a panel slides out on do this, first tap the Settings the left side of the screen (see Figure 18).

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Figure 18: The settings panel lets you change the track preset. In this case, click “Lead Vocals” in blue at the top of the panel.

6. Tap at the very top where it says in blue “Lead Vocals” and a popover appears with some choices. Tap “Radio Ready” and you will be returned to the settings panel. Tap the Settings button again to close the panel. 7. Back on the recording screen, tap the (very tiny) plus + icon just under the gear icon on the right side to access the Song Sections settings (Figure 19).

Figure 19: Tap the plus sign (red arrow) to access the Song Sections screen.

8. Tap the first (and only) section listed (Section A) and change its length to Automatic (Figure 20). Now, the section will adjust its length to however long you record. 60

If you do not change this setting, GarageBand will record for only

a few seconds (really a few bars), which can really ruin your day.

Figure 20: Set the length to Automatic.

9. Tap Song Sections in the upper-left corner, then tap Done in the upper-right corner (or, on iPadOS, tap Back in the upper-left corner) to return to the recording screen. You are ready to record! 10. Tap the red record button and record your audio. Play with the fun voice modulators if you like. 11. When you are done recording, tap the Play button to stop both button on the bar recording and playback, then tap the tracks at the top to see GarageBand’s track view.

Move Your GarageBand Recording to a Mac There are a number of ways to move your project to a Mac. The simplest is if you have iCloud drive set up and both devices are signed into the same iCloud account. You can go to the iCloud drive folder in the Finder, and locate the “GarageBand for iOS” folder and all of your projects will be right there. If not, then you need to share the file to your Mac as follows: 1. Tap the downward facing triangle in the upper-left corner, then select My Songs to return to GarageBand’s saved songs screen (Figure 14, earlier). 61

2. Touch and hold the icon of the project you want to copy to the Mac. A menu appears (see Figure 21).

Figure 21: The menu for a project. Scroll down to find the Share command.

3. Scroll down the menu to find the Share command, then tap it. GarageBand presents options for sharing a song (a mixed down single audio file), a Ringtone, or a Project (Figure 22).

Figure 22: The GarageBand sharing screen (scrolled slightly up to show the bottom row) has options for transferring a recording. 62

4. Tap Project. A standard share sheet appears. Select AirDrop to copy the file to your computer (in my case, I have a shortcut already present to send the file to my MacBook Pro, named Cyberiad 14) (Figure 23). I use AirDrop here because it’s the simplest method, but you could also use iCloud Drive or email to transfer the file.

Figure 23: GarageBand asks how you want to send the song to a Mac.

AirDrop copies into your Mac’s Downloads folder. Now, you can open and work on the file in GarageBand on your Mac.

Record with Ferrite Recording Studio for iOS/iPadOS Ferrite Recording Studio is designed to be an end-to-end podcasting studio. In its free version, you can manage recordings up to 1 hour in length (which should be fine for most basic needs) and a limited number of tracks. And, of course, large parts of the screen given over to promoting the pro version (an in-app purchase of $29). Ferrite’s recording process is the same for iOS and iPadOS.

Record in Ferrite Recording Studio Recording with Ferrite Recording Studio for iPhone is the same as with the iPad: 63

1. Ferrite opens into its Library. Here is where recordings are stored and organized (see Figure 24).

Figure 24: Ferrite’s Library (empty at first launch).

2. You can use the semi-circular level indicator around the microphone (which is also the record button) to verify that your levels are set properly. If not, use the circle to the right of your input device’s name to adjust your gain. 3. When your levels are set, you can tap the Microphone to begin recording. The microphone button turns into a stop button (see Figure 25).

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Figure 25: When recording, the semi-circular level meter shows if you are too loud (clearly, I am here, as the outermost orange band indicates).

4. When you are finished recording, tap the stop button (the square in the circle in the center—insert Hollywood Squares joke about Paul Lynde here). Ferrite takes you back to its Library where you see your new recording listed (see Figure 26).

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Figure 26: Back in the library, your new recording appears at the bottom.

Move Your Ferrite Recording to a Mac There are a number of ways to move your recording to a Mac. The simplest is if you have iCloud drive set up and both devices are signed into the same iCloud account: 1. Tap the Share

icon.

2. This brings up a share sheet where you can use AirDrop in a manner similar to that described in the Move Your Recording to a Mac section under Record with GarageBand. In this case, scroll up until you see “Save to Files” (see Figure 27).

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Figure 27: You can share via AirDrop or by using Save to Files (among others).

3. Ferrite asks where you want to save the file. As long as you save it to iCloud Drive and not directly onto your iPhone or iPad, you will be fine. You can also use other cloud storage locations, such as Dropbox, in the Files app, if you prefer them to iCloud Drive. 4. After a few moments the recording should appear in iCloud Drive on your Mac. 67

You can now edit the file in the app of your choice on your Mac.

Record with Voice Record Pro for iOS/ iPadOS Voice Record Pro is designed for easy audio recording and does a good job. I find myself using Voice Record Pro over GarageBand for voice recording in the field because the process is faster. Let’s look at how to record (next) and how to Transfer Your Recording to a Mac.

Record in Voice Record Pro Recording with Voice Record Pro for iPad is the same as with the iPhone: 1. Start Voice Record Pro. The app displays a list of any previous recordings that you have not yet deleted, as in Figure 28.

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Figure 28: Voice Record Pro’s main screen.

2. Tap the red REC button (RECORD on iPad) to choose your recording settings. (Note: Voice Record Pro has an option to immediately begin recording. You might want to turn that on once you feel you’ve set up the app correctly for your needs). 3. Select the settings you prefer (Figure 29). I recommend using the highest quality settings you can get away with on your device. Depending on the storage of your iPhone or iPad, you may not have room for many recordings, so a lower quality setting would enable you to record more material. If you have plenty of free space, use the High encoding quality setting, or go into the Advanced tab and 69

set an even higher encoding rate. Whatever you do, don’t use Low for podcasting. It sounds awful.

Figure 29: Choose your settings before you begin recording.

Listen to the samples below to get an idea of what the different settings sound like on an iPhone 11 Pro Max: ‣ Sample of Maximum possible quality (go into Advanced and set every option to the highest possible setting) ‣ Sample of the High setting ‣ Sample of the Medium setting 70

‣ Sample of the Low setting (ick) 4. When you’ve chosen your settings, either tap Start in the upperright corner or tap REC or RECORD again. Voice Record Pro begins recording and displays level meter (Figure 30).

Figure 30: The recording screen.

5. As with other recording tools, watch the input level meter and make sure you do not go into the red area on the right: that would mean the recording is clipping and will sound awful. 71

6. When you are finished, tap the Stop button. Voice Record Pro displays a list of options for handling your recorded audio (Figure 31).

Figure 31: The first of almost three full screens of choices for saving and sharing recordings in Voice Record Pro.

After you have listened to your recording and decided you want to keep it, you can Transfer Your Recording to a Mac using one of the many options that are now displayed.

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Transfer Your Recording to a Mac There are many ways to move your recorded audio file to your Mac. If your iOS or iPadOS device and your computer are both signed in to the same iCloud account, the easiest and fastest is Voice Record Pro’s “Save to iCloud” feature: 1. Tap Save to iCloud (in the list of options, it is in the top screen) to reveal a Save button like the one in Figure 32.

Figure 32: Voice Record Pro’s Save to iCloud choice has been tapped, revealing a Save button.

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2. Tap Save and give your file a title to begin the transfer. When the process completes, recordings appear in the macOS Finder in the Voice Record Pro folder in iCloud Drive (see Figure 33).

Figure 33: Now I can view Voice Record Pro’s saved files on my Mac. These are not the original file names from Voice Record Pro. I changed them for my own nefarious purposes.

3. Copy or move the files to where you need them and you are all set. Your web browser downloads the recording to its download folder.

Record with Audio Hijack

Audio Hijack enables you to manipulate and record one or more streams of audio on your Mac. At its simplest, it can record the standard audio input stream (like a mic) to a file. But it has more sophisticated capabilities: it can take audio from multiple sources (like your mic, Apple’s Music App, and your web browser), mix those audio 74

sources together, process the sound with interesting (or scary) audio effects, then encode the results directly to an MP3 file (see Encode Your Podcast). With Audio Hijack, I can record interviews using Zoom, play music, create voice-overs, and much more. The application has never crashed on me, and switching applications while recording hasn’t caused dropouts or other weird problems.

Install Tools at First Run The first time you run Audio Hijack, the app recommends installing an extra background process that allows you to schedule recordings. You can install it now or you can cancel and install it later as needed.

Set Up Audio Hijack To set up Audio Hijack for a podcast, launch the app, then carry out these steps: 1. Click the New Session button on the bottom-left corner of the Audio Hijack window to start a new session. 2. The Template Chooser window opens. For a basic podcast, just you and a mic, choose “Input Device” (see Figure 34).

Figure 34: The default settings for the Input Device preset. 75

3. If you would like to record into a different file format than MP3, click the Recorder block and choose your audio format (see Figure 35). If you are in doubt, stick with Uncompressed AIFF. (See Encode Your Podcast for a discussion of encoding formats.)

Figure 35: Set up your recording options in Audio Hijack.

4. In the same popover, you can enter your podcast title and other details in the Tags section. (For help, see Learn About Tags.) 76

5. If you are in a place that is not quiet (maybe an air system is on making a steady hum in the room), you can add a Denoise block to tone down that sound. Scroll the right panel of blocks down to Advanced and look in there for the Denoise block. Drag Denoise between the Input Device and Recorder blocks so that it can process the sound from Input Device before it is recorded (see Figure 36).

Figure 36: A Denoise block has been dragged between Input Device and Recorder, indicating it will alter the audio before it is recorded.

You need to turn recording on, then click the Learn Noise button in the Denoise block. After a few seconds, the Denoise block learns the noise in your environment and is ready to go. Stop the recording. 6. When you are ready to begin, start the recording again and podcast away! (see Figure 37).

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Figure 37: Recording a podcast.

7. When you are done, stop the recording and click the Recordings button in the lower-right corner to see your saved recordings files (see Figure 38).

Figure 38: Your saved Audio Hijack recordings. Well, in this case they are my saved recordings.

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8. If you need to work with a file, you can right click it and choose “Show in Finder” to locate the actual file, then bring it into your editor of choice.

