You must have a lot of free time…

How do you get it all done?

These are just a couple examples of the questions and comments that I get here and there throughout the average week. I thought I’d take a moment and address it and tell you a little about how I do 5 podcasts, a webcomic and blog nearly every day and still hold down a job, be a husband and super-involved father of two.

It doesn’t take up as much time as you think.

I do 5 podcasts… and that sounds like it must take forever… but not as much as you might think. From the very beginning I created the shows to be easy to produce and over the years I’ve worked very hard to simplify and streamline the entire process.

I created shows that require very little pre-show prep. The show with the most prep required is Nobody’s Listening and that’s only because there are a ton of email and voicemails that have to be read and added to the show notes. Geek Loves Nerd is super easy as we just pick a topic during the week and just sit and record. Children’s Ministry Monthly is similar in that I just choose a topic and write a few notes of my experiences with the subject and that’s about it. The Gospel of Kennison is recorded in the car on the way to somewhere with a portable audio recorder. I Like Genius’s pre-show prep is all done via emails randomly through the week as I try to get interviews with interesting and creative people.

As for recording, all of the shows, with the exception of GOK, are between 45-60 mins. Add about 15 minutes to that and the front and the back for setup and such and we’re at an hour and a half per show.

Post-production used to take me forever. I once recorded each voice on different tracks and remixed them… it took hours. Now it’s super simple. Everything is recorded in real time down to a single stereo track. Live to hard drive as they say. After we’re done recording I typically only have to trim and dead air off the front and end of the show, Hard Limit and Normalize it, encode it to MP3, upload it and post it. The whole process maybe takes 30 minutes these days.

I do most of it early and late.

I blog in the early morning during breakfast. I record podcasts late at night. Nobody cares what I do with my spare time after the kids are in bed at 9pm. So from 9:30 to 12… it’s my time. Jenn and I record GLN on Monday nights. Tuesday nights are NLCast. I Like Genius are done randomly throughout the week… but typically on Thursday or Friday evenings. GOK is whenever I’m in the car. CMMonthly is once a month on a Sunday evening. No time has been taken away from my family, chores or other responsibilities. The webcomic is done on Sunday evenings… takes about an hour.

So the tricks and tips? The KISS principal comes into play. If you going to do a lot of podcasting and blogging… Keep It Simple Stupid!

I use GoDaddy.com for hosting and domain registration. In my experience they are the cheapest and best for my purposes. You can save yourself some money (and help out the show) by using our codes.

I use WordPress for the website itself. WordPress is an excellent, free and easy to learn blogging platform that allows you to install themes that change the look and feel of your site instantly without changing the content itself. GoDaddy hosting makes installing WordPress simple by doing it for you.

The WordPress theme I use currently is a modified version of a premium theme called Simplista by WP Now. They liked what I did with the site so much, they asked to feature it in their Showcase.

I use a lot of plug-ins for WordPress. Plug-ins are free and easy to install. They add additional features to your WordPress blog that do not exist in the base platform. Here’s a list of what I use:

• Akismet – Checks comments for spam.
• All in One SEO Pack – Search Engine Optimization plug-in.
• Audio Player – Mp3 Player.
• Blubrry PowerPress – Adds excellent podcasting support to WordPress.
• Clean Archives Reloaded – Javascript-enhanced post archive list generator.
• Contact Form 7 – A contact form plugin. Simple and flexible.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Generates a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of the blog.
• IntenseDebate – Comment enhancement plugin.
• Lightbox 2 – Overlays linked to images in the current page rather than loading in a new page.
• Mail From – Changes the default address that WordPress uses to send automated emails.
• Redirection – Manages 301 redirects.
• Shockingly Simple Favicon – Simple way to add a favicon to your site.
• Simple:Press Forum – An excellent WordPress forum plugin.
• Simple Feed Copyright – Adds a copyright notice at the end of full text articles in your feed.
• To Do List – Adds a to-do list to your WP dashboard.
• WordPress.com Stats – Tracks views, post/page views, etc.
• WordPress Mobile Edition – Redirects mobile visitors to a mobile phone friendly version of the site.
• WP-Optimize – Keeps the database clean.
• WP-PageNavi – Adds an advanced paging navigation structure.
• WP-Polls – Adds an AJAX polling system to WP.
• WP Greet Box – Shows a different message to visitors depending on which site they came in from.
• WP Post Thumbnail – Enables you to crop and save thumbnail images without manually adding custom fields.
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Adds a list of related posts to the end of a blog entry.

If you have questions about How I Podcast, you can visit the Podcast Resources category for a list of articles that will help you get started.

Do you have any great WordPress themes or plugins to share? Post them in the comments!

Check it out!

9. Jokes that only the hosts get… not even regular listeners.

8. Um… (dead air) um… ah. Ummmm.

7. Hosts talking about technical glitches forever.

6. Hosts that talk like they’re bored out of their mind. Why should I care if you don’t?

5. Shows with no discernable format between episodes.

4. Shows that go on for over an hour, but have the content of a 15-30 minute show.

3. Hosts that talk to people off mic that aren’t in the show. It’s so fun hearing one side of a conversation!

2. When the host sounds like he’s recording in the middle of a echo chamber standing about 10 feet from the mic.

1. Heavy breathing and mouth noises… like smacking. *shiver*

That’s all I got.

