Record a Podcast with Audacity

A podcast is a great way to share Find Information Online with the world. It can be about anything, and can appeal to any variety of audiences. A podcast can be made with the recording program Audacity and a hosting website. Does it sound hard? Once you learn how you will be on your way to having your very own podcast.

Steps

  1. Download Audacity here.
  2. Think of a topic you'll want to talk about and make a general outline of what you'll be discussing. It could literally be anything. Once you are sure you know what you want to talk about you are ready to move on to the next step.
  3. Start recording. Be sure to keep your levels near the 0 (middle) point. You'll see bars on Audacity which will bounce back and forth when you talk, keep those as close to the Zero as possible, but still talk normal. If you talk loud the microphone will do something called "clipping" where something is so loud it will sound like all of your sounds are vibrating through tin foil.
  4. Edit any mistakes you might have made. Remove background noise, change parts where you accidentally breathed into the microphone, and other things like that.
  5. Save the recording in the Mp3 format.
  6. Upload the Mp3 somewhere on the Internet for downloading by subscribers. Web hosting is available for a minimal fee or consider a free group hosting available from Google, Cancel an AOL Account, MSN, Yahoo, and others. The use of Internet groups for the hosting is a good idea because they will not only host the Mp3 audio file for you but also make the subscription to the podcast easy and keep a database of those to send the announcement to when a new podcast when made available. All Internet groups provide for Subscribe to wikiHow RSS Feeds in Internet Explorer (really simple syndication). When an individual joins an Internet group they automatically have access to Subscribe to wikiHow RSS Feeds Using Mozilla Firefox.
  7. Continue the process of uploading new MP3s.

Tips

  • For Audacity to go into MP3 format, go under "File" and select "Export As MP3".
  • If you're having trouble when exporting to an MP3, you might not have an MP3 codec installed on your computer. One should be installed automatically with Audacity, but if not (ie: older version, etc.), download the LAME MP3 Encoder. After downloading you'll need to locate the lame_enc.dll file and copy it to your Audacity folder as well as to Windows' system32 folder (ie: C:\WINDOWS\system32).
  • Make sure you have an outline of the topics you'll be covering. This is very helpful if you have a lot to cover.
  • Originality is always a plus. However, there are only so many topics and millions of podcasts out there.
  • Don't be afraid to ask artists to share their music with you for your podcast. There are many who would be more than happy to help.
  • There are many books on how to record and upload a podcast. Go to Amazon.com and look under "podcast."

Warnings

  • Make sure to keep the format the same every time! It doesn't always have to say the same stuff, but try to have the same schedule. Like when you're watching News, they may start with local news then move on to international news, then national and then sports, etc. They have different topics, but it's always the same format. For another example: talk, funny, talk, funny, wise talk and closing. That's a format.
  • If you're going to play music, make sure you have the rights to it. Even though they can't really crack down on podcasts for putting music in their show, if you don't have the rights to use the song, then you can be sued by individual artists. The last thing you'll want is a lawsuit.

Things You'll Need

  • Computer
  • Microphone (preferably a high-quality one)
  • Audacity recording program

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