Record Online Interviews

There are many ways to record interviews with a remote party. Back in Mac Applications and Tools, I described the capable Audio Hijack and the simpler Ecamm Call Recorder for Skype. Here’s a quick recap: • Call Recorder: This app from Ecamm is great for recording Skype calls because it integrates directly into Skype as if it were a built-in feature. If you need to record audio only from Skype and prefer a simple, clear interface, Call Recorder is probably your best bet. • Audio Hijack: Developed by Rogue Amoeba, this app can record audio from Messages or Skype. In fact, it can capture audio from just about any app or audio source on a Mac, making it far more versatile than Call Recorder. If you want to record from other apps besides Skype and don’t mind getting your hands a little dirty with a cool app, Audio Hijack is where you want to go. I use Audio Hijack for many tasks, including recording interviews. • Loopback: Also from Rogue Amoeba, this app can collect audio from different sources (applications, USB mics, external audio interfaces, etc.) into virtual audio devices that you can then use as audio inputs in, say, Zoom or Skype. You can also record the combined audio from Loopback’s virtual devices using tools like Audio Hijack and GarageBand. There are two general techniques to recording interviews. The first is to simply record everything on your end and edit as needed. The other way, called a double-ender, requires both parties to record their own side of the conversation locally on their own devices. One person then sends the file to the other, who puts the two recordings together in an app such as GarageBand, Audacity, or another audio editor.

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Record Skype with Call Recorder Ecamm’s Call Recorder makes the process of recording a Skype call quite simple. You can even configure it to always record your calls ensuring you never miss anything. Call Recorder records both audio and video from Skype calls and saves calls in its own file format. For a podcast, you can extract just the audio using tools that come with Call Recorder. To use Call Recorder, follow these steps: 1. Launch Skype and place your call to your remote party. 2. Once the call is established, tell the person that she will be recorded and obtain her consent. For more protection, ask her to repeat her consent after you’ve started recording. (Consent isn’t always required, but—without offering legal advice here—it’s safer to ask in every case than to sort out the details later. For more on this, see Interview People Successfully.) 3. When the call initially connects, the Call Recorder window should appear. Click Record when ready (Figure 39).

Figure 39: Call Recorder is ready to record. In a stunning display of poor UI design, you can barely make out the word Input next to the Input Device’s level meter.

4. Continue the conversation. When you finish your interview and hang up, Call Recorder stops automatically, saves the call to a file, and shows this file in the Finder.

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If the file doesn’t appear (or you close the Finder window), you can find it: Call Recorder stores recordings in your user’s home folder, in ~/Movies/Saved Calls/ (Figure 40).

Figure 40: Call Recorder saves call recordings in the Saved Calls folder (which is nested in your user account’s Movies folder).

Call Recorder can split audio tracks into separate files and convert recordings to various audio formats. You will need to do this to use the file: to open 1. In the Call Record window, click the Movie Tools icon eCamm’s Movie Tools application. You can also double click the file in the Finder. 2. The Movie Tools window opens and shows you all of your saved recordings (see Figure 41, below).

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Figure 41: Movie tools showing my one saved file on the left, and playback controls on the right.

3. In the lower-right corner, you can save your export format (MP3, AAC, etc.). Select the setting you need (when in doubt, AIFF is the highest quality possible) and click the Export button. Once you have exported the audio, you can begin to Edit Your Podcast. Tip: Assuming you don’t need to retain any recorded Skype video, converting a recorded call to another format (like AAC or MP3) and deleting the original QuickTime movie can save a substantial amount of storage space.

Record an Interview with Audio Hijack With Audio Hijack, you can easily record audio conversations in , Skype, FaceTime, Zoom, and other VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) services that let you place computer-based calls, either to other computers or to the real telephone network. Audio Hijack records both sides of the conversation in a single audio file. Which VoIP app you should use comes down to which app you are most familiar with and, of course, what the other person is using. To set up Audio Hijack for an interview over Skype, launch Audio Hijack, then carry out these steps: 1. In the bottom-left corner, click the New Session button to start a new session.

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2. The Template Chooser window opens. What you do next depends on your needs, but for now select the Voice Chat option and click the Choose button to open a Voice Chat session (see Figure 42).

Figure 42: The default Voice Chat settings uses Skype.

In the Voice Chat session (as in all Audio Hijack sessions), audio flows from left to right. Here, it starts at the Skype icon, goes to a simple meter so you can watch the audio levels. From there, the audio is split to two destinations. One copy goes to a Recorder block that saves the entire recording to an MP3 file. The other copy goes to a Channels block, which drops your side of the conversion. (Remember: the Recorder block is getting both sides.) Finally, your output device connects to the Channels block, and you only hear the remote end of the call. 3. Set your audio output to your headphones by clicking on the Output Device block. This lets you hear what you are recording. 4. If you would like to record into a different file format than MP3, click the Recorder block and choose your audio format (Figure 35, earlier). If you are in doubt, stick with Uncompressed AIFF. (See Encode Your Podcast for a discussion of encoding formats.) 5. In the same popover, you can enter your podcast title and other details in the Tags section. (For help, see Learn About Tags.) 83

6. Switch to Skype and call the remote party. 7. Once the call is established, tell the person that he will be recorded and obtain their consent. For more protection, ask them to repeat that consent after you’ve started recording. (Consent isn’t always required, but it’s safer to ask every time than to sort out the details later. For more on this, see Interview People Successfully.) 8. Switch to Audio Hijack, click the Record button in the lower-left corner, and start talking. 9. When you finish the conversation, click the Record button again to stop recording, then close the conversation in your VoIP app. You can find the completed recording in Audio Hijack’s recording bin (the button in the lower-right corner of the session window) named either by the stream name or by the title you set in the Tags pane (if any). This file can be mixed with the rest of your audio in GarageBand, Audacity, or another app.

Split Both Sides of an Interview into Separate Files Audio Hijack can split your audio conversations into different files, placing your voice in one and your interviewee in the other. This recording technique lets you edit each side of the interview separately. Perhaps while your guest was speaking, your dog began barking. That sound would be recorded only on your side of the conversation, so you can delete the sound of your dog from your side without affecting your subject’s voice. Setting up the split in Audio Hijack is simple: 1. Create a new session starting with Input Device. A session window with Input Device and Recorder blocks appears (see Figure 34, earlier). 2. From the collection of blocks on the right, drag out VU Meters and place it between Input Device and Recorder. Then drag out Application, VU Meters, Output Device, and another Recorder block in a second line below the first set of blocks. Do not let any of the bottom

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blocks connect to any blocks above them. Your session should look like the one in Figure 43.

Figure 43: This is my setup for recording Zoom calls into two files, one for my voice and one for theirs.

3. Initiate your call and begin recording. Stop recording when you are done. Let’s break down what is happening in this session. We have two inputs happening at the same time. One is your microphone, which runs through VU Meters, then out to a recorder. The other takes the audio from Zoom (and there is a setting when you click that block to explicitly not include your audio), runs it through the VU Meters, then your headphones and the Recorder.

Share Your Audio with a Remote Guest with Loopback When you are recording a conversation with a remote guest, you may want to play audio (like snippets of music, quotes, or perhaps even bits from previous episodes of your podcast) as part of your interview. Normally, your guest cannot hear that audio because what’s playing in your web browser (or Music, your podcast app, or whatever) isn’t carried over your microphone input. (And if your mic happens to pick 85

it up, it probably sounds terrible!) This is where Loopback comes in. Say we are creating a podcast about new music. You have some remote guests on Skype and you want to be able to play short clips of music for everyone to discuss. You have some music in the Music application, some in Spotify, and some in YouTube Music, which you access via Safari. You want your guests to hear the clips to spur discussion. Here is how you could set this up in Loopback: 1. When you first launch Loopback it prompts you to install some additional software. This provides the system-level tools to control the routing of your Mac’s sounds. Proceed with the installation. Loopback launches with new window showing a single audio device (named Loopback Audio) that simply represents audio flowing into and back out of Loopback. You do not need to worry about this device for this setup (see Figure 44).

Figure 44: Loopback’s default setup. You can ignore the Pass-Thru virtual device. You can also ignore the third column labelled Monitors by clicking Hide Monitors.

2. Click New Virtual Device via the Plus icon in the lower-left corner of the LoopBack window. This adds a new device to the leftmost column, below Loopback Audio. 3. Name this virtual device (I named mine “Zoom In” as it will be an input for Zoom) and use the plus icon at the top of the Sources 86

column to add inputs to your new device. In my case, I am adding Music, Spotify, Safari, and my MacBook Pro Microphone (see Figure 45).

Figure 45: Use the Sources pop-up menu to add audio input devices.

4. As you add sources, click Options on each of your sound sources and uncheck Mute when Capturing. If you leave this setting enabled, you won’t be able to hear audio from that particular source (see Figure 46).

Figure 46: Turn off Mute when capturing so that you can hear the various audio sources.

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5. Finish adding your inputs. When you are done, your LoopBack window should look something like Figure 47.

Figure 47: All of my audio sources—three apps and my mic—are routing to a single stereo output.

6. Launch (or switch to) Zoom and choose zoom.us > Preferences. In the Audio section, set your Microphone to this virtual audio device you have created, in my case named Zoom In (see Figure 48).

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Figure 48: Zoom’s Microphone setting (which is Zoom’s way of saying “audio input”) is now set to the Zoom In virtual device created in LoopBack. Zoom’s Speaker setting (Zoom’s way of saying “audio output”) should be your headphones.

At this point, you can record using Audio Hijack as described earlier in Split Both Sides of an Interview into Separate Files.

Record Loopback Virtual Devices Using GarageBand If you do not have Audio Hijack and want to record your conversation in GarageBand using the setup above, you can set up a second virtual audio device. That new device can include all audio sources above as well as your guest by following these steps: 1. Create a new virtual audio device as you did earlier. I named this one “GarageBand In” since I will use it as an audio input to GarageBand.

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2. Add the application you are using for your interview (Skype, Zoom, etc.) as your first source. 3. Add the audio device you created above (“Zoom In” in my case) as the second source. This takes all the audio from your Zoom In device (which was your mic and several apps, remember) and combines it with the output from Zoom. Zoom’s output normally only contains the audio from your guest(s), not your own input. Your LoopBack setup should look like Figure 49.

Figure 49: My GarageBand In setup.

4. In GarageBand, choose GarageBand > Preferences > Audio/MIDI, and select GarageBand In (or whatever you named your LoopBack device) as your input device. The output should be your headphones (see Figure 50).

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Figure 50: GarageBand is set up use the LoopBack device “GarageBand In” so that it captures all audio from you and your apps as well as your remote guest(s).