What I Use

Recording & Mixing Software

• Adobe Audition 3.0 – To record, mix podcasts
• SoundByte – Computerized cart system to play music and stingers in real-time
• Levelator – It’s not a compressor, normalizer or limiter although it contains all three. It’s much more than those tools, and it’s much simpler to use.
• WinLame – To encode wav to mp3
• ID3 Tag Writer
• Skype – Internet phone service for recording off-site co-hosts

Graphics Software

• Photoshop
• Picnik.com – Online image editor

Hardware

• Self-built Desktop Computer dual-booting Vista and XP (XP for recording)
• 2nd Dell Laptop (older lappy to get on the Internet and run Skype)
• Alesis Multi Mix 8 Firewire – External sound card & mixer
• Large Diaphragm Condenser Mic
• Headphones
• Plosive Filters

Web Hosting & Software

• Libsyn – Media Hosting
• GoDaddy – Domain Registration and Web Hosting
• Self-Hosted WordPress – Free blogging platform
• Blubrry PowerPress – Plugin for WordPress that generates a podcast RSS feed and puts a player on your website
• Ustream.tv – Live video feed so listeners can watch the show as it is being recorded.

How I Do It

Skype Recording Setup

I use two computers: A laptop running Skype and a desktop recording with Audition. I run the Skype-top’s audio output into a channel on the mixer where it is recorded on it’s own track in Audition. Then I run a main mix minus the co-hosts tracks back into the mic (line—in) of the Skype-top (see illustration). If I send them the main mix (that I hear) the subtle delay that Skype has will result in the co-hosts hearing themselves up to a full second after they spoke. So I send them the main mix, minus their own voices. This is called a mix-minus.

My condenser mic is plugged into the mixer’s first channel. A second mic goes into input two. Input three has the output from the Skype-top. Input seven is the output from my recoding machine to pick up sound effects and voicemails.

In Audition I record using the Multi-track View. I record using three tracks. Track one records me. Track two records my co-hosts on Skype. Track three records the computer (track 7 from the mixer). I might mention that since I use a Firewire Mixer which acts as a separate soundcard for the recording computer, I’m able to use SoundByte to play bumpers and voicemails using the computers native soundcard which is what goes into track seven on the mixer.

Live Video Stream

Ustream makes streaming your show a simple and cheap (free) feature for your listeners. Basically all I do is run a main mix off the mixer with a 1/4” cable into the mic input of a laptop. This laptop also has a webcam. I login to Ustream and begin broadcasting. I set things so that the video comes from the cam, but the audio comes from the line-in (mic) input. Listeners get to hear everything we hear.

Mixing

Since I record all of the sounds for my show in real time to different tracks, my first step is to adjust the volume levels between my vocal track and the skype track. I mix them down to a mono file and save that file. I open up Levelator and run the new mixed vocal track through it and then pull it back into Audition replacing the original vocal tracks in the multi track edit view.

Then I pull up the volume of the music track. If the track recorded to low, I’ll import the original music clips and overlay the music track then mute it. This gives the music a first generation sound and eliminates any background noise a third track would normally add.

Then I import the voicemails that weren’t played in the show and place them at the end. I often try to improve the volume of these tracks so listeners don’t have to turn up or down their players. I do this by looking at the waveform to see where most of the waves are peakiing. I run a Hard Limit to bring all of the waves to that level then Normalize to –1.

The important thing to note before we mix down our session is to make sure all of your various wavforms (voicemails, your voice track, music, sound effects, etc.) sound (in your ears) the same volume. In the past I used to look at the peaks of the wav files or the levels of the volume sliders but none of that matters if your ear is telling you something is louder than it should be.

After I’ve got everything right, I mix down all the wav files to a stereo wavform. If you’re not using a lot of music, you might want to mix to mono. You’ll just be doubling the size of your mp3 for no reason.

I run a Hard Limit at –4 then Normalize to –1. I save the wav as a 16 bit stereo wav file.

Encoding

I encode it using the default settings for High Quality using WinLame (to convert the file from wav to mp3). Then pull it into ID3 Tag Writer and give it a Title, Artist, Album, Comments and Art (300×300 album image). It also has a setting to change the filename based on the track, title and album. It’s best if you have a consistent way of naming your tracks and files.

Posting

I use Filezilla and upload my mp3 to Libsyn. Libsyn has a built in blog that you can use to publish your shows. It will also generate your feed that you can submit to iTunes. I chose to host my website and feed under my own url. I suggest you do the same.

In Libsyn under the Media Files tab I select my new episode, right click on the ‘direct download’ link in the left sidebar, and copy the link. Then in WordPress write a new post and add that link to the Powerpress portion of your post. Powerpress will automatically detect the length and size of your file… so once you paste that url, publish that post!

I then pull up iTunes and download my own show…. just to make sure everything went up correctly.

Conclusion

Every podcast producer will have their own way of doing things, and eventually you will to… but this is how I do it. My hope is that this will shave some time off of our learning curve. If you have any questions not answered here, post a comment or email me and I’ll see if I can help.

I’ve been hinting about a new project for a little while now… and today’s the day to let the world know!

CleanCasts is a directory dedicated to listing clean podcasts (G and PG)… and that’s about it.

If you’re a listener, head over and check out the growing list of shows and be sure to tell your favorite clean podcast so they can get listed.

If you’re a podcaster with a G or PG rated show, head over and add your site today!

