/Culture/ Masterclass: the perfect podcast
14/11/2007 | Filed under Discover > Culture
Podcasting: everybody’s doing it, but not everybody’s doing it well. Gary Marshall discovers how to make the perfect podcast, and how to make the world pay attention
People have been sticking sound files on the internet for years, but when Apple added podcast support to iTunes in 2005, podcasting hit the mainstream. There are now thousands of podcasts to choose from, covering every conceivable subject, and many of them are as good as (or better than) many big-budget radio shows. Inevitably, many of them are terrible efforts that sound as if they were recorded in a bucket. So, how do you ensure that your podcast shines?
The most successful podcasts have a clear focus. For example, Boagworld is aimed at the people in charge of company websites, Engines of Creation is by web designers for web designers, and The Mac Guys is a mix of Mac news, reviews and tips.
New music
Paul Langevin is CEO of Engines of Creation: “The primary reason Dan La Bate and I started the podcast was to give something back to the web development community,” he says. “We wanted to provide designers and developers with a useful resource that was entertaining as well as informative for designers and developers of all skill levels. We also wanted to provide clients and prospective clients with an insight into [our firm] and the industry as a whole.”
With The Mac Guys, David Brightbill wanted to do more than just share his Mac expertise. “One of my agendas is to encourage people to appreciate independent, unlicensed music,” he says. “It’s my personal response to all the foolishness around the commercial music industry.” To that end, Brightbill showcases an independent artist’s track in each episode, bringing it to the attention of people who may not otherwise seek out new music. The podcast has also generated work for Brightbill’s consulting firm, and he sees it as a way for potential clients to suss him out. There are other benefits, too: “I’ve met some nice people, including some outstanding musicians, by doing the podcast,” he says. “My music collection has really grown! I’ve [also] made a tiny bit of advertising and referral revenue from the websites associated with the podcast.”
The word “tiny” crops up again and again when podcasters talk about money. Podcasts may be popular, but they’re not making anyone rich. They are, however, raising awareness – so Engines of Creation get web work, The Mac Guys get consulting jobs and Boagworld has resulted in a book deal.
People power
If you’re recording a solo podcast, all you need is a microphone and a computer, and you can get excellent results with a cheap USB headset microphone. However, more ambitious podcasts use more ambitious kit. David Brightbill uses a condenser microphone on a boom stand and runs it into an 8-channel Behringer mixer, which in turn hooks up to his PowerBook. When he’s out and about, he uses a dynamic microphone and an iRiver MP3 player/recorder. Engines of Creation have twin Audio- Technica microphones behind pop screens, and once again, the mics are connected to the computer via a multi-channel mixer. Mixers do two key things: they provide power to high-end microphones, and they enable you to adjust the volume and tone of each mic before or during recording.
Both set-ups are ideal for studio or office-based recording, but what if you want to do group podcasts involving people from all over the place? Such podcasts can add variety and provide extra insight, but they raise some logistical issues, too. Group discussions usually happen via internet telephony, and the most popular platform is Skype. Skype is free, cross-platform and supports group chat, but it isn’t problem-free. As we’ve discovered with the .net podcast, Skype can suffer badly from latency (audio delays) and poor sound quality, and it’s not uncommon for one or more people to lose their Skype connection during chat for no good reason.
There’s nothing you can do about network congestion on the internet, but you can improve things at your PC. Shut down unnecessary programs – particularly internet-enabled ones – so that Skype gets all of your available bandwidth; use a quality headset rather than a cheap mic; and use speakers that minimise echo and unpleasant audio feedback. And if you’re connecting via Wi-Fi, move around until you’ve got a full-strength signal. If the sound quality’s still appalling, try disconnecting and reconnecting.
Actually, recording the discussions is simple enough, as Paul Boag explains: “I use Audio Hijack Pro to capture all the audio passing through Skype,” he says. “As well as capturing the audio, it enables me to feed other audio sources into the Skype conversation. For example, I can play back audio questions from listeners in real time rather than editing them in postproduction. From there, I take the raw recording into GarageBand, where I edit it all together.”
Keeping it focused
Group discussions raise other potential problems. Managing a group discussion can be like herding cats, with some guests offering monosyllabic answers, or suffering from shyness while others dominate the discussion. Conversations can veer wildly off-topic, often into areas that could get you sued, and Skype dropouts or lost trains of thought can mean you end up with a lot of repetition.
The combination of planning and editing can make your life easier. You don’t need to create a full script for your podcast, but some form of structure makes a big difference, not least when it comes to creating the show notes that many listeners expect. “When we first started out, I used only basic notes,” says Boag. “But as the show grew in popularity, I started to get requests for a more complete transcript. At that point, I switched approach. Now I blog on as much of the show as possible in advance and use that as a script.”