Now you can start recording your podcast and record all audio sources at once. Note: This approach collapses all inputs (Music, Spotify, Safari, your Mic, your guest, etc.) into a single audio track in GarageBand. That may be fine for your purposes, but it is possible to create moreelaborate LoopBack configurations that break every input out into a separate channel, then have GarageBand record each channel into individual tracks.

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Podcaster Profile: Jason Snell Podcasts Produced: The Incomparable: A long-running weekly panel show about topics in geeky popular culture, with numerous spin-off podcasts. Also a host of Upgrade and Liftoff on the Relay FM network. Tools Used: Skype or Zoom for telephony, Audio Hijack for recording and live streaming, Wirecast Pro and Streamlabs OBS for live streaming, Sound Studio for basic audio file touch-up, iZotope RX for de-noising audio, Logic Pro X (Mac) or Ferrite Recording Studio (iPad) for editing, and Forecast for MP3 encoding out of Logic. Jason hosts his larger podcasts on Libsyn and self-hosts his smaller ones on a Linode cloud server.

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Edit Your Podcast Once you’ve recorded all the pieces of your podcast and moved them to your computer—if they weren’t there to begin with—you may want to edit them, either to sequence pieces together or to remove anything accidental, like stumbles in your (or your guests’) speech and other mistakes. You could decide not to edit, too, but editing is a great way to tighten and polish your podcast episodes with professional effects like fades, ducking, stingers/bumpers, sound effects, and more.

Edit with GarageBand

GarageBand provides great flexibility for mixing and modifying different tracks, including adding filters, equalizers, echo, and reverb. GarageBand mixes and processes effects on the fly as it plays back the audio, without altering the original, underlying audio data. You can also make permanent edits to remove gaps, speech stumbles, and other unwanted content, as well as cut, copy, and paste audio bits into other locations.

Add Audio To include additional audio in a GarageBand project, simply drag in any audio file in MP3, AIFF, WAV, Apple Lossless, or AAC format. You can also drag in music, sound effects, and more from within GarageBand. GarageBand includes a large collection of fun (and cloying) sounds you can use to spice up a podcast. You can drag sound effects or audio files into existing compatible audio tracks, or have GarageBand make a new, unique track for your additional audio as you drag it in. Drag each audio file from the Finder or GarageBand’s Media Browser into the GarageBand timeline. Unless you drop the file into a compatible audio track, GarageBand puts each dragged-in sound in a separate track at the point in the timeline where you dropped it. As you drag in 93

a file, a vertical line appears showing the audio’s start position. You can move the audio left or right as you drag it to get it close to where you want it. In Figure 51, I have an episode of the podcast I did for Swamp Meadow Community Theatre in Foster, Rhode Island.

Figure 51: Example podcast tracks in GarageBand. The numbers in the image correspond to the items in the list below.

The podcast is spread over 5 audio tracks in 12 basic chunks. The tracks are listed vertically, and time is expressed horizontally. The numbers correspond to Figure 51, above: 1. Intro music recorded by some members of the theater community. 2. My introduction, recorded in my home studio in another app and imported into GarageBand. 3. A stinger sound effect of a phone being rapidly dialed to segue into the interview. This sound effect comes with GarageBand. 4. My audio track from the interview I did with Tyler, one of our directors and actors. The different blocks indicate where I cut out something I felt wasn’t needed. I recorded this track using Audio Hijack while on a Zoom call.

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5. Tyler’s half of the interview that he recorded on his local computer during our Zoom call, then sent to me via DropBox. 6. A bumper, music to introduce the news segment. The selection is also from GarageBand’s library, and I placed it later in the same audio track as the stinger sound effect (number 3, above). 7. The news segment (back on the my main audio track), recorded in my home studio. 8. A bumper, more music to close out the news segment. I placed it in the third audio track with the other music, and it’s also from GarageBand’s library. 9. My half of the interview as in number 4, above. 10. Tyler’s half of the interview as in number 5, above. 11. Outro music recorded by the same people from the theater. 12. My closing comments in my main audio track, recorded in my home studio. As you can see, I reused tracks for similar things. The two song snippets are in the top track. All my in-studio recordings are in the second track, and all the stingers/bumpers are in the third audio track. The next two contained the two halves of the interviews recorded by each person on the call, me and Tyler. In addition to the included library of loops and jingles, GarageBand offers an integrated Media Browser that provides access to your iTunes (and iMovie) libraries without leaving GarageBand. Choose View > Show Media Browser (or type the letter F) to open the Media Browser, or click the Media Browser button in the upper-right corner of the window (Figure 52).

Figure 52: Select GarageBand’s Media Browser on the far right.

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Be Careful About Rights to the Music You Play! You might be tempted to use music from your iTunes Library. Don’t do it! If you play songs to which you do not have the rights, you could be sued for a great deal of money. You can get in trouble even if you record an interview somewhere and music is playing in the background! Some podcasters get around this by obtaining licenses that provide them the right to use music in their podcasts. Tracks that the artists have granted anyone the right to use, provided credit is given, are called podsafe. Magnatune, an online music label, offers podcast licenses for commercial podcasts ($89 per month via iLicenseMusic.com) and allows free use of their music for non-commercial podcasts. You do have to become a download member of their site ($299 one-time payment), allowing you to play anything in their catalog for free provided you properly attribute the music and the artist. Free Music Archive provides a large library of music that can be used without paying a fee cross many genres. Other sources of podsafe music include: SoundCloud, Free Music

Archive , Royalty Free Music for sale from Amazon.com, and Free

Music downloads from last.fm.

You can purchase for licenses for music from major labels, but

they can be expensive and require that you contact performance

rights organizations, agencies, and businesses such as these:

✦

BMI

✦

ASCAP

✦

SESAC

✦

Harry Fox Agency, a mechanical rights clearinghouse

✦

Individual record labels (for a master use license)

Music licensing can be very complicated—don’t be surprised if just

getting started costs over $1,000.

Apply Audio Effects to Your Voice Track GarageBand enables you to apply, change, and remove audio effects on your tracks without altering your underlying recorded audio. That 96

means you can play with effects to your heart’s content until you find exactly the right settings for your situation. Access audio effects in GarageBand by selecting the voice track you want to adjust (see Figure 53). Audio regions recorded in GarageBand are shown in blue (like “Andy Voice Track”) while audio regions imported into GarageBand from other sources are orange (like “Preston (edited) Part 1”).

Figure 53: Two audio tracks showing a recording made in GarageBand (top) and one made elsewhere and imported (bottom).

Once you have selected the audio track you want to work with, try out the different track presets to see if you like the results. If not, you can always tweak them: see Use GarageBand Track Presets.

Use GarageBand Track Presets GarageBand provides a nice assortment of track presets. If you’ve upgraded from an earlier version of GarageBand you should also have the older vocal presets from when GarageBand had better podcasting support. Follow these steps to use the presets: button. GarageBand opens the Library panel 1. Click the Library on the left side of the window (Figure 54).

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Figure 54: The Library is now open to the left of my tracks. In this case, the “Andy Voice Track” (selected) is using the “Natural Vocal” preset.

2. Click a track header (like your voice track) to select it. The track header background changes to a lighter shade of grey. 3. In the Library panel, select a track preset you want to try out. For podcasting you are most likely to get usable results in the Voice category but, by all means, try guitar and bass presets and have fun. You never know what you might discover! 4. Move the playhead to somewhere within your recorded voice (and make sure you have the correct track selected), then click play (or tap the spacebar) to hear how the preset alters the sound of your track. 5. Stop playback, and try other presets following the steps in 3 and 4 as needed.

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If you have the Legacy presets installed (you will see a Legacy category at the top level) you should definitely try the presets in Legacy > GarageBand > Vocals. Male and Female Basic are both excellent—they were designed with spoken voice in mind. When you find a preset that makes your voice sound just right, you can Edit Your Voice Track or Mix Tracks. If you find that none of the presets quite do what you want, you can use Smart Controls to fine tune your audio.

Use GarageBand Smart Controls If you want to really tweak your audio, click the Smart Controls button. GarageBand shows a large blue panel at the bottom of its window with many different controls (Figure 55). The Smart Controls shown in Figure 55 are from GarageBand’s “Natural Vocal” track preset: you may see different controls with different track presets in GarageBand’s Library (see Use GarageBand Track Presets). If you change presets, the Smart Controls settings (and even the controls themselves) change to match your newly-selected track type. That’s why GarageBand calls them “smart:” they automatically offer only what’s relevant for a particular preset.

Figure 55: GarageBand’s Smart Controls for a voice track using the “Natural Vocal” track preset.

Let’s look at typical Smart Controls for a voice track: • Compression: A compressor evens out sound, making the quiet parts louder and keeping the loud parts under control. Used well, 99

a compressor has the counterintuitive effect of making your voice sound more expansive and rich. Experiment with it to see how it alters your sound. • EQ: This equalizer works a bit like tone controls in higher-end stereo equipment, letting you change the volume of various frequencies in a track (lows, mids, highs). Note the power switch in the EQ box: it should be on by default, and it must be enabled for any EQ settings to work. One example of how EQ can be used: when I record with my Blue Yeti microphone on the desk with my computer, there is an audible hum in the recording. By turning up the Low Cut control, I eliminate the hum, then I restore some of the richness in my voice with the Mid Freq and Low controls. • Echo: This should be obvious. Have fun! For podcasting (especially a voice) a tiny bit of echo goes a long way. Most podcasters don’t use any. (Note: when you work with audio that you’ve imported, the Echo option may not be available—if you need it, select a different track preset from the Library—see Use GarageBand Track Presets.) • Ambience: This one is a little hard to describe. Suffice it to say that ambience adds some short echo and some depth, emphasizing some frequencies to add resonance to a sound and spreading it across the stereo field. Again, play with it to see what it does. • Reverb: Reverb can make you sound like you are in an echoing room or a cathedral. For podcasting, I suggest just a whiff of reverb to add a slight extra dimension to your voice, but reverb can quickly turn into a cheesy effect. A more-sophisticated visual EQ is available. To access it, switch between Controls and EQ above the blue panel. Instructions for using it are beyond the scope of this book, but do play with it to get a feel for how it works. There are additional controls to the left of the blue Smart Controls (Figure 56). Many of these are only useful when recording, but the additional controls also enable you to add Audio Unit effects to further refine the sound of your tracks.

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Figure 56: Additional controls available for modifying the audio of a voice track.