CleanCasts.com

HUGE THANKS go out to Philip M. Hofer (Frumph) from WebComicPlanet.com for his amazing coding skill and willingness to give.

blu121 – 10% off all products

pod121 – 10% off hosting

podsave121 – $5 off orders $30 or more

podname121 – Domains for just 7.49

Save yourself a little cash the next time you register a domain or need hosting… you’ll be helping yourself and your favorite podcast!

There are approximately 20 million podcasts available for download across the world. Most of them are probably crap. For many, that’s okay. They just want the experience of doing a podcast, they don’t really care about the listener. But for many of us, though we don’t have the greatest equipment and resources, we want to sound like we do. Since we’re poor and ill-equipped we have to find more creative ways (read: cheaper) to pull off that professional air we’re going for. Here are a few tips that I give when someone asks me how to help their podcast stand out from the crowd.

Open Strong

Intros are typically music, often layered with sound effects and a voice over… but that’s not what I’m talking about. The moment your intro stops playing, you need to be able to support that same energy with just your voice. I despise shows that have an excellent intro theme (“You’re about to hear the BEST podcast in the world”) but then it drops out to a horribly quiet, timid or unprepared host (“Um, hi. I’m Stan. Um. I don’t want, um, listeners”).

Scripting your opening will help. That means you’re writing out what you’re going to say, and saying it consistently to open every show. The script should include your show’s title, a tagline, introducing the host, co-hosts and/or guests. Some folks add a pre-cap (in post production) letting the listeners know what they can expect to hear. Your opening is for your new listeners. So script it with them in mind.

Don’t Say Everything That Comes To Mind

Don’t discuss pre-show technical mistakes. Stay focused on your topic. Don’t have conversations live that you should have had before the show. Don’t let distractions during the recording be distracting. Remember to talk to the listener. That will help you describe things as you would to someone over the phone rather than the way you would to someone in the same room. When you discuss things they can’t see, it’s frustrating.

Inside jokes between hosts are also frustrating for the listener. If something interrupts the flow and forces you to hit stop, edit it out later rather than coming back in and spending 5 minutes explaining the break. Throw in a sound effect and keep going if you can’t make it seamless.

Work On Mic Placement and Technique

Most of us don’t have fancy limiters and compressors. It’s just a cheap USB mic (if even that) and a volume slider. The important thing then is to keep voice volumes consistent by keeping heads a consistent distance from the mic. This is especially important if you’re recording two or more people with a single mic. Everyone should sit the same distance from the mic… and should sit still!

One thing you can do (for free) to improve your vocals is to run them through Levelator. This is a free app that does wonderful things to your spoken audio. If one of your hosts is quieter, Levelator will fix that. It’s pretty amazing.

Have Content Worth Listening To

No matter what topic you cover on your show, there are thousands like it out there already. What are you going to bring to your listeners that sets it apart? Don’t spend the whole time laughing at one another. That makes the listener feel like they’re outside of your group. That’s the exact opposite of what you want them to feel. Write out show notes outlining what you want to talk about… and stick to it. Consider dividing your show into segments. Do them in the same order every show. People like consistency.

Consistent Audio Levels

If your opening music is louder than your voices, it will irritate your listeners. The listener sets their volume by the opening volume so try to make them “sound” the same volume.

Long As Necessary, Short As Possible

There is no podcast on the face of the earth than needs to be longer than an hour. As you record keep track of the time. Figure out how long you want to spend on the topics in your notes and mark them. If you’re doing a 15 minute show, keep it constantly to 15 minutes. An hour show? Keep it to an hour. Time limits will help you keep on topic and stay interesting. I used to keep a digital kitchen timer next to my computer to help me.

How can I forward my dynamically generated feed (http://mysite.com/?feed=podcast) to Feedburner using .htaccess?

I’m no code genius, and if someone finds a better way, please let me know… but here’s what worked for me.

# Add the part of your url that is after the quesion mark between the ^ and the $
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^feed=podcast$
# This line stays untouched. It keeps FeedBurner from doing an infinite loop
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !FeedBurner
# This line sends the match from the Query String to the new feed. The ? at the end drops the feed=podcast part
RewriteRule ^$ http://feedproxy.google.com/yoursite? [R,L]

Hope it works for you! I have no help for you if it doesn’t. Sorry.

Last year I wrote an article about How I Podcast using Skype. I even updated it once. I have some new equipment and my co-host is in the studio (read: basement) with me. I do things a little differently now. This is how someone might do podcasting when both hosts are in the same space.

Hardware

Laptop:
Using an older Dell laptop. Nothing fancy… just has a lot of USB ports.

Mics: MXL V63M Studio Condenser, MXL 990 Condenser

Mixer: Behringer XENYX 1002FX

Compressor: Alesis NanoCompressor – Out of Production!

USB Interface: M-Audio MobilePre USB

Headphones: AKG M 70 Headphones

Software

Recording: Audition 1.5 – I know they’ve got a version 3 out… but it’s what I’m used to and I’ve never seen a reason to upgrade. I almost didn’t stop using Cool Edit Pro!

Sound Effect Player: Sound Byte – Sound Byte, put simply, is a way to play sound effects, segment intros, bumpers and voice mails with the lick of a button. It fills you screen (or smaller if you wish) with columns of buttons. You can assign any sound file to any of the buttons.

Software Compressor: CN Levelator – Drag and drop your vocals and watch this simple free software do it’s magic. Until I master the use of my in-line compressor, I always pass my audio through this. It’s not good for music.

