July 11, 2005
Beginner's Guide to Podcast Creation
Kirk McElhearn's Beginner's Guide to Podcast Creation walks you through the different elements you need to create a simple podcast, from computer and microphone through to the finished product.
Posted by Kevin at 09:58 PM
June 29, 2005
Skypecasting
- Engagdet - How-To: Podcasting (aka How to get Podcasts and also make your own)
- Skype + Podcast Recorder = SkypeCasters
- Make ($)
Posted by Kevin at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)
April 07, 2005
rethinkIP: What's your Blawgcast setup?
Podcasting lesson #1 -- don't do work someone else has already done for you
Posted by Kevin at 07:32 AM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2005
Dennis Crouch: What's your blawgcast setup?
Dennis Crouch of Patently-O: Patent Law Blog and McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP answers the question: What's your blawgcast setup?
For those interested in the creation of the TipCast — I used my laptop computer hooked to a Logitech USB microphone ($14) and a software package titled Media Wizard (CDH Productions, $50) to record my voice. I also used Media Wizard to mix-in the music. Although I have some radio experience from my days as an announcer at WPRB Princeton, this was my first digital recording.
Posted by Kevin at 08:01 AM | Comments (0)
April 04, 2005
Help from Podcasting News
Here are two articles from Podcasting News that will show you how to (a) get podcasts onto your iPod or other mp3 player automatically or (b) create your own podcast.
Posted by Evan Schaeffer at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)
April 03, 2005
New Blawgcasters: Get Registered in the iPodder Directory
Everyone who podcasts should make sure their show is registered in the iPodder.org directory, which is the master directory that's used by almost every other podcast directory. Blawgcasts should be listed in the "law" node of the directory.
To get your blawgcast listed there, visit the law node and click on the "suggest a link" section in the lower right. This will take you to a form that, after it's filled out, will generate an e-mail for the law-node editor, Aldo Castaneda. After reviewing your submission, Aldo will get back to you, probably very quickly.
Questions about the procedure? Send an e-mail to me or Kevin, and we'll explain further.
Posted by Evan Schaeffer at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2005
Kevin Heller: What's your blawgcast setup?
Don't laugh.
It's a 30gb iPod photo with griffin iTalk attachment, my Dell desktop, itunes and audacity.
Posted by Kevin at 03:21 AM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2005
Bret Fausett: What's your podcast setup?
Bret Fausett of Lextext and Internet Pro Radio kindly responds to to the question: What's your blawgcast setup?
You can see Bret's setup here; wine glass optional.
Posted by Kevin at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2005
J. Craig Williams: What's your podcast setup?
Podcaster and videocaster J. Craig Williams of May It Please The Court offers his seriously detailed blawgcast setup....
Kevin,
My podcasting setup is very simple and designed more than anything else to accommodate recording from different locations. In the simplicity, however, lies the beauty. I use a set of Altec-Lansing AHS-302 computer, behind-the-neck headphones/microphone that can be purchased for under $25.
I use this headphone/microphone set because it's foldable and easily transportable, plus Altec-Lansing produces a high-quality product. I use Audacity shareware with a Lame MP3 plug-in to record the podcasts. I record the podcast typically on my Motion Computing Tablet computer because it's the most portable and versatile. As long as I have an internet connection, I can upload the podcast to May It Please The Court in a manner of minutes.
That's it, plain and simple. Podcasting for under 25 bucks (excluding, of course, the computer necessary for the recording). While I'd love to have Evan's set-up, and I understand the value of it, I don't have the luxury of a studio to broadcast from every time I podcast. I frequently post from work, home, on vacation, while traveling and even remote locations.
Now, for the hard part. While in high school, I started broadcasting training. I obtained my 3rd Class FCC license in order to broadcast on radio, which I did throughout high school and college. Admittedly, what I was doing was at first nothing more than small, 3-watt 88.1 FM broadcasting, but I held down a steady daily show during the week while a teenager. I also broadcast on our high school closed-circuit television station at the start of each school day. No great shakes, but it was a start.
Then, in college I locally-hosted a public radio show called "All Things Considered" and did some NPR pieces along with more news anchor work for a local public TV station. Ultimately I landed a commercial radio job while still in school. I worked at a small AM / FM radio station in Virginia, and broadcast news, weather and sports on the FM side, and did nightly and weekend music (radio disc jockey) shows on the AM side. All during that time, I had voice coaching from my teachers and professors, and then when working commercially, required professional voice training. My undergraduate major was in Radio, TV, Film and Journalism, and I got plenty of practice.
I've since kept my finger in radio and TV, and podcasting gave me the opportunity to get back into it more fully, and do something I really enjoy. I still practice - reading each page of the front section (top right to lower left) of the newspaper out loud, with a voice coach listening and critiquing my speech.
That said, I'm not a professional by any stretch of the imagination, I haven't jazzed up my podcasts with bumper music, and I don't alter my voice with an equalizer, brightener or any other available electronic means. It's not that I don't want to - I do - and I recognize that my podcasts would sound much better for it. But from what my listeners have said, keeping it simple keeps it interesting.
You may know that I also videocast blog entries. I call it vlawgging or recording a vlawg, since it's a bit more than a vlog. My setup for the video is similarly simple, with just a couple of expensive parts. I use Serious Magic's Visual Communicator 2 to record my vlawgs. It's great software because it has a teleprompter feature, you can see a video of what you're recording while you're recording it, and it has green screen effects. That combination of features makes it look more professional than it really is.