These controls are: • Record Level (and Automatic Level Control): This lets you manually adjust the input gain of your microphone while recording, or let GarageBand try to manage it for you automatically. If you find that you are too quiet or too loud and clipping, adjust this accordingly. The automatic setting can be useful, but if your speaking volume changes as you talk (or you move in and out from your microphone—both habits you should avoid), this feature may work against you. Ideally, you should set a good level, then be consistent in your volume and distance from your microphone. • Input: Here you can change your input from one device to another (if you have more than one). • Monitoring: If you use headphones while recording, you can turn this on. If your Mac is fast enough, you will hear yourself as you speak and can adjust the other settings as you go. If your computer is struggling (perhaps because of all the software you’re running), there will be a slight lag (see Learn Podcasting Terminology) and it

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is very difficult to speak when you’re hearing a delayed version of your own voice. Most people begin to slur their speech. • Feedback protection: If you turn on Monitoring without headphones connected to your computer, your microphone may pick up sound from your speakers, creating a squealing feedback loop that can damage your speakers (and even your hearing!). This feature clamps down on your track if it detects feedback. • Noise Gate: The noise gate eliminates sound below a threshold you set with the slider. The farther to the right you move it, the louder the input sound has to be before it will be recorded by GarageBand. The noise gate can be useful when you record in a place with an air system or other steady sound, helping reduce that noise, especially during pauses or gaps between words. However, in practice, noise gates are rarely useful for straightforward voice recordings, creating jarring gaps between words and phrases. You are better off ensuring you are in a quiet environment when you record. • Audio Units: Developed by Apple as part of macOS’ Core Audio engine, Audio Unit (AU) plug-ins are supported by many apps that work with sound (including most of the apps discussed in this book). In the case of GarageBand, you have to turn on Audio Units in Garage Band’s Preferences under Audio/MIDI (Figure 57). Some plug-ins are similar to effects available on the right side of this panel, but often offer more detail and finer control—and some offer altogether new sonic capabilities. I recommend playing around with these, especially AUMultiband Compressor as a replacement for Smart Controls’ default compression.

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Figure 57: Turn on Audio Units in GarageBand’s Audio/MIDI Preferences.

Edit Your Voice Track You may want to remove distracting noises from your vocal track. Or you may have gone off on a tangent that seemed like a good idea at the time, but now seems boring and pointless. In any case, you can easily edit material in GarageBand audio tracks: button near the top-left 1. Select your vocal track and click the Edit corner. (Or double-click an audio region to open it for editing.) GarageBand brings up the track editor in the bottom of the window, as in Figure 58.

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Figure 58: GarageBand’s track editor lets you edit specific details of a given track. A track with two sound waves (like Andy Voice Track, above) is a stereo track with left and right sides.

2. Turn off Catch Playhead with the blue Catch Playhead button to the left of the track editor. The button is blue when on, dark when off. This feature keeps GarageBand’s playhead (or wiper) visible, moving audio tracks left and right as needed. If you select audio while the playhead is off-screen (say, you scrolled to an earlier point in the recording), the timeline snaps to the playhead location, potentially moving you far away from your selection. 3. Locate some audio you want to remove. Select the audio by clicking in the bottom half of the audio track (clicking in the top half lets you move the clip left or right), then dragging to the end (Figure 59).

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Figure 59: Here in the track editor, I’ve selected audio to remove.

4. Choose Edit > Delete and Move to remove the selected clip. The clip is removed and all audio to the right shifts left to close the gap. GarageBand also splits your region into two regions touching at the point where you removed the audio (Figure 60).

Figure 60: After I made the selection shown in the previous figure and choosing Edit > Delete and Move, GarageBand has split the audio region, removed the selected audio, and closed the gap.

Mix Tracks After you’ve recorded, imported, and trimmed/edited all your audio in GarageBand, you can move chunks of audio around so that they start and end when you want. You can also adjust tracks’ individual volumes and have them fade in and out as needed—fades are a common technique for managing audio in podcasts. The most important part of mixing tracks is managing their volume relative to each other. Each track in GarageBand has its own volume control, but GarageBand also supports volume automation, which can automatically raise or 105

lower a track’s volume as it plays. GarageBand indicates volume automation by displaying lines over the track’s audio data. The higher the line, the louder the sound is at that point on the timeline. To achieve a professional fade-out mixing effect, try the following: 1. Add the audio you need to your project (Add Audio, earlier). In this example, I have one track I recorded in GarageBand, which I used for two different recordings, and a second that consists of music dragged in from GarageBand’s own media library (Figure 61).

Figure 61: I have placed two recordings: The podcast intro song in the first track (orange), and a recording of my voice in the second track (blue). When my voice begins during the music, the music needs to get quieter so I can be heard over it.

2. To manage transitions between tracks, choose Mix > Show Automation (or, if it’s visible, click the Show/Hide Automation button in the yellow circle in Figure 62) to reveal individual volume automation control lines for your tracks.

Figure 62: Click the Show/Hide Automation button (circled in yellow) to show automation for all tracks in your GarageBand project. Note how the sound waves have dimmed and gray lines to control volume are overlaid on top of them.

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3. Make sure the individual tracks you are adjusting have automation on. The Enable Automation button in each track header should be blue and not dark . 4. Decide when you want the volume of the music to begin getting quieter, and click the volume line to create a control point at that location (Figure 63).

Figure 63: Create the first control point in the track’s volume

automation.

5. Click the volume automation line to the right of the point you just created, roughly where you want the sound to finish getting quieter (Figure 64). Don’t worry about being exact: you can move and fine-tune the points later.

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Figure 64: Click to create the second control point.

6. Drag the second point downwards to reduce the volume of the track. I find that -16db or so works well (Figure 65).

Figure 65: Drag the second control point down. The music now ducks as I begin speaking. 108

Now, when you play the track in GarageBand, the music begins fading just after the 12-second mark and continue at a quieter level starting near the 15-second mark. If I preferred, I could fade all the way to silence (which GarageBand indicates as -∞ db). You can create any number of volume control points in a track; for instance, with two more points later in this music track, I could create a fade-in to bring the music volume back up after I’ve finished speaking. (For a fade-in, the right control point would be higher than the left point.) When you finish mixing, the next step is to Export and Encode from GarageBand, a procedure that I explain in the next chapter.

Edit with Audacity

Audacity makes it very easy to edit audio recordings.

Remove Unwanted Audio with Audacity Let’s start by looking at how you can remove unwanted bits of audio from a recording. Follow these simple steps: 1. Zoom in with the magnifying glass tool until you see enough detail to accurately identify what you want to remove (Figure 66).

Figure 66: I want to remove a cough and a table bang after a word. This is a stereo recording so I am dealing with two tracks, left and right.

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2. Select the offending section of audio by clicking at the start and dragging to the end. You can adjust the selection by clicking at the start or end and dragging left or right as needed (Figure 67).

Figure 67: I have selected the audio I want to delete. Audacity selects in both tracks automatically.

3. Choose Edit > Cut or hit the Delete key. Audacity removes the audio (Figure 68).

Figure 68: The selection is gone and the rest of the audio has

shifted to the left to close the gap.

Edit Split Interview Channels Audacity has tools for working with split interviews—stereo tracks where one speaker is in the left channel and the other is in the right. With Audacity, you can split each channel into its own track so they can be edited independently or have separate effects applied to them. You can also remove content from one track and keep the other in sync (by inserting silence instead of deleting), or edit both tracks together to, say, remove a boring tangent.

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For example, let’s say that while my interview subject was speaking, there was some noise on my end—perhaps my chair squeaked, or I bumped my mic. I can silence my side of the conversation completely so nothing distracts from what my subject is saying. To edit each channel of a stereo recording individually, you must split it into separate tracks: 1. Open your split interview in Audacity. Audacity displays the recording as a single stereo track (Figure 69).

Figure 69: In Audacity, the raw interview recording is a single stereo track with my voice (top) in the left channel and my subject’s voice (bottom) in the right channel.

2. On the left, in the track’s controls, there is a pop-up menu at the very top of the control area. From this menu, choose Split Stereo Track (Figure 70).

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Figure 70: Choose Split Stereo Track from the menu in the track header.

Audacity creates two mono tracks from your original recording: one track for the left channel, and another for the right. Now you can edit your interview. There are two ways you may want to edit it: remove sound from just one of the two tracks (while keeping them in sync!) or remove sound from both tracks. Warning! In audio apps that aren’t designed for music, such as Audacity, deleting audio from just the left or right channel in a stereo track may cause that channel to close up, losing the synchronization between the two. Rather than remove audio, it’s better to replace it with silence to keep the two channels in sync.

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To remove audio from just one track of an interview (by silencing it): 1. Locate the portion of your track where you want to silence your audio. In this example (Figure 71) you can see some low-level noise and a few louder sounds in the upper track.

Figure 71: The upper track, my side of the conversation, has small amounts of noise that I want to silence.

2. Select audio you want to silence by clicking at the start and dragging to the end within its track. You can adjust the start and stop points of the selection with the pointer if you need to (Figure 72).

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Figure 72: I have selected the portion of my half of the conversation that needs silencing.

3. Choose Generate > Silence. Audacity shows the length of your selection in hours, minutes, seconds, and samples (Figure 73). Click OK.

Figure 73: The Silence Generator dialog tells you exactly how long the silence will last.

Audacity replaces your original audio (Figure 74). Enjoy the silence! And if you don’t enjoy it, you can always choose Edit > Undo Silence and try it again.

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Figure 74: The selected section is now silent.

If you need to remove unwanted audio (not just fill the space with silence), you’ll need to cut from both tracks or they will get out of sync with each other. In this example (Figure 75), I had just finished speaking (top track) and Heather (bottom track) made a noise by bumping her microphone. Let’s remove that.

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Figure 75: An awkward moment near the middle of this window.

To remove unwanted audio from both sides of a conversation at once: 1. Select the noise and the gap by starting the selection in one track and ending it in the other (Figure 76).

Figure 76: Selecting data in multiple tracks in Audacity. 116

2. Choose Edit > Cut or hit the Delete key. Audacity removes the audio from both tracks simultaneously (see Figure 77).

Figure 77: The awkwardness is now gone.

Merge Split Interview Channels Once you have finished editing a split interview, you may want to mix your recording down so both voices are centered. Simply select Mono from each track’s drop-down menu to center both voices. What About Mixing? You can mix multiple tracks in Audacity but I find it is much easier to use GarageBand for this task. My advice is to save your files when your edits are complete and import them into GarageBand for the final mix.

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Edit with Ferrite Recording Studio for iOS/iPadOS Ferrite Recording Studio has some innovative ways to edit audio. It works best on an iPad where you have both the screen real estate and (depending on the iPad) the ability to use an Apple Pencil. The static images below do not do this process justice. For a look at just how powerful this editor can be, check out Jason Snell’s video on editing in Ferrite. I also recommend the video since he discusses what does and doesn’t want to fix as he edits a multi-person conversation.