ID3 Tag Writer: iTunes – Not only is it needed to publish your podcast, I’ve found that it’s also the perfect ID3 tag writer. I import my final mp3 into iTunes and using the Info window, fill in all of the episode information and even add the artwork. I have iTunes set to manage my music library and have given it permission to change my file names. [source]

The Setup

The diagram below should explain it. Basically you just follow the path of the audio from your face to the recording laptop. Mics plug into the first and second channel on the mixer with XLR cables. The mixer sends a signal to my headphones and another signal to the compressor via two short stereo 1/4 inch instrument cables. The compressed audio leaves the compressor and into the USB interface via two short stereo 1/4 instrument cables. The USB interface pipes the audio into the recording laptop as a stereo signal. The audio from the laptop follows the same path once it gets to the mixer.

The Method

I mix all of my audio in real time. The audio from the laptop and the audio from the mics are all mixed down to one stereo signal which is recorded by the laptop. That means my levels have to be right. I can’t blast out the listener with the music then have the vocals sound low by comparison. I also need to make sure both hosts sound like they’re the same volume.

Mixing in real time is a risk. There is not nearly as much room for error. You can’t go back and raise the volume of one of the hosts if it’s off. You can’t delete a cough on one of the vocal tracks without deleting both. This is an acceptable risk to me. The post-production of a podcast can easily take 3 times as long as the original recording. I have my post-production work down to around 30-45 minutes from end of show to live on the feed.

Since the laptop receives one stereo signal from the USB interface, I simply set Audition to record that signal from the Maudio in the wav form view. Multi-track recoding is possible with my setup (isolating the left and right channels to different tracks with the lappy audio as a third recording from the lappy’s own soundcard) but recoding just the one track means I can use an older machine.

I use my cart program to insert all of the bumpers, intros, voice mails and outtros, in real time, as we record the show. We do pause several times to save the recording.

When we’re done, I add any additional audio (voicemails at the end, sponsor messages to the front) in the multi-track view. This gets mixed down to a new stereo file. I add 7 seconds of silence to the end of the file (because my iPod was chopping off the ends of my shows) and save it once as a wav and once as an mp3.

That mp3 is opened in iTunes. I have iTunes set to copy all audio into it’s own folders and to change the filenames based on the information I enter. I use iTunes to write my id3 tags and add the episode artwork. When I’m done the audio file is renamed and ready to be uploaded.

I use the free FTP program, Filezilla to upload my audio to Libsyn.

I write a new post in Wordpress and using the Podpress plugin, add the new audio to my feed. I go back to iTunes to check that my audio is downloading properly. Then I’m done!

Conclusion

I hope this article has helped you understand how I podcast. As I said in my previous article, this is not THE way to podcast… but it’s how I do it.

If you’re planning to start your own show you may find value in one of my other articles in the Podcast Resources category.

Though I think the title says it all, I’d like to dedicate this list to everyone who is interested in starting their own podcast. I had a lot of help when I started my first… and I’ve come a long way since then. I hope these resources help cut your learning curve down a bit! God bless your efforts!

Podcast Production

Adobe Audition – I’ve used Audition since it was called Cool Edit Pro. I still use Audition 1.5 because it’s what I’m used to and I’ve never seen the need to upgrade. I use this program for all of my recording, editing, mixing and mp3 conversion needs.

iTunes – Not only is it needed to publish your podcast, I’ve found that it’s also the perfect ID3 tag writer. I import my final mp3 into iTunes and using the Info window, fill in all of the episode information and even add the artwork. I have iTunes set to manage my music library and have given it permission to change my file names.

Skype – It is universally accepted that Skype is the best way to podcast with a co-host when you can’t be in the same room. I have used it with guest-hosts from across the country and around the world. The trick with using Skype successfully is understanding that your sound quality is directly connected with the amount of bandwidth available for Skype to use. When recording stop all downloads, video streams and IM clients… otherwise your co-host will sound like a robot.

Sound Byte Computerized Cart System – Sound Byte, put simply, is a way to play sound effects, segment intros, bumpers and voicemails with the lick of a button. It fills you screen (or smaller if you wish) with columns of buttons. You can assign any sound file to any of the buttons.

Feedburner - I wish Google had owned this service back when I started Nobody’s Listening. Feedburner takes your existing podcast feed and makes it easier to use for your listeners. It also offers download stats. It’s greatest benefit to podcasters, in my opinion, is that if your real feed ever changes (maybe you change hosting services or get you own url) you are able to tell Feedburner where your new feed is, but your subscribers will never notice a difference. For podcasters, your feed is you life… and it is a sensitive beast. Feedburner will prove invaluable to you. Did I mention it’s all free?

Levelator – A super simple, super awesome way to get the most out of your vocals.

Graphics

Picnik – This is a great online service that I use to quickly resize, crop, recolor and otherwise modify photos for my (almost) daily posts. Even though I own some pretty hefty graphics programs (Corel, Adobe) you can’t beat the speed of this online utility.

Flickr – I use Flickr for all of my personal and hobby photos. It’s great for podcasters because you can create groups that any of your listeners can contribute to. I also use it to host my online graphics portfolio.

Google Images – Though you have to be careful if you care about what you see, there is no easer way to find a quick image to compliment your post. Save it to your computer, upload it to Picnik and you’re set!

Corel Draw, Corel Photopaint – I’ve used Corel Draw since version 3. Although I believe Photoshop to be superior to Photopaint, it’s what I’m used to. I create all of the logos, icons, and podcast episode art using these products.