For lighting, I the standard set up - hair light (overhead, pointing down), back lights, side lights, front box lights and up lights. It gets hot when it's all turned on. My lighting system is not at all of the quality you'd find in a television or photography studio. The lights are inexpensive construction lights on stands from Home Depot (http://www.homedepot.com), together with some daylight bulbs to soften the light a bit. I've also got some standard video lights for the minor side and up lights.
My teleprompter set up is ingeniously simple: it's my Tablet computer in its dock, a mirror with a flexible arm that clamps in position in front of the Tablet to "flip" the text into the teleprompter glass, which then reads "right side up" when I look "through it" at the camera. That way, I can read the text that's reflected on the teleprompter glass by the mirror as it's scrolling on the software, all the while recording the video on the Tablet computer for easy upload. The teleprompter glass is from Edmund Optics and was the most expensive piece. It's held in place at a 45-degree angle by clamps and flexible arms that can be purchased from any professional camera store. That way, I look directly into the camera instead of off to the side. I built a small teleprompter box out of dowels to keep the shadows down.
The camera is an Logitech Quickcam for Notebooks Pro. I also use a Panasonic D-Snap SVAV100 for clips while on the road. If you're thinking about videocasting, stick with the webcam if you're going to use Visual Communicator. The software communicates much better with a webcam than a video camera, although with some extra effort, you can import video clips.
I'm doing this podcasting and videocasting by myself on a moderate budget, and I don't have what I'm used to at my fingertips anymore. It would be great to have a recording studio with the high-quality equipment to podcast, and I'd love to get back into a television studio again to record video. I have to remember that MIPTC is on the internet, not the airwaves.
But I practice law full-time, and podcasting and videocasting take a back seat to my practice. I'll have to rely on listeners and viewers to tell me if they think I need to make wholesale improvements in my equipment before that investment will be made. Likewise, viewers and listeners can suggest improvements in both my audio and video recording - I'm always open for suggestions, and willing to make changes.
By the way, MIPTC has enabled audio comments - anyone can call 206-338-3088, so anyone can talk on MIPTC. Call in an let me know - I'll post your audio comments on May It Please The Court.
The tough part, however, is space on the server. Podcasts and videocasts take up a huge amount of space (see this post) - we're now out of room. Once MIPTC relocates to a bigger server with much more space available, podcasting and videocasting will begin again. I expect to be back up and running within the next two weeks.
Thanks,
Craig
Posted by Kevin at 07:20 AM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2005
Jeremy Richey: What's your podcast setup?
Jeremy Richey of Jeremy Richey's Blawg responds to the question: What's your blawgcast setup?
The Hardware: My Dell laptop.
The Software: I record and edit my regular podcasts with Audacity. I use Slapcast to record interviews, but then I edit them with Audacity.
The Audio Components: I use a microphone I bought at Wal-Mart. If memory serves me correctly, it cost around $10. I plug it into my laptop's microphone jack, open up Audacity, and then record until my heart is content.
The Technique: I start by writing a script. I then record the
script. Next, I re-record the parts of the podcast that turn out poorly. I then splice together the best of what I have. Finally, I add the background sounds and sound effects.
Thanks Jeremy!
Posted by Kevin at 01:28 AM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2005
Evan Schaeffer: What's your blawgcast setup?
Part I in a series.
Evan Schaeffer of Notes from the (Legal) Underground has eagerly responded to my inquiry: What's your podcasting setup?
Kevin: Sure, I'm interested, although my set-up is strange. Here it is---
The Hardware: Long before podcasting, I had a basic sound studio I used for recording music. I've been using that same equipment for making podcasts, while recognizing that it's complete overkill and seems to be getting in the way of getting the sound exactly right
As described below in "technique," I begin by recording my voice with a Tascam 788 digital recorder; I then burn the resulting wav file to a CD; finally, I move the CD with its rough voice recording to an HP Pavilion 7965 into which I installed a Yamaha SW100XG sound card.
The Software: I use a number of programs for podcasts that I originally purchased to record music. These include CoolEdit Pro, Acid Pro 3.0, Sonar 4 Producer and Studio Edition, and T-Racks 24 mastering software.
The Audio Components: I record my voice with an Rode NT1000 microphone running into an Applied Research and Technology MPStudio pre-amp, then into the previously-mentioned Tascam 788 digital recorder. I monitor the sound by running the Tascam "monitor out" to a Yamaha RX396 receiver using Samson RH600 headphones.
The Technique: After recording my voice onto the Tascam 788, the wav recording is then burned onto a CD with a Tascam CD-RW788 CD burner. I then move over to the computer and rip the voice track from the CD using a freeware program. Then I import the resulting wav file into CoolEdit and use it to cut out the dead space. I also used CoolEdit for noise reduction, compression and to add reverb. From there, I add music and other sounds to the basic voice track by importing the edited rough voice track into either Acid Pro 3.0 or Sonar 4 Producer-and-Studio Edition. Both are multi-tracking platforms that make it easy to manipulate many various tracks of sound.
The music I add to my podcasts is in the form of Acid Loops, purchased loops, or music that I write and perform myself. If I'm performing myself, I play the music on a Casio digital piano, which is hooked into the computer through a USB connection; the sounds can be manipulated in a number of ways in Sonar using MIDI, soundfonts, "soft synths," or other software solutions.
When the production sounds right within Acid or Sonar, I render it to another wav file, then run the wav file through T-Racks 24 mastering software. This results in still another wav file that I convert to MP3 using MusicMatch.
Evan
Posted by Kevin at 08:27 AM | Comments (0)