“Originally we scripted everything, but that lasted about three episodes,” says Paul Langevin. “The recordings were a little stiff. We now do an obscene amount of research on our topic and create bullet points on what we want to cover and how we’re going to structure it in our show.”
The Mac Guys started life as a total ramble cast, according to Brightbill. “Recent shows,” he says, “are a lot more scripted. I try to start out with an idea – either a news item, some new fact or tip/trick I’ve come across, or the answer to a listener question. I write at least an outline of what I plan to talk about.”
Keep a close eye on the time. Even basic editing takes ages, but chopping a two-hour chat down to a 15-minute podcast is something only masochists should attempt. And if the conversation is dragging, don’t be scared to move on to another topic. To keep the conversation flowing, remember the old interviewers’ trick of asking open instead of closed questions (“Do you agree?”). Delicate handling of your guests can make a difference too, so if one guest is going on a bit and someone else is keeping schtum, a well-timed “excellent points there, Dave. What do you think, Rachel?” intervention can pay dividends. And if it’s all going horribly wrong, stop, take a second and try again. As Paul Boag points out, “you can always edit it together later.”
He doesn’t think you should worry about libel, either. “It’s not like a live radio show,” he says. If someone says something appalling, you can lose it in the edit. “To be honest, my biggest concern is making a fool of myself by screwing up an obvious fact,” he says. “That’s something I’ve done a few times already.”
Close to the edit
Editing software can make the difference between a poor podcast and a polished one. It gets rid of the obviously annoying stuff – the first few minutes of “hello”, “I love your work”, “can you turn your microphone up?” and other pre-show chatter; the five-minute delay mid-discussion when Skype drops out and everyone reconnects, or the really libellous bit about Steve Jobs. But you can also excise conversational dead-ends and even verbal tics such as the inevitable “ums” and “ahs” we all suffer from. It’s easy, too. Removing a bit of audio is just a matter of highlighting it with the mouse and hitting the delete key. Be careful, though – you might delete something and change your mind later. If your software doesn’t have an unlimited undo function, we strongly recommend making a backup of your sound file and working on the copy rather than the original.
If your chosen software enables you to copy and paste audio from one file to another (most do) or play multiple audio tracks simultaneously, you can add music or even sound effects, although such effects are rarely a good idea. You can’t put a Muse track on your podcast without paying the record industry for the privilege, but there are stacks of pod-safe songs available on sites such as PodsafeAudio or ccMixter. Pod-safe tracks are songs whose creators have specifically said “sure, play our tunes”, and you can use them provided you give the creators a credit. You won’t find any household names offering pod-safe music, but while most pod-safe acts don’t have record deals, the standard is surprisingly high.
Once you’ve edited your audio, you can make it sound better. Many audio programs include tools that you can use to polish the overall sound by removing unnecessary clicks or pops, boosting the volume and applying an equaliser to boost or cut particular frequencies. One of the best tools is called compression, and it’s widely used in radio: it essentially squeezes the audio file to make it sound as loud as possible by limiting the volume of the loudest bits and raising the volume of the quietest bits. It’s particularly good for Skype-based podcasts, where audio levels tend to be all over the place, but like most audio tricks, it’s best used with restraint. You know those adverts that seem to be 40 times louder than the programmes they interrupt? That’s compression taken too far.
Many podcasters start out with the open source Audacity, though it isn’t without its own problems. “Audacity has proven to be a tad buggy for our tastes,” says Langevin. “Our future episodes will be recorded either with Adobe’s Audition or Soundbooth CS3.”
Paul Boag is another podcaster who’s left the open source application Audacity behind. While he says it’s “extremely good”, he does actually prefer Apple’s GarageBand: “The compressor in GarageBand is much better,” he says. “It enables me to make sure everybody’s audio levels are roughly the same. The only annoying thing about it is that it won’t save out directly as an MP3 file, so I have a final step, which is to export it to iTunes.”
David Brightbill is another GarageBand user. “I mainly use GarageBand to build the podcast – I’m interested in Logic or Logic Express, but I don’t have the time to learn it just now,” he says. He also uses Audacity and the GizmoProject recorder, which is for telephone interviews.
No matter what software you use, it pays to be paranoid. “The biggest lesson I have learned is to save as often as possible while recording,” Langevin says. “If that means you have to stop and save and then start a new track, so be it. With the exception of IE6, there’s nothing more horrifying than recording for 45 minutes and having the system or software crash – losing it all.”