Hosting

Wordpress - I use Wordpress for all of my podcast websites. It’s simple, powerful, versatile and with the huge amount of free themes and plug-ins, it’s also invaluable.

GoDaddy Domains & Hosting – Maybe I don’t register a domain every week, but when I do, I use GoDaddy. You can’t beat the price and the amount of control you have over your own url. You can get your own .com domain for under $10 a year. Who can’t afford that? I also host all of my podcasts with GoDaddy. I spend under $5 a month for my site. GoDaddy also will install many online tools such as WordPress and SMF through a great online interface.

Libsyn – Liberated Syndication is the best place on the web to host you podcast media files. There are a lot of hosts out there that combine web and media hosting, but if you’ll split them, as I have, you’ll save a fortune. Libsyn offers plans starting at just $5. They have unlimited bandwidth so your shows will always be available. They also keep your media archived so every episode will always be downloadable as well. The only limit is on the amount of media you can upload in a single month. I currently use their $20 plan.

Google Adsense – I have a love-hate relationship with Adsense. I hate some of the junk that gets advertised on my site… but I love that they send me a check every time I earn $100 bucks! The trick with Adsense is staying with it. My whole first year I only earned $9 because I was constantly giving up and changing my mind. Once I got past the first 9 months or so I started getting ‘real’ ads for things like TV shows and movie releases. Those are more likely to get clicked on. So if you’re in, stay in it for the long haul.

Google Analytics – Remember back when we all put web counters on our GeoCities pages? Never again! With Analytics you drop a little bit of code in the footer of your Wordpress template and it tracks an amazing amount of information about how your site is being used by your visitors. I love knowing which posts are most popular, what part of the world my site is being accessed from, what keywords people are using to find me, and who’s linking to my show… and it’s free.

Simple Machine’s Forums – Lots of themes, lots of plug-ins, lots of control. There are a ton of forum programs out there… this is the one I use.

Podpress – This is a required plug-in for every podcaster using Wordpress. It makes feed generation and publishing a breeze. Love it, love it, love it.

Online Apps

Gmail - I love me some Gmail. I’ve been using it since 2005 or so. If you’ve never used it, you truly owe it to yourself to give it a month or so. Threaded conversations alone is something I will never be able to be without again. The feature that has the most value for podcasters is the Filtering options. Gmail instantly scans all of my incoming mail and tags it with one or more labels based on the content, title, sender or intended recipient. When you have a contest, for instance, tell your listeners to put a certain phrase in the subject line and then tell Gmail to label it automatically. Then come show time, just click that label and instantly see every entry. Gmail also offers excellent spam filtering!

Google Docs – Can you tell I’m a Google Fan-boy yet? I keep all of my shownotes online and shared with my co-hosts. At anytime I can update the file online and my co-hosts instantly see the changes. When I have a guest, I simply email them a copy right from the site.

Google Calendar – I have several calendars. One for work, family and my podcast. I keep track of guest-hosts, show dates and show sponsors with Google Calendar. You can also share the Calendar with your listeners by linking it from your site, or even embed it right into a page.
Grand Central – I use Grand Central for my show’s voice mail needs. Grand Central gives you a phone number (usually in your local calling area) that you can give out on your website and show. It emails you whenever you get a new message. It allows you to label your callers, block any number, or even customize your greetings for individual callers or groups. In the past I’ve used GC to take live calls on the show. Just allow GC to ring through to your cellphone, put it on speaker and hold it to the mic. Bingo! Instant call-ins and nobody knows your real number. Again, free.

FolderShare (Windows Live) - I use a laptop and a home computer. FolderShare is an excellent and free way to keep multiple folders in perfect sync between computers. I sync my graphics and my documents. If I’m working on my home computer and need to go out, when I pull up the lappy, the file I was working on is right there waiting. Excellent and simple.

JAMStudio.com – An excellent online flash-based midi sequencing program. The music for Geek Loves Nerd and several of the later recap songs was created for free using JAMStudio.com.

ning.com - Ning allows you to create your very own myspace-style community. Users can create profiles, add friends, upload photos, music and videos and more.

Wetpaint – Create your own easy to set-up, easy to use wiki for your listeners. Here’s ours.

Blubrry.com – A great online community for podcasters. They provide a lot of free tools and work to find and offer advertising sponsorships for their members.

Google Reader - I read a lot of blogs, but that’s not why Google Reader made it on this list. Reader allows you to scour the web for any mention of your name, podcast, articles you’ve written or people who have linked to you… and what they said when they did. For more information read this article on reasons to have a Vanity Folder. I do.

ustream.tv - A great quality place to share your live recording sessions with your listeners.

Stickam.com – A not so great place to share your live recording sessions with your listeners… but I’ve had less problems using stickam in the past than with ustream. If you have a younger audience, go with stickam.

Frapper Maps – It’s a Google map where your listeners can stick in a pin and let you (and others) know where they’re listening from. It’s a blast!

YouTube - Not just a great place to watch videos. I use YouTube to post occasional videos that will interest my listeners. I’ve also found that many of the hot internet songs can be found in video form long before you see them pop-up anywhere else. Lastly, there’s a lot of great videos to watch and then share with your listeners.
MySpace – Hate it. Need it. I can’t say I’ve gotten a lot of listeners from MySpace… but I can’t tell you I haven’t either. I have a profile just for the show. I’ve got a lot of friends. More than you.