Enjoy the Silence One of the hallmarks of an interview is that at any given time, one or more tracks have silence in it as the other person is talking. But the silence is never truly silent. People breathe, they shuffle in their seats, they bump their microphones, and so forth. The first step in editing in Ferrite is to remove these near-silences. This process also makes it easier to navigate your remaining material as you edit. Follow these steps to remove silences: 1. Tap Edit on the audio file and the editor appears. Note how both of the tracks in Figure 78 have silence that is not just a simple flat line (meaning, there’s noise there)

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Figure 78: It’s tough to see, but the thicker lines where there is no talking give away that those sections aren’t as silent as you would think. Ferrite lets you remove all these at once.

2. Tap the track you want to work on, then tap the Strip Silence icon on the bottom toolbar. You should see zones with diagonal lines as in Figure 79. If you do not, play with the Threshold and Min Silence controls under the audio until it selects the areas you want to remove. I personally avoid the Fade Edges control. If I need to adjust transitions, I will do them myself.

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Figure 79: The diagonal lines in the top track will be removed.

3. Tap Done on the far right and those zones are removed in the first track. If you have additional tracks (for example, I have two tracks total) tap the next track and repeat the process (see Figure 80).

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Figure 80: Ferrite has removed silence zones from the top track, and you can see what will now be removed from the bottom track.

4. After tapping Done again, you have removed all the silence in both tracks (see Figure 81).

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Figure 81: With silences removed, it is easier to see where each person makes sound and to remove any remaining audio you don’t want.

With silences removed, it is easier to see sounds that you may want to delete.

Remove Unwanted Audio with Ferrite As with GarageBand and Audacity, removing audio in multi-track projects means being very careful to keep everything in sync. Ferrite has a feature named Ripple Delete that does exactly that. Here is how you use it: 1. In this example, I found a place where I went off on a tangent. It isn’t interesting enough to include in the podcast and I want to remove it. Removing it is very simple. Use two fingers and drag from the beginning of the problem audio to the end. Ferrite converts your selection into a separate clip (see Figure 82).

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Figure 82: After making my selection, I have a new clip (selected in yellow). The little white triangles let you change or remove the fadeout of the sound (the shaded area).

2. The clip is selected in yellow (but if it isn’t, simply tap it). Tap the Trash Can icon in the lower-left corner and Ferrite marks this selection with bold diagonal lines (see Figure 83).

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Figure 83: My deleted clip is all black and blue. Note the “Ripple Delete” and “All Tracks” choices above the block.

3. Popping up from this selection is a simple menu with two choices: Ripple Delete and All Tracks. Tap the All Tracks option so all tracks stay in sync. (See Figure 84).

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Figure 84: The awkward audio is deleted!

Ferrite’s pro version (a $29 in-app purchase) offers many more editing features. I stuck to the free version here.

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Encode and Tag Your Show Now that your podcast show is recorded, editing, and mixed, you need to encode it and add identification tags before releasing it onto the open internet. Encoding means selecting an audio format and compressing your show so it downloads faster and consumes less of your listeners’ storage space. Adding tags (like titles, episode numbers and guest lists) helps listeners manage your podcast in their audio software and on their devices.

Encode Your Podcast

Before you start encoding, determine what file format to use for your podcast and what settings are most appropriate for your show.

Pick an Audio Encoding Format Always record directly to AIFF (even when recording outside of GarageBand) and edit using those AIFF files. Then, encode to either MP3 or AAC (also called M4A). Here’s why: • Encoding to a compressed format requires a lot of processing power. Making your computer encode on the fly while you try to manage audio from multiple sources (and apply effects like compression or reverb) may overpower it. Some of your audio could be lost or corrupted if your computer can’t keep up. • You can encode, but you can’t decode. Once your audio is in a compressed format, you can’t un-do that encoding to return to your original master recording. I prefer to have full-range, uncompressed masters of my shows, and to experiment with encoding options using only the uncompressed master. It can be hard to know what will work best before you record and edit your show. If one episode is mostly talk, I might encode it in a manner that preserves clear speech but saves space so that the episode downloads faster. If an episode has a lot of music, I might encode it differently to preserve 126

stereo mixes and sound quality at the expense of it taking more space and having a longer download time. Once upon a time, MP3 was the dominant format for online audio files. Years ago, Apple introduced support for AAC in iTunes, and the iTunes Store uses the format exclusively. (AAC is a subset of the MPEG4 standard, not, as is sometimes assumed, something Apple invented.) Since then, AAC support has become nearly ubiquitous. However, there are still a few holdouts (notably Spotify) and older media players may not support AAC. My advice is to stick to MP3 unless you are certain that AAC won’t be an issue for your intended audience or you don’t care whether your podcast is available through Spotify. Adding Chapters Some apps (listed below) allow you to add chapters to MP3 or AAC

format files. When played on devices that support it, these chapters

provide a way to skip around inside a podcast to get straight to the

content you want.

Apple called this Enhanced Podcasts. Enhanced Podcasts could have chapters, embedded graphics, and embedded links. iTunes and iPods supported them, but few others apps or devices did. Some people still produce Enhanced Podcasts, and they’re especially nice for long podcasts because users can skip around chapter by chapter. You don’t see much support for this these days and I do not see

much point in adding chapters any longer. However, if you feel your

podcast would benefit from it, a few tools are available to you:

✦

✦

✦

✦

Fission: Rogue Amoeba’s Fission ($32) is a simple audio editor for macOS that supports enhanced podcast creation. Auphonic: The free Auphonic website provides sound editing and mixing as well as the capability to add chapters to your podcast. Ferrite Recording Studio: Wooji Juice’s Ferrite for iOS/iPadOS

(Free, $29 in-app purchase for pro features) provides recording,

sound editing, mixing, as well as the capability to add chapters to

your podcast.

Forecast: Forecast is a free, simple macOS tool for adding chapters to an MP3 file. Forecast is still in beta, but a number of podcasters have been making regular use of it for years. 127

Export and Encode from GarageBand When you encode a file in GarageBand for Mac, you also export it— and you may even add some tags. That’s fine, since you want to export the file in order to continue the publication process. After you decide whether to encode in MP3 or AAC format (see Pick an Audio Encoding Format, earlier), you should pick an encoding rate. GarageBand gives you five choices for both MP3 and AAC exports, with the main difference being the encoding rate, measured in kBit/s (kilobits per second). One kilobit is 1,024 bits, or 128 bytes. The higher the number, the more data GarageBand uses to encode each second of audio. The more data, the better the sound, but the larger the file. To give you an idea, 4 kBit/s is about the minimum of data for wellrecorded human speech to still be recognizable (but it will sound awful). A typical landline telephone call is about 64 kBit/s, and (stereo) CD-quality audio is 1,411.2 kBit/s. With all that in mind, here are the choices GarageBand gives you: • Low Quality (64 kBit/s): I would only use this for voice-only podcasts (no music of any kind) and only if absolutely necessary (for instance, if your shows are hours long). • Medium Quality (128kBit/s): This is good for a podcast that is primarily voice with some music. It is not good for podcasts that are about music and are sharing music. I use medium quality for the Swamp Meadow Podcast I produce. • High Quality (192 kBit/s): Very good quality. In the early days of the iTunes Store, 192 kBit/s AAC was the standard for music. High quality is a good bet for a music-based podcast or one that uses a lot of sound effects. • Highest Quality (256 kBit/s): This is the highest quality available via GarageBand (it also makes for the largest compressed files). Only choose 256 kBit/s if audio quality is crucial and you know your audience won’t mind large downloads. Apple uses this format for iTunes Plus AAC files in its store. 128

• Uncompressed (AIFF): You wouldn’t upload a podcast in AIFF. But you should use it if you need to take the podcast audio out of GarageBand in order to edit it in another application. With your desired encoding rate in mind, choose one of the following to export and encode the file. To export directly to an MP3, AAC, or AIFF file: 1. Choose Share > Export Song to Disk. 2. Type a name and choose a location for your exported file. 3. Select a radio button for AAC, MP3, or AIFF format. For AAC and MP3, select an encoding rate (see above) from the Quality pop-up menu. For AIFF, select either 16-bit or 24-bit format from the Quality pop-up menu. 4. Make sure “Export cycle area only or length of selected regions” is unchecked, unless you’ve done something special with your project. A cycle region is a looping capability not covered in this book; however, you could use this checkbox to export just a selection (say, the first few minutes of your episode) as a test. 5. When you’re sure of your options, click Export. To export to iTunes in AAC or AIFF format: 1. Choose Share > Song to Music to open the Share to Music dialog (Figure 85). GarageBand automatically inserts tag values from your preferences, as described in Pre-Set Tags in GarageBand, later in this chapter.

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Figure 85: My GarageBand default tags have been applied automatically to my episode—I only need to add a title.

2. Enter or change any tags you want. 3. Select the Quality you want to use—with the exception of Uncompressed AIFF, any quality option gives you an AAC file. (Again, unless you’ve done something special with your project, leave “Export cycle area only or length of selected regions” unchecked.) 4. When you’ve set your options, click Share.

Learn About Tags

Tags are bits of descriptive information—known as metadata—you can add to your podcast. Tags help listeners sort podcasts and provide details about podcast content. You can add tags to your podcast with a variety of apps covered later in this chapter. Both the MP3 and AAC format support tags, and most audio apps and media players display them.

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iTunes, Apple’s Music App, Apple Music With the great renaming in 2019, things have gotten a little confusing for someone like me trying to explain how the application formerly known as iTunes fits into everything. So, here is a quick primer on “What I mean When I say…” Apple iTunes and Music edition: ✦

✦

✦

✦

✦

iTunes: This refers specifically to the iTunes Store were you both buy music and obtain podcasts. When I say iTunes, I am usually talking about the Podcast Directory that Apple maintains. Apple’s Music App: This refers specifically to the app on the Mac and iOS/iPadOS devices where you can play music. I mention this sparingly. Music Library: This refers to the “Music” folder inside the “Music” folder in your home folder on your Mac. This is where Apple stores downloaded music and album art. You generally never need to go into this folder. It also refers to the library of music that you own from CDs you have ripped, tracks and albums you have purchased online, and even purchased from Apple’s Apple Music service itself. Apple Music: This refers to Apple’s Apple Music service where you pay a monthly fee and have access to millions of tracks. Aside from this bullet and the one immediately above, it is not mentioned anywhere else in this book. Apple’s Podcast App: Finally, this refers to Apple’s own Podcasts application on all of its platforms that enables users to subscribe to and listen to podcasts.

