Allow Enough Editing Time

If you want to create valuable podcasts, you’ll probably have to spend some time in editing. This is the part of podcast production that most newcomers don’t budget for. You will need to mix in all of your acualities (field interviews, etc.) along with your music beds, intros, outros, promos and any other audio or visual asset you’re planning to add to your podcast. You will also want to consider cleaning up flubs, stuttering, “ahs” and “ums” that are recorded by the announcers.

Let’s say you want to do a 20-minute show. In my experience, you should budget at least three times that long for editing and more time if its your first show or you haven’t built a basic audio template or are not familiar with your editing software.

Beyond my own experience, it looks like other podcasters are spending significant time editing. Podcast Alley recently conducted a poll of podcast producers. While it’s hardly scientific, the results are believable to me. 40% of the podcasters responding to the poll said they spend between two to four hours editing each show.

So don’t forget to allow time for editing – this might change your desire to do a daily show into a weekly show quicker than you thought.

Monitor Your Mix

One of the things that newbie podcasters often ask me is how should they monitor their mix. They usually want to know if they should use studio reference monitors or headphones. If you’re a podcaster, and that’s primarily the only way you will distribute your recordings, I believe you should monitor your mix on headphones.

Here’s why. Your audience is primarily listening on headphones.

One of the first rules I learned about recording was to mix using the speakers your audience will use. Back in the day, when I did radio production for AM radio stations, I mixed for a six-watt, mono AM car radio speaker. It had no bass whatsoever and sounded bad but it represented most of the car speakers in the real world. If I had mixed using a high-end fully balanced pro audio system, the people listening in their cars wouldn’t have liked the result. And since that was where my audience was, I had to meet them there.

Today, the iPod earbud or similar headphone is the presumed listening device for 75 percent of the audience, so mixing in a pair of reference headphones makes sense.

Remember that when you listen to your mix, you want something that is totally neutral. Don’t buy headphones designed for club DJs or that enhance bass. You want what we call a “flat” headphone.

For years, I have relied on the AKG K240 studio model headphones. They are about $100, have a replacable cord and are pretty neutral. It would be hard to spend $100 and get a really neutral set of reference monitor speakers for your studio so the headphones also happen to be an economical choice.

Remember, when mixing, or doing anything else related to your podcast, think of your audience first. That will always get you further down the road to success than anything else you can think of.

Here’s The Biznik Podcast From April 25, 2006

You can download the iTunes Version at:

http://www.podcastingtricks.com/biznikeventpodcast.m4a

or the mp3 file at:

http://www.podcastingtricks.com/biznikeventpodcast.mp3

How Can Your Business Use Podcasting Part 1

I am often asked how business can take advantage of podcasting. In a series of very short blurbs I will toss out some ideas. Let’s start with training…

Suppose your company is going to roll out a new product. You can use a podcast to bring your staff up to speed on the product using interviews with designers, engineers and marketers working on the project. You can even use video, graphics and pictures to support the podcast. Place the podcast into an RSS feed and keep track of who subscribed and make sure everyone who needs to, at least gets the chance to see and hear the training session.

How about HR? Do you have a new health plan. Instead of trying to drag everyone into the home office for a meeting, just make a podcast.

Even marketing communications teams are using podcasts. Press releases that contain pre-packaged audio interviews with company principals are starting to show up.

Think about all the inward and outbound communications at your company. Chances are, there’s something there that podcasting could replace or enhance.

Podcasting Goes Mainstream

BearStearns

Bear Stearns Introduces “BearCast(TM)” Podcasting Technology, Offers Investors Research on the Go

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–April 27, 2006–Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. today introduced BearCast(TM), a mobile platform that uses podcasting technology to deliver Bear Stearns content on-demand to clients. BearCast(TM) captures Bear Stearns conference calls, proprietary research and special events in downloadable audio files for busy investors to listen to anywhere.

“BearCast(TM) is content in motion, putting Bear Stearns research right in your pocket, available whenever you want it,” said Kay Booth, senior managing director and Director of Global Equity Research. “Clients have been seeking new ways to access information from Bear Stearns; this new service gives them added flexibility in how they get our full range of unique, grass-roots research. It marries our firm’s research content with the vast array of portable devices now available.”

Dan Spina, senior managing director and head of Fixed Income Research, said, “Bear Stearns is committed to giving our clients unique insight on the markets in a timely and effective way. BearCast(TM) will enable investors to get industry knowledge on the fly, whenever they have time to get up to speed.”

Bear Stearns’ Equities and Fixed Income departments provide highly ranked research on public companies, the mortgage and asset-backed industries, as well as the credit sectors.

Through BearCast(TM), clients will have convenient access to Bear Stearns’ many premier industry conferences, daily conference calls with analysts and other exclusive BearCast(TM) content. Audio files on the BearCast(TM) site will often be accompanied by slides and other printed research. The files can be downloaded directly from the company’s website, BearStearns.com, to a computer or portable MP3 player such as an iPod(R). Clients also have the option of subscribing to audio updates.

College Uses Podcasts To Spread Information

http://www.berkeley.edu/

The University of California, Berkeley today announced “Berkeley on iTunes U,” a free service offering a growing number of video and audio course lecture recordings available both on and off campus. “This reinforces the digital bridge to our students, alumni and the world, and allows us to explore new distribution channels,” Obadiah Greenberg said, product manager for webcast.berkeley.edu. “It also allows UC Berkeley to broaden what we make available, including video podcasts and other digital material.” Courses are fully available to the public without password protection, marking the first time a school has offered all of its “coursecasting” content to the public, according to UCBerkeleyNews. “As a public university, UC Berkeley has a tradition of openness,” Greenberg said. “It really speaks to our motto — ‘Fiat Lux,’ Let there be light.” UC Berkeley joins Stanford University, the University of Michigan’s Dental School, Oregon State University, and numerous other schools that already signed similar deals with Apple.

Apple Updates GarageBand

Apple releases GarageBand 3.02 update

Apple today posted GarageBand 3.0.2, which addresses issues with video handling, podcast exporting, and importing QuickTime markers. It also addresses a number of other minor issues. The update is 30MB and available via the Web and the software update. GarageBand is Apple’s consumer audio editing software that is bundled with iDVD, iWeb, iMovie, and iPhoto in iLife ‘06, which is available for $79 or free with all new Macs.