Facebook – I don’t really ‘get’ facebook, but I don’t hate it. Podcasters can never do enough social networking. Get one for your show and set Gmail to delete all incoming mail from them… except friend requests.

Merchandise

Busy Beaver Button Co – A great place to get quality buttons on the cheap!

Sticker Junkie - Horrible website. Makes my eyes ache… but if you want to get cheap stickers for your podcast, there’s no better place on the webbernets.

Launchy – An awesome tool that will allow you to launch any program with just a few keystrokes, rather than having to drill down in your start menu. I literally use this hundreds of times a day.

Online Resources

Freesound – A wonderful place to mine for free sound effects… if you don’t mind digging around you can pretty much find just about anything you might ever hope you might find. Hopefully.

FindSounds.com – Another great place to find free sound effects.

Podsafe Music Network – Music for your show that you don’t have to pay for. Need I say more?

Podcast Themes – A good amount of free music themes for podcasts. For a fee the author will make you your own customized theme.

Solostream.com – Where I purchased my first (and current) Wordpress theme.

mypictr – This website will allow you to upload a photo and custom crop it’s size to fit all of the most popular social networks.

Filezilla -The perfect free FTP that I use to upload my media files every week.

Firefox – The best web browser in the world. Tabbed browsing, plug-ins galore. This is the browser for podcasters and bloggers alike.

Google Browser Sync – A Firefox plug-in that allows you to switch computers but keep your bookmarks, history, cookies and even your tabs in perfect sync. It’s great.

Foxmarks – A Firefox plug-in that will keep your bookmarks backed up online and even sync them between multiple browsers.

Gmail Manager – A Firefox plug-in that can track multiple Gmail accounts and lets you switch between them instantly. I used this a lot before I decided to use one Gmail account to rule them all.

Twitter – I have my phone set to be able to text updates to Twitter. I use it to remember weekly updates. I’ve been twittering more and more lately. I use it to update folks about new podcasts, blog articles, interesting bits of info and more. This results in followers… which hopefully results in more listeners!

Musicians Friend – Where I’ve purchased every bit of my podcast equipment. You can see my podcast setup here.

Podcast Pickle – The premier online podcasting community. I don’t know how many listeners use it, but it is defiantly a hot spot of activity for networking with other podcasters.

k7 Free Voicemail Service – Go to the website and reserve your own number instantly. Then call, hit *, enter your pin and customize your greeting. The service emails your listener’s calls as small wav files that you can add to your show in post production.

Have any of your own that I didn’t list here? Share them in the comments!

“Should I keep my podcast files on my website?”

“How can I upload my podcast to iTunes?”

These are questions I get asked a lot in both the NLCast Forums and via email. I thought I’d write an article that I can direct people to later. This article assumes you’ve already got a nice little mp3 file complete with id3 tags, album art and all. If you need pointers on recording your show, read How I Podcast.

So you’ve gone and recorded yourself a podcast. Good for you! Really! Now you know how much work they are. But how do you get this mp3 online for folks to start downloading? How do you generate a feed? How can you get this sucker on iTunes? Well, this may not be THE way to do it. But this is how I did.

Hosting

The first step is to upload your file somewhere. I suggest LibSyn because they’re cheap and give you unlimited bandwidth. And that’s the trick with podcasts… it’s not the size of the file, it’s the amount of times that file is downloaded. LibSyn doesn’t limit the amount of times your file can be downloaded. They only limit the amount of data you can upload each month. For $5 a month you get 100MB of space. That’s enough for a weekly 30-minute mixed talk-music program. Before you think this is just sales pitch for LibSyn, it’s not. They are the best at what they do and I’ve been very happy. I think you will be too.

It’s important to separate your website hosting and media hosting. Again, it’s all about bandwidth. I’ve priced several ‘combo’ hosting plans that include both web and media, and they’re much more expensive than doing the separately. I host my site at GoDaddy for about $4 a month. Try to beat that anywhere.

If you need to keep your podcast free, I’d suggest MyPodcast.com. They give you unlimited uploads, unlimited bandwidth, a blog for your show notes and even software to record your podcast. I haven’t used them personally, but they seem to offer a lot for a free service. It’s free because they plug ads into your podcast. If that bothers you, pay a few bucks and go with LibSyn and GoDaddy.

Feed Generation

Once you’ve got your podcast uploaded, you’ve got to generate an RSS Feed. This feed is basically a list of all of the media available on your site. People will be able to ‘subscribe’ to your feed, (either directly with a reader or more commonly in iTunes) and will be automatically updated when new episodes of your show are available.

I use WordPress to run my website/blog. I use a WordPress plug-in called PodPress to generate my feed. Visit the PodPress site for more information and tutorials.

LibSyn will provide a small blog with every hosting plan that you can post your shows to. It automatically generates your feed for you.

Important: If you cannot afford your own domain (ie: yourpodcast.com); If you use any form of free hosting, either for your blog, feed or media hosting; do yourself a huge favor and run your feed through Feedburner! Feedburner is a great free service from Google that takes your existing feed and enhances it. It adds a lot of great features including stats. The real benefit of using Feedburner is that if you ever change your hosting plan, you’d normally your feed would change… and you lose all your subscribers. If you use Feedburner and change your hosting plan, you just change the feed that Feedburner is ‘burning’ but your Feedburner feed address never changes. Therefore you keep your subscribers. The very best thing is to ‘own’ your own feed (ie: yourpodcast.com/podcast.xml) but if you can’t, use Feedburner!