If you have sorted music in your Music library by artist or title, then you’ve already made use of tags, though you may not have realized it. And, if you’ve actively tagged tracks in Music (perhaps adding genres or years to songs), then you are already familiar with tags. You should consider setting the following list of tags for each episode of your podcast (I’ll cover how in a moment): • Name: This is the name of the specific episode. You can use whatever you like. I tend to use the show’s name followed by the show number and the date in a sortable format (meaning year-monthday). 131

Example: Swamp

Meadow Podcast 006 - 2020-08-03.

• Artist: Your name. • Album: Your show’s name. This lets every episode group nicely in iTunes. Example: Swamp

Meadow Community Theatre Podcast

• Genre: “Podcast” is standard though you could, if you wanted, be more specific. If your show is a Science Fiction serial, you could use “Sci-Fi & Fantasy” as the genre. (Note: this tag does not affect how the iTunes podcast directory categorizes your show. You set that up when you create your feed, in Understand Syndication Formats.) • Comments: A general description of your show. I try to match mine to what I post on the website when I upload the actual episode, but you can do whatever you want. Example: Interview

with Tyler Vigeant (socially distant over

Zoom) on adapting Cyrano de Bergerac for a podcast and as a space opera.

• Album Art: This is the image iTunes (and other podcast players) displays for your episode. It helps brand your show. A few of these tags can be set in GarageBand, as I describe in the sidebar just ahead, and all of them can be set in iTunes.

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Pre-Set Tags in GarageBand GarageBand provides a simple way to pre-set some tags so you don’t enter them every time in the Share to Music dialog. In this context, tags are bits of information that describe a file. I talk more about them later in this chapter. Choose GarageBand > Preferences > My Info to set your default tags (Figure 86).

Figure 86: My default tags set in GarageBand’s My Info preferences pane. Oddly, your default tags don’t appear in the Save to Disk dialog. Naturally, if you use GarageBand to create music or more than one podcast, these default tags are less useful. Luckily, you can change your tag data as you share your podcast from Apple’s Music app.

Create a Logo

When you tag your show, you can add an image. Much like a book’s cover or a CD’s album art, the image represents your show visually and appears in the iTunes Store and various podcast player apps. Whatever logo you create, the resulting file should meet the following specifications: • The image should be square. The vast majority of places your logo shows up—in the Podcast App, on the web, in media players, on

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iOS/iPadOS devices—expect a square logo. Anything else will be distorted. • The image dimensions should be 1400 by 1400 pixels, the size Apple currently requires for the iTunes Store’s Podcasts section. • It should be a PNG or JPG image. Otherwise, everything is up to you. I took a minimal approach and just added the word “Podcast” to Swamp Meadow Community Theatre’s logo (Figure 87).

Figure 87: I used a 1400 by 1400-pixel PNG file for the Swamp Meadow Community Theatre Podcast logo.

Tag Your Episode

Work in Apple’s Music Application to tag your episode. If you exported your podcast episode to disk from GarageBand (or it’s on your disk for whatever reason), import it into Music to set your episode tags. You can drop the file on the Music icon, but Music starts playing the episode immediately once it is imported, so it’s more efficient to open Music and choose File > Import. Whether you shared your show from GarageBand to Music directly or imported the sound file from disk, Music stores the file in your Music library. If you specified a Music playlist when you exported the file from GarageBand, the file will be in that playlist (Figure 88), in Playlists view. If not, look for it in Songs view. (Hint: sort by Date Added so it shows up at the top of the list.) 134

Figure 88: GarageBand exported my podcast episode to an “SMCT Podcast” playlist I created in Music. (Episodes 1 through 5 were removed in an earlier cleanup of my library.)

When you select your episode, if you are in a view that shows artwork, you’ll notice one thing right off the bat: there is no picture, just a generic blue note in a black square. Tag and add you logo to your episode by following these steps: 1. In Music, select the episode, and choose File > Get Info to open the file’s information dialog. 2. If the Info pane is not open, click the Info button at the top of the dialog (Figure 89).

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Figure 89: The Info pane for a podcast episode in Music.

3. Fill in all the tags you want (flip back to Learn About Tags for information about what the various tags mean). 4. Click the Artwork tab to open the Artwork pane.

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5. Add your logo (discussed earlier) to the track by either clicking Add, or dragging the file icon from the Finder and dropping it in the image area (Figure 90).

Figure 90: I’ve added the artwork to the podcast track.

6. Click OK. 137

You see your track in Music with its artwork showing in the top of the window (Figure 91). Depending on the Music view, other updated information might be visible as well.

Figure 91: Music displays the podcast’s just-added artwork.

When you’ve set all your episode tags, locate the file on your disk so you can upload it to your podcast website, as described in Upload and Publish an Episode, later. Right-click (or Control-click) the episode in iTunes and choose Show in Finder (Figure 92).

Figure 92: Choose Show in Finder.

You’ll see the file in your Finder, but in the special location where Music organizes your media. Be careful with files in this area. You should duplicate the file and move the copy elsewhere, such as your 138

Desktop or your Documents folder. Select the file and either Optiondrag the icon to drop a copy in another location or choose Edit > Copy, then click in another location and choose Edit > Paste. If you move or rename the original, Music will lose track of it and it won’t be available in your Music Library until you re-import it or download it from your actual podcast feed. Now you are all set to share your podcast with the world!

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Host Your Podcast Podcasters generally host their shows on their own websites or blogs. Episodes might be a part of a larger blog where some entries are articles and others are recordings, or they may be on a blog all about the podcast that only contains recordings. There are many options for hosting your podcast’s blog, but let’s lay some groundwork first.

Understand Bandwidth Costs

Moving bits costs money. The site or service that hosts your podcasts pays money per megabyte, gigabyte, or terabyte per month (or by their peak bits per second) for pushing data out from their network. Most hosting companies pass that cost along to their customers—meaning you—in some way. Before you upload your show and get it out there, be aware of your hosting company’s policies toward bandwidth. If your show were to become popular—with lots of listeners downloading episodes—you could find yourself on the losing end of one of the great contradictions of the internet: the more popular you are, the more money it costs you. For example, when I wrote an article for TidBITS about podcasting way back in 2005, Podcasting: The People’s Radio, I hosted a podcast to go with it featuring an interview with Dave Winer (creator of the RSS standard that enables automatic subscriptions to online content like podcasts). Before that article, each episode of my podcast racked up a modest 300 downloads. At about 10 MB per episode, those downloads totaled around 3 GB of traffic from my website. My provider included 30 GB per month of bandwidth allowance as part of my recurring service fee, so I never needed to pay more than my recurring fee, though if I did, I would be paying $5 per gigabyte. When the TidBITS article was published, I moved over 25 GB in just a few days. If the article had been any more popular, it could have cost 140

me a great deal of money. Instead of my usual $30 per month, I could have been paying double, triple, or even more for that one month. These days, most providers have much higher allowances, or charge only by how much data you host with them—and the rates are modest. (Some even offer unlimited bandwidth, although some have curious definitions of “unlimited.”) However, if your provider’s policies are restrictive, you should shop around. There’s no reason you can’t keep your site with your current provider, but put the audio files somewhere else.

Choose a Hosting Service

There are many options for hosting a blog for podcasting. Here are just a few of the more common ones: • Wordpress.com: [Disclaimer: I work for Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.com. But I don’t love WordPress because I work there. I work there because I love WordPress.] You can create a site and host your show’s website for free. The audio files would need to be hosted elsewhere in the free plan, but a $48 per year paid plan can handle them and has no bandwidth limits, and lets you register a new domain (free for the first year). WordPress.com handles virtually every aspect of managing a blog and a podcast, including an RSS feed. • Squarespace.com: Squarespace is a website hosting service similar to WordPress.com. There is a limit of 160MB per audio file uploaded (that would be a very long podcast so most people will not have a problem). Pricing starts at $12 per month ($9 per month if billed annually, or $108 per year). • LibSyn and BluBrry: These services are designed for podcast hosting and provide a basic blog and create the proper RSS feeds. Most people appear to prefer hosting their blog elsewhere using Libsyn as the audio delivery service. These services are not free. LibSyn starts at $5 per month and BluBrry at $12. Pay special attention to the terms you agree to when hosting with these services. The may be 141

hidden gotchas, especially if your podcast starts bringing in ad revenue. • SoundCloud: The SoundCloud service is devoted to sharing recordings. Many musicians and bands use it to publish music for free downloading to get attention and build a fan base, but some podcasters also use it to host their shows. SoundCloud’s free plan limits you to 3 hours of recordings—that’a lot for musicians, but not necessarily much for podcasts. For $16 per month ($12 per month billed annually, or $144 per year), SoundCloud expands that to unlimited recordings. SoundCloud also offers a specific set of features for podcasters. • Self-hosting: If you have the resources and the know-how, you can self-host your blog on your own site using a blogging engine, such as Wordpress (the same software used on Wordpress.com but you manage it yourself). Bluehost , HostGator, DreamHost, and Pair.com (which I use for my own personal website and blogs) are all examples of services that host sites for you. Prices can vary widely. As an example, with Pair.com, I host over ten sites under my account and pay $30 per month for the server and email services for all the sites. Another approach is to host your blog in one place but to host the audio files in another. For example, you could use Wordpress.com for your site but host the audio files on LibSyn or DreamHost. You need to figure out what is best for what you are trying to do. It can be exceptionally difficult to move a podcast from one host to another once you’re up and running, so it pays to plan ahead. It may be tempting to go for the simplest, easiest solution right away, but going with a more sophisticated (and permanent) solution might be worth the effort from the start.

Understand Syndication Formats

Syndication is used primarily by web logs (blogs) and news sites to enable visitors to subscribe to changes or automatically follow 142

updates without revisiting the site. The same technology works for podcasting: syndicating your podcast lets both subscribers and podcast directories know about new episodes automatically. However, podcasting differs from typical website or news syndication in that a podcast feed should include links to audio files, not just a link to a web page where the audio files can be downloaded or streamed. That way, Apple’s Podcasts application and other podcast applications can download the audio files automatically, saving subscribers a (potentially lengthy) step. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom are XML-based (eXtensible Markup Language) standards for syndicating website content. The XML part defines a set of terms, and the various versions of the RSS and Atom standards define how those terms are used. RSS/Atom files typically list the most recent items posted to a blog and include the following information: • The title of the entry (if available). • The body of the entry, or a short excerpt or abstract. • The permanent URL of the entry, which is the URL to the specific entry in the archives of the blog or on the site. • The date and time it was posted. • The URL of any enclosures attached to the entry. For a podcast, this entry points to your audio file. • The name of the blog entry’s author. • The category of the entry (if any). • More arcane information of interest mostly to automated software. Music supports additional tags in syndication feeds, which cover categorization in the iTunes Podcast directory, album art, whether the content contains explicit language, and more. See Tag Your Episode.