After you’ve generated your feed you need to make sure it’s valid (working). Go to Feedvalidator.org and enter your RSS Feed. If it gives you any errors, do your best to fix them. But as long as it says you have a valid feed, you’re ready to move into distributing your feed out to the masses.

Submitting to iTunes (and other places)

iTunes does not host your files, your feed or anything for that matter. They simply list your feed in their database for people to find. To submit your feed, launch iTunes and go to the Store. Click on Podcasts in the left menu. Halfway down the page find the Submit A Podcast button. Enter your RSS Feed and click continue. (Note: You will need an iTunes account to submit your feed.) Once you’re done iTunes should start listing your podcast within a week. They’ll email you and let you know.

There are literally dozens of other places to submit your feed and it wouldn’t hurt to use them all. Here’s a list of a few places I have submitted my feed to: podcastpickle.com, blubrry.com, podcastalley.com, odeo.com, digg.com.

General Feed Tips

Make sure you list your feed on your website/blog as well. It is the way most of your listeners will receive your podcast.

You don’t have to understand the feed for it is a strange creature. But protect the feed. Tread lightly on the feed. Own love feed. It is your lifeline. If you jack it up, you will lose subscribers.

If you have further questions, visit the Podcast How-To board in our forums.

As Nobody’s Listening Podcast creeps up on its one year anniversary (woot!) I can’t help but look back at my podlife in 2007. I’ve gotten acquainted with a lot of great people. Many of which have been inspired to experiment with starting their own show. It’s been one of the most gratifying parts of podcasting being able to inspire others the way Scott and Micheal did me.

I’ve compiled a five tips I find myself giving (or wishing I had given) folks who are looking to start a podcast as a hobby. Hope they help you!

6 Tips For Starting A Hobby Podcast

1. Keep it simple. Especially if you’re pressed for time in real life. Prepping for a podcast can take more time than doing the podcast. Simplicity should also be the rule of every other aspect of your show. The website should be clean and simple. Don’t bog it down with ads, forums, etc. Forums are embarrassing until you have a following.

2. Educate yourself. To podcast you need to know computers, the internet, recording, compression, encoding, uploading, creating rss feeds, blogging and networking. (How To Podcast, Podcasting Step-by-Step, How I Podcast)

3. Do it for free. You can always upgrade everything to do with your show later. But you’ll never get your money back if you can’t keep your show going. The only think you may want to spend money on is a URL. Make sure the one you want is available for the name you have chosen and reserve it. Even if you don’t use it or only use it for a while, it’s only $8 a year. (Hosting/Blog – Switchpod, URL – GoDaddy, Recording – Audacity)

4. Use feedburner. It has great stats and let you know when people are listening even when they don’t talk to you (via email and vmail). As a podfriend once said, “Podcasting can be lonely” and he’s right. Feedburner will help you know they’re out there listening. Plus if you ever have to move your hosting, change your ‘real’ feed in anyway, you can just update what feedburner is pointing to and your subscribers will never know the difference. (Feedburner)

5. Start strong. When you release your first episode, don’t spend the whole show talking about what your show will be about. Make your first show what the show will be. When that show is ready to release, post that feed everywhere! Post it to iTunes, Podcast Pickle and every other list you can get on (but don’t ever pay to do so). Also, have a good name and a logo to begin with on a 300×300 graphic for iTunes. (iTunes, Podcast Pickle, Other places)

6. Be consistent. Monthly, bi-weekly, weekly, three times a week… whatever it is release regularly on the same day about the same time. That will mean reserving a recording time ahead of time. If you don’t put it on your calender, and get permission from family to spend the time, you will not release a consistent show. It’s okay for a hobby podcast to miss a week here and there… just let people know the week before.

I hope you find these tips helpful. If I can ever answer any questions for you, don’t hesitate to contact me. If you’d like to know how I do my show, read How I Podcast.

The How I Podcast post from August 23rd has been rewritten to reflect my new methods. This article has been a great resource for me to refer folks who are interested in starting their podcast. With these updates, I hope to help even more folks shave a few months off their own learning curve and not have to struggle through it as I did.

How I Podcast

If you or someone you know would like a business card or pretty much anything else designed, drop me a line at nobodyslisteningtous@gmail.com via drawyouapicture.com. I’ll do just about anything for just $65 bucks!

So what do you think about the card? See those cool rounded corners?

Some of our listeners, and even a few of our guest-hosts, have asked how we do what we do. I finally figured out that I needed to create a post that I can refer them to rather than giving very short email responses that don’t really help anyone.

First, the mandatory disclaimer. This is not THE way to do it… it’s just how I do it. It works for me. If you have a better way, please let me know.

Second, thanks to Michael Murloc (formerly of The Weekly Murloc) and Scott Johnson (of ExtraLife Radio) for all their help. Michael shaved three months off my learning curve and Scott’s emails helped me tremendously when we had to shift to being a Skype-cast. Also thanks to my bud Vance who turned me on to the whole iPod, iTunes, podcasting thing to begin with.