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Set Up a WordPress.com Blog for Podcasting [Disclaimer: I work for Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. However, given the features versus the cost, I do honestly feel it’s a good choice for podcasters. All podcasts I have ever produced have all been in WordPress in one form or another for a decade before I joined Automattic.] WordPress.com is a service offered by Automattic, Inc., the company founded by WordPress co-inventor Matt Mullenweg. All its services built on WordPress, so it is essentially the same tool as the open source version that you can download for free and set up yourself. But the monthly cost for hosting a site on WordPress.com is less than that of your typical hosting account, and you don’t have to go through the trouble of installing, updating, and managing WordPress yourself. To get started, you need a WordPress.com account: 1. Visit https://wordpress.com/start/ to create an account. 2. After creating your account, you are next asked to pick a domain. If you intend to host the audio on WordPress.com, you need to sign up for a paid account. This gives you one year of a free domain requiring you to pay the renewal fee in a year from now. In this example, I am setting up “Podcrumbs.blog” which is free for a year and costs $22 for the domain renewal each year thereafter (see Figure 93).

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Figure 93: Selecting podcrumbs.blog. I once had podcrumbs.com but it is no longer available. I’m sad about that. But we must carry on.

3. On the next screen, you can choose your plan. Selecting Free prevents you from using a custom domain. Instead you need to use yourchoice.wordpress.com. It also means you need to host your audio elsewhere. The least expensive paid plan is the Personal Plan ($4 per month billed annually, or $48 per year) and is sufficient for starting out. That is what I have selected (see Figure 94)

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Figure 94: Choose a plan. The cheapest one is fine for starting out.

4. Finally, you get a summary of your plan and a place to enter your information and payment method, and check out (see Figure 95).

Figure 95: Check this out, you can check out here.

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Once your signup is complete, you get an offer to get some help from an expert. Whether you do or not is up to you. After that screen, you arrive at your site’s dashboard. Initially, your site is in private mode, meaning the general public cannot see it. WordPress.com provides a process that steps you through setting up your site. Click “Get Started” in the center section to go through it—but you may want to wait on launching your site until your podcast is ready! A few more things you can do to customize your site: 1. Play around with themes by navigating to the left sidebar and choosing Design > Themes to give your site a fun look. 2. Set your Primary domain by navigating to the left sidebar and choosing Manage > Domains. In that screen, click “Change primary domain” near the top-right corner and make sure your domain is set to the one you registered for the site (see Figure 96).

Figure 96: My default domain is not the one I want to use. To change it to podcrumbs.blog, I can click “Change primary domain” in the upper-right corner of the Primary Domain box.

3. Launch your site because you cannot edit the podcasting settings until you do. Choose Manage > Settings and half-way down the page 147

are the controls to publish your site. I suggest you make it public but discourage search engines for now. You aren’t ready for guests just yet (see Figure 97).

Figure 97: My site is public, but the search engines are discouraged from indexing the site.

4. Now we can edit the Podcasting settings. Choose Manage > Settings, then to the Writing tab and scroll down until you can click Podcast Settings to begin editing. Decide on a category for posts that are considered podcast episodes. This enables you have blog posts and podcast episodes in a single blog, but the special podcast RSS feed only contain items you mark as podcast episodes. I used the category “Episode” but you can use whatever you like (see Figure 98).

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Figure 98: I added the new category “Episode” and any blog posts that have that category appear in the Podcast RSS feed (as opposed to the blog’s own RSS feed, which includes all posts regardless of category).

5. In order for Apple to accept your feed (see Add Your Podcast to the iTunes Store) you need a logo of some kind that is at least 1400 by 1400 pixels (see Create a Logo, earlier). Once you have a logo, you can add it to these Podcast Settings. Feel free to flesh out the remaining tags on the Podcast Settings page. When you feel the site is ready and you have your first episode fully completed and ready to publish, follow these steps: 1. Create a new post. You can do this either in the left sidebar under Site > Posts or back at the Podcast Settings where there is a Create Episode button. Either way, you get a blank post. 2. Add a title. This is the title of your episode that will be picked up by the various podcast directories. 3. Write your text. Describe your episode, list what is in your episode, whatever you like. Some people do extensive show notes. For example, even if you don’t speak Portuguese, Bruno Natal’s Resumido.cc has some of the most extensive show notes I have ever seen. Check out any of his posts! Some people (like me) tend to keep it really simple. 4. Now look at the right sidebar for a section named Categories. Click to open it and choose the category you chose as your podcast episodes category, earlier. When you are done with steps one 149

through four, your episode post should look something like Figure 99.

Figure 99: My post-in-progress has a title, body text, and the “Episode” category selected in the right sidebar. All it needs now is the actual audio file!

5. It is time to add your audio. Using WordPress’ block editor, you need to add an audio block. Click the blue plus icon in the upperleft corner to pick a new block. In the search box at the top, type “audio” and it shows you matching blocks (see Figure 100).

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Figure 100: The search for audio finds a Podcast Player and an Audio block. In this case, you want the Audio block. The Podcast Player block is for inserting a player for yours or someone else’s podcast. You might do that elsewhere on your blog, but this post is purely for making your podcast feed.

6. Click the Audio block to add it to the bottom of your post. Click the blue Upload button and find your podcast file and upload it. 7. Once your audio is uploaded, you can publish your post. No one will see your podcast yet because we haven’t added it to the various directories where listeners find podcasts. But you need to have published at least one episode in order to add your show to the various directories. We’ll talk about how to do that in Add Your Podcast to the iTunes Store.

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Set Up a FeedBurner Feed

In the fifteen-or-so years this book has existed, Feedburner has always been one of those, “This is going to go away any minute” services. And Google is well known for killing off services that people rely upon. And yet, here in 2020, FeedBurner is still around. Everything here was written years ago but is still 100% accurate. So, use at your own risk, but at this rate FeedBurner may be the only service left after Google is a faint memory! These days, almost every hosting provider has some support for podcasts. But in case yours doesn’t, Feedburner comes to the rescue. To understand the difference between the vanilla RSS feed provided by some hosts (the ones that don’t provide podcasting support) and the feed that FeedBurner creates, see Figure 101.

Figure 101: A simple view of differences between a typical blog RSS feed and a podcast feed processed through FeedBurner.

In this example, the blog (blue) has three posts, each with a link to an audio file. The standard RSS feed (red) provided by a host that doesn’t support podcasts does not include the links to audio files, so Apple’s iTunes service can’t work with the podcast and include the 152

show in its podcast directory. The FeedBurner RSS feed (green) looks at the blog’s normal RSS feed, follows its links back to the blog, recognizes links to audio files, and includes them in a new aggregate RSS feed. When Apple examines the RSS feed produced by FeedBurner, it can locate the audio files and publish the podcast in the iTunes podcast directory. You may not need to use FeedBurner, depending how you’ve chosen to host your podcast, but it’s a common tool (I use it for the Swamp Meadow Podcast because I set the podcast up before WordPress added good podcasting support), so I will walk you through it. Before you begin, you need three things: 1. A Google account. These days, most people have them (if you have a Gmail account, you have one) and they are free. 2. The URL of your blog’s RSS feed. This may be tricky to find. Many blogs publish it on your blog’s home page, often under an orange . Consult the documentation for the service you are using icon: or contact customer support (if they have it) for help. 3. A logo for your podcast uploaded to your website, and a URL for that logo. (See Create a Logo, earlier.) With your Google account, RSS feed address, and logo in hand, follow these steps: 1. In your web browser, go to the FeedBurner site and sign in using your Google account. 2. Look for “Burn a feed right this instant” and enter your feed URL (from #2, above). Make sure you check the “I am a podcaster!” box! (See Figure 102.)

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Figure 102: The FeedBurner home page appears after you sign in.

3. The next page asks for your feed’s title and an identifier that appears at the end of your FeedBurner URL. My choices can be seen in Figure 103. 4. Record your FeedBurner URL somewhere where you can find it later. In Figure 103, my feed URL is http://feeds.feedburner.com/ SMCTPodcast. You will need to know this feed URL when you submit your podcast to Apple’s iTunes podcast directory and other podcast sites.

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Figure 103: My choices for setting up a FeedBurner feed for Swamp Meadow Community Theatre’s Podcast.

5. Click Next. FeedBurner creates your basic feed. However, since you are publishing a podcast and not a blog, you need to enter more details. 6. Click Next. On this screen, enter more details about your podcast. Almost everything here is essential, especially the “Include iTunes podcasting elements” checkbox (see Figure 104).

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Figure 104: My entries for the Swamp Meadow Podcast. I filled the podcast subtitle later—I couldn’t think of one when I first set it up!

That’s it! Assuming you don’t suddenly realize that you want to change something in your feed, you are ready to Publish and Promote Your Podcast!

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If you need to change something in your podcast configuration, here’s how you edit it: 1. In your FeedBurner account, click the Optimize tab (see Figure 105).

Figure 105: To edit a feed, click the SmartCast link on FeedBurner’s Optimize tab.

2. In the middle of the Organize tab, click the SmartCast link. The FeedBurner podcast information editor opens. 3. Make whatever changes you need, save them, and you are all set.

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Podcaster Profile: Kirk McElhearn Podcasts Produced: The Committed, a weekly tech podcast about the Apple ecosystem, with Ian Schray, Rob Griffiths, and Kirk; PhotoActive, a podcast about photography and technology, which he cohosts with Jeff Carlson; The Next Track, a podcast about how people listen to music today, with Doug Adams and Kirk; and The Zen of Everything, a zen take on life, love, laughter, and everything else, with Jundo Cohen and Kirk. Tools Used: Kirk uses a Røde Procaster, connected to a Yamaha AG03 mixer. He, and his co-hosts, all record using Audio Hijack, and they use Skype, unless guests don't have Skype, in which case they've done a few interviews with FaceTime.

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Publish and Promote Your Podcast Now that your show is ready for the public, you can make it available and let people know about it.

Upload and Publish an Episode

If you are using WordPress.com, you can use the instructions on creating a new podcast post in Set Up a WordPress.com Blog for Podcasting, earlier. If not, then the general instructions for uploading and posting an episode of your show is: 1. Upload the file to the site where you plan to host the media (which may be different than the one hosting your blog or website) using the web interface provided by that service. (Some hosting plans also let you upload via secure FTP.) 2. Create a new blog entry or web page with your show notes and anything else you want to say. Link to the podcast file in the entry. Show notes provide an episode synopsis, and they should include the size of the file and the duration of the podcast. For example: Number 7: Interview with Jim Van Verth of The Vintage Gamer (http://thevintagegamer.net/) about microphones, mixers, portable rigs, and more! Details: AAC, 28:23, 19.7 MB 3. When you post the entry to a blog, the system should create an RSS entry. If the platform supports podcasts, it adds the required enclosure tag to your feed so subscribers can get the audio file. If you are using FeedBurner, it creates the enclosure tag for your podcast’s audio file in its own feed. After this, it’s up to you to tell the world about your episode!

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Add Your Podcast to the iTunes Store

When you first establish your podcast, you should get it listed in the major podcast directories. First and foremost, you want to list it in Apple’s iTunes Store. The iTunes Store has an excellent podcast directory, which you access through the Podcasts app in macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. Follow these steps to get your podcast listed: 1. Visit iTunes Connect and sign in using your Apple ID. 2. Once you are signed in, iTunes Connect displays any podcasts you previously added. Click the plus icon near the upper-left corner of the page to add a new podcast (see Figure 106).

Figure 106: My iTunes Connect Dashboard shows my Swamp Meadow Community Theatre Podcast. 160

3. Find your podcast’s RSS feed URL, copy it to the clipboard, and paste it into the URL field. Click Validate in the upper-right corner of the New Feed section (see Figure 107).

Figure 107: Enter your feed URL and click Validate.

4. Apple scans your feed and verify that everything is set up correctly. If it reports any errors, fix them, then try again. Figure 108 shows my new podcast has been validated.

Figure 108: My original 2004-2006 podcast back from the great beyond. Note the “Prepared for Submission” status next to my feed URL. I am ready to submit the podcast for review. 161

5. Once your podcast is listed as “Prepared for Submission” as in Figure 108, you can click the Submit button in the upper-right corner of the page. You should see a message indicating Apple will review your podcast. This can take hours or days, so be patient. Once approved, Apple regularly checks your podcast’s RSS/Atom feed and adds new episodes to its listings, so you need to tell iTunes about your podcast only once. The listings in the iTunes podcast directory stay current as long as your RSS/Atom feed is updated when you post new podcasts. Many other podcast directories are out there. The other big ones are Spotify and Google.

Promote Your Podcast

Finding and growing an audience is difficult. There are a lot of podcasts out there and getting yours found and followed can be very difficult. The following tips will help: • Be consistent: Even though most people listen to podcasts on their own schedule, having a consistent publishing schedule (once per week, every day, etc.) will help build expectation in your audience. And there’s that subtle pressure of new shows that makes people worry about falling too far behind, so they stay current. More importantly, if you do not update your show for a while, the iTunes podcast directory may “think” your podcast has ceased publishing and thus de-list it. • Cross-promote: Find podcasts you like with audiences that overlap with the audience you want for your show. Contact the producers of those podcasts and see if they would be willing to mention your show in return for your mentioning theirs. Once upon a time, this also meant swapping pre-recorded promo clips (so each show played the other’s). That isn’t as common anymore, but you should be ready to create one if needed.

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• Be a guest: If you feel you have something to contribute to another podcast, offer to be a guest there. If the producers agree that you are interesting enough to include, they will include you, and the guest spot lets people know who you are and drives them to your podcast. • Interview people: Identify people in your podcast’s topic area who would make good interview subjects, and offer to interview them on your show. Some friends and colleagues might be good candidates, but don’t be afraid to reach out to public figures, executives, community leaders, subject experts, journalists, and others— the worst they (or their PR people) can do is say no! Many people like to be interviewed because it’s free publicity for themselves, their causes, or their organizations. If your guests are happy with the results, they may promote your interview, driving new listeners towards your show. See Interview People Successfully. • Audio quality: At the beginning of this book I said not to worry much about audio quality; however, if you really want to grow your audience, give them some value. When you record interviews, do them as double-enders (or figure out a way to have every speaker on a different track) to make everyone sound great. Edit out “ums,” “uhs,” and unnecessarily awkward bits to polish your show. • Use professional techniques: Use professional audio techniques to make your show sound as polished as possible. See Consider Common Techniques for more. • Be findable: List your show in as many podcast directories as possible. Make sure to follow directories’ rules for what needs to be in your RSS feed (which is easy to configure if you are using FeedBurner). For example, if you don’t provide a logo at the correct size (1400 by 1400 pixels) for iTunes, your podcast won’t get as much attention from Apple. Apple sometimes showcases podcasts, so make it easy for them to use your art in their promotional materials. (It’s a long shot, but worth it!) • Create transcripts: Try using an online transcription service to create a text transcript of your show (though quality is often an issue). Publishing a transcript along with the show enables search 163

engines like Google and Bing to index your complete show content, increasing the odds of an episode being found by someone searching on its topic. • Book connected guests: Try to choose guests who have large social followings online. When those guests mention they’re on your show, that mention will be seen by more people than someone who is perhaps more famous, but with fewer followers. Above all, don’t give up. Believe in your show and keep producing episodes on a regular schedule. You may never make the big time, but then again, you might. If you do, invite me to be a guest! I’ll happily tell everyone how brilliant you are—you did buy this book, after all!

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About This Book Thank you for purchasing this Take Control book. We hope you find it both useful and enjoyable to read. We welcome your comments.

Ebook Extras

You can access extras related to this ebook on the web. Once you’re on the ebook’s Take Control Extras page, you can: • Download any available new version of the ebook for free, or buy a subsequent edition at a discount. • Download various formats, including PDF, EPUB, and Mobipocket. (Learn about reading on mobile devices on our Device Advice page.) • Read the ebook’s blog. You may find new tips or information, as well as a link to an author interview. • Find out if we have any update plans for the ebook. If you bought this ebook from the Take Control website, it has been automatically added to your account, where you can download it in other formats and access any future updates. More Take Control Books This is but one of many Take Control titles! We have books that cover a wide range of technology topics, with extra emphasis on the Mac and other Apple products. You can buy Take Control books from the Take Control online catalog as well as from venues such as Amazon and the Apple Books Store. But it’s a better user experience and our authors earn more when you buy directly from us. Just saying… Our ebooks are available in three popular formats: PDF, EPUB, and the Kindle’s Mobipocket. All are DRM-free.

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About the Author

Andy J. Williams Affleck (the Affleck part was stolen from his wife) has been using Macs since 1984 and has always been obsessed with any new medium that improves communication. At first it was mainframebased chat systems (Dartmouth College’s XYZ for anyone who would remember that), then email, instant messaging, and newsletters, then finally the web. He built Dartmouth College’s first website in 1993, put together the original website for the sitcom Friends, and started a virtual community that celebrated its 25th birthday in early 2020. He has a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Technology in Education, specifically online networks for teaching and learning. When he’s not figuring out new ways for people to communicate online, he works at Automattic, Inc. (the company behind WordPress.com). He blogs about random stuff at AndyAffleck.com and is restarting his old Podcrumbs podcast. He’s also the Executive Director of Swamp Meadow Community Theatre as well as an actor, director, and sound-guy. He lives in Rhode Island with his wife, daughter, two cats, one dog, and a lot of LEGOS. 166

Acknowledgements Thanks, as always, to my wife and daughter for understanding why I had to vanish for long hours to write and demand quiet in the house while I tested audio equipment and recorded podcasts. Special thanks to Chuck Joiner, Kirk McElhearn, Louis Trapani, and Jason Snell, for agreeing to be profiled in this ebook.

Shameless Plug If you are ever in driving distance of Foster, Rhode Island, check out Swamp Meadow Community Theatre. They’re a seriously talented group!

About the Publisher

alt concepts inc., publisher of Take Control Books, is operated by Joe Kissell and Morgen Jahnke, who acquired the ebook series from TidBITS Publishing Inc.’s owners, Adam and Tonya Engst, in 2017. Joe brings his decades of experience as author of more than 60 books on tech topics (including many popular Take Control titles) to his role as Publisher. Morgen’s professional background is in development work for nonprofit organizations, and she employs those skills as Director of Marketing and Publicity. Joe and Morgen live in San Diego with their two children and their cat.

Credits • Publisher: Joe Kissell • Editor: Geoff Duncan • Cover design: Sam Schick of Neversink • Logo design: Geoff Allen of FUN is OK

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Copyright and Fine Print Take Control of Podcasting ISBN: 978-1-947282-60-5

Copyright © 2020, Andy J. Williams Affleck. All rights reserved.

alt concepts inc. 4142 Adams Ave. #103-619, San Diego CA 92116, USA Why Take Control? We designed Take Control electronic books to help readers regain a measure of control in an oftentimes out-of-control universe. With Take Control, we also work to streamline the publication process so that information about quickly changing technical topics can be published while it’s still relevant and accurate. Our books are DRM-free: This ebook doesn’t use digital rights management in any way because DRM makes life harder for everyone. So we ask a favor of our readers. If you want to share your copy of this ebook with a friend, please do so as you would a physical book, meaning that if your friend uses it regularly, they should buy a copy. Your support makes it possible for future Take Control ebooks to hit the internet long before you’d find the same information in a printed book. Plus, if you buy the ebook, you’re entitled to any free updates that become available. Remember the trees! You have our permission to make a single print copy of this ebook for personal use, if you must. Please reference this page if a print service refuses to print the ebook for copyright reasons. Caveat lector: Although the author and alt concepts inc. have made a reasonable effort to ensure the accuracy of the information herein, they assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. The information in this book is distributed “As Is,” without warranty of any kind. Neither alt concepts inc. nor the author shall be liable to any person or entity for any special, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, including without limitation lost revenues or lost profits, that may result (or that are alleged to result) from the use of these materials. In other words, use this information at your own risk. It’s just a name: Many of the designations in this ebook used to distinguish products and services are claimed as trademarks or service marks. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features that appear in this title are assumed to be the property of their respective owners. All product names and services are used in an editorial fashion only, with no intention of infringement. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is meant to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this title. We aren’t Apple: This title is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Because of the nature of this title, it uses terms that are registered trademarks or service marks of Apple Inc. If you’re into that sort of thing, you can view a complete list of Apple Inc.’s registered trademarks and service marks. 168