What I Use

Recording & Mixing Software
Adobe Audition 2.0 (to record, mix podcasts)
SoundByte (computerized cart system to play segments and stingers in realtime)
WinLame (to encode wav to mp3)
iTunes (to write id3 tags)
Skype (when co-host is not in the same room)

Graphics Software
Corel Draw & PhotoPaint (to create weekly custom graphics)

Hardware
Dell Inspiron 1720 Laptop
2nd Dell Laptop (just enough power to get on the Internet and run Skype)
M-Audio Mobile Pre USB (external sound card & mixer)
$50 Condenser Mic
Headphones
Plosive Filter
Cheap $17 headset w/mic (in case I’m not in my office studio)

Web Hosting & Software
Libsyn (to host my podcasts) Literally the best & cheapest place to host your media files. Basic service costs $5 a month. Unlimited bandwidth.
GoDaddy (url registration, hosting) $8 per year for your url (or less with promo codes). $3.99 a month hosting. Can’t beat it.
WordPress (awesome blogging software) If you host with GoDaddy, they have a free service that installs it automatically.
PodPress (plugin for WordPress that generates feeds and puts a player on your website)

How I Do It

Solo Recording
I just plug in the m-audio box and using my mic and record using Audition. In emergences I’ll use my cheap headset mic plugged directly into the mic input on the laptop.

Skype Recording
This is a bit more complicated. I use two laptops. One just runs Skype. The other runs and records with Audition. Skype-top’s output (headphone jack) is plugged into the M-Audio box as Input 2. My Condenser mic is plugged into the M-Audio box as Input 1. In Audition I recored using the Multi-track View. Track one is set to record the left channel from the M-Audio box (my vocals). Track two is set to record the right channel (skype). Track three is set to recored off the laptop’s soundcard. I can then set seperate volume levels for each track. The guest-host(s) hear me through a regular old computer mic attached to the skype computer. Since SoundByte plays through the recording laptop’s soundcard, whatever I play is recorded to track three, and also plays through the laptop’s speakers and can be heard to my guest-hosts as well.

Mixing
First step is to remove any background noise. Of course it’s best not to have any… but no matter how quiet it is where you’re recording, and especially if you’re using Skype, there’s going to be at least some soundcard noise on your track. The trick is to select just a bit of ’silence’ off your track. I find a spot where both tracks are quiet, then use Auditions Noise Reduction filter to take out that noise. Be careful with this. If you have a lot of background noise, your voice will begin to sound like a robot. I do this for each of the vocal tracks.

I then adjust the volume of each track in Multi-Track view. Using the volume bar on each waveform I can tweak the levels even further. I typically pull down the volume of the vocal tracks when I play stingers and bumpers. If I have any voicemails I didn’t have time for or promos to play, I’ll drop them in at this point and adjust their volume individually.

The important thing to note before we mix down our session is to make sure all of your various wavforms (voicemails, your voice track, music, sound effects, etc.) sound (in your ears) the same volume. In the past I used to look at the peaks of the wav files or the levels of the volume sliders but none of that matters if your ear is telling you something is louder than it should be.

After I’ve got everything right, I mix down all the wav files to a stereo wavform. If you’re not using a lot of music, you might want to mix to mono. You’ll just be doubling the size of your mp3 for no reason. I look at my wavform. Are the peaks of the wavform about the same all across? Are there any obvious parts that look to loud or to quiet. I check them in my ear to make sure. If they’re wrong, go back and fix the levels and mix it down again. Early on I would repeat this step several times before I got it right.

Now it’s time to squeeze as much volume out of our audio as possible. Normalize the wavform to -1 db. Then you need to run Dynamics Processing on your wavform. What this does is limit the distance between your quietest points and loudest points in your wavform. I use one of Adobe’s presets (-12 db). The end result is you have a wavform that folks aren’t turning up on the quiet times and turning down when your voice is loud. Then I use I use Hard Limiting to bring the total overall volume to -.5 db. I add 10 seconds of silence to the end if the file and save it as a new wav.

Encoding
I then launch WinLame and encode the wav file into an mp3. I use the default WinLame encoder. I use the Portable preset. I have it set to save the mp3 in the same directory I had my wav file in. Easy to find that way.

After it encodes, I find the new mp3 file in Explorer, right click and select Open in iTunes. I right click on the file in iTunes and select Info. This is where I fill out the Episode, Podcast Title, Author, Year, Notes, and the individual graphics I do for each show (you can just use one if you’d like). When you click OK, iTunes writes id3 tags to your mp3.

Uploading
Right click on your mp3 in iTunes and select ‘Show in Windows Explorer’. That way you’re sure to upload the file you just modified. I then launch Filezilla and upload my mp3 to Libsyn.

Libsyn has a built in blog that you can use to publish your shows. It will also generate your feed that you can submit to iTunes. I chose to host my website and feed under my own url. I suggest you do the same. That way no matter how many times you switch hosting servers, your feed will always be the same (ie: www.yourdomain.com/feed=podcast).

In Libsyn under the Media Files tab I select my new episode, right click on the ‘direct download’ link in the left sidebar, and copy the link. Then in WordPress write a new post and add that link to the PodPress portion of your post. There are several other settings like Title, file size and the length of your podcast. Check the PodPress website for more info. When you’re done, post that sucker!

I then go back to iTunes and refresh my podcasts to make sure my latest show downloads from the feed. I listen to a bit, check the artwork, titles, spelling, etc. If every thing’s good… I’m all done!

Conclusion
I know for a fact that I haven’t answered every question. But this article will definitely shave some time off your learning curve. If you have any questions not answered here, post a comment or email me and I’ll add it in.

I know there are a lot of our listeners who are interested in starting their own podcast. I found this link to over 70 tools interesteing.

Podcasting Toolbox: 70+ Podcasting Tools and Resources - via Lifehacker