You’ve spent hours fiddling with the content, the script, the actual recording, and editing out all of your “um”s and “er”s from the recording. You’re ready to load your podcast for the whole world to hear.
Until…
Until you find out that your podcast has topped the 100MB milestone and your server is freaking out screaming, NO! Please, NO!
Your file is too big. What now?
Well, just as there are 100 ways to record your podcast, so there are at least 100 ways to get it out to your adoring public. Some are easier/better than others. I’m not going to be comprehensive here; that would create the longest post in the history of blogging. Instead, I’m going to give you some basic options that should help you manage your workflow.
You Start Before Recording a Sound
It can seem like a really great idea to just sit down with your computer and record your thoughts/wisdom/recipes/fan fiction/political views/whatever off the top of your head. Let me be clear on this point.
This is always a bad idea. Always.
Unless you’re … um … I don’t know, Oprah. I suppose her random ramblings might be interesting to people, but then again, she’s too much of a professional to be that dumb.
Just trust me on this. You need to plan ahead. Before you start recording.
And yes, this will help to keep the size of your podcast file manageable. Why? Because you are learning here that the ideal length for a podcast is somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes. Yup. That’s all.
Now if you’re working up teaching materials for a class you’re creating, that’s a different matter. And that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’ll write a post on creating teaching materials from an audio perspective another time.
If you know your podcast is going to be between 20 and 30 minutes in length, you can plan out your clock for the recording. Here’s an example of how you might do it.
Introduction – (0:30 to 1:00) in which you say who you are, why you’re here, and briefly what you’ll be covering in the podcast
Topic 1 – (5:00) Your first topic of interest.
Topic 2 -( 5:00) Your second topic – perhaps an interview with someone relevant to the topic of your podcast.
Mid-point interlude – (0:30 to 1:00) A musical interlude or advertisements if you have them – and you can create advertisements for your blog or personal business if your podcast doesn’t have advertising revenue.
Topic 3 – (5:00) Your third topic.
Topic 4 – (5:00) Obviously your fourth topic … perhaps another interview? You could even do the second half of the interview you started in Topic 2.
Wrap-up – (2:00) In which you thank your guest(s) and your audience and perhaps give a preview of the next scheduled podcast.
Outro – (up to 2:00) Music, adverts, “where to find us on the web” sorts of information.
Then you make sure to stick to this clock’s schedule. By doing this, you force yourself to not ramble (thus boring your audience), as well as to be focused in the items/topics you wish to discuss. There are many ways to tweak this sort of schedule, but it is a good framework when you’re getting going.
Creating this sort of framework for your podcast helps you to be organized, focused, and generally sound like you know what you’re doing from a content perspective.
Recording
Next you go to the recording stage of things. The ideal here is to make sure there’s enough room on your hard drive to record your source sound at a high quality (a “high bit rate”). You want the raw sound to be as good as you’re capable of making it, because when you compress it later for distribution as a mp3, any imperfections in the source file will be accentuated. The fewer imperfections, the better the quality of your compressed mp3 file.
If you’re using a Mac, you can record with freebie software like GarageBand or Audacity. If you’re willing to spend a few dollars, I recommend Audio Hijack Pro.
If you’re on Windows, you can record with Audacity. Honestly, unless you want to move into the multi-thousand-dollar pro software, Audacity should do just fine for you if you’re on Windows. Plus, it’s free. Bonus.
Record your file in AIFF or Apple Lossless (for Mac) or WAV files (for Windows) at 24-bit and 44.1kHz (16-bit is fine too, but if you can pull off 24-bit, that’s good).
Editing
Do a “save as” and create a copy of your high-quality source file. Edit your copy. This is the place in which you can add effects if you want (please be sparing!) and get rid of the “um”s that you created in the source file.
This is also the time in which you can edit in your interviews that you’ve recorded separately, as well as those musical interludes.
One thing to consider is to record each segment of your podcast as a separate file, joining them together in the editing process. This gives you smaller files to deal with as you edit, which is simpler.
Compressing
Now that you have this wonderfully clean and shiny edited high-quality file, it’s time to prepare it for launch into the wide world.
It’s actually quite simple. In whichever software you’re using, export it as a mp3. (With GarageBand, you can do this as an import function going into iTunes. Just set the import settings in iTunes before you start the import.)
However you do it, you should end up with an mp3 file that is no larger than 40 (or so) MB. Yes, this is still a big file, but these files were never meant for emailing.
Releasing your Podcast into the Wild
You can distribute your podcast in an almost limitless number of venues. Of course there’s iTunes, which everyone knows. Do a bit of research and you’ll find the right venues for your podcast. Yes, I made “venues” plural on purpose. Your audience will best find your fantabulous podcast if you give them multiple venues through which to find you.
An option is to host your podcast on your blog. This will mean that you have hosting for your blog on server space that you pay for. Make sure that you have lots of server space on your hosting plan to ensure that your podcast can grow and grow in the coming years.
If you’re using WordPress as your blogging platform, there’s a lovely plugin called PowerPress for podcasts. It seems to work quite well, and has the bonus of having a highly-responsive creative team behind it that will actually answer if you tweet in their general direction.
Wrapping Up
That’s really all there is to it. And believe me, the most effective means of controlling the size of your podcast starts before you’ve recorded a single word. While you may have really large subjects to cover, there’s no reason you can’t organize your podcasts in such a way as to break it into multiple podcasts.
My thanks to @asiriusgeek for asking this question. Let me know if I’ve answered the question adequately, and what other questions are out there for you.
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I have audacity, but because I use a headset mic I bought for gaming, it comes up mono (Left side) instead of stereo. I don’t know how to create mP3 files with it but I figure that’s my fault for not playing around with it enough to learn that yet. Do you think I’ll need a better mic or might it be something else?
Hi Steve! Thanks for commenting.
Let’s start with the mono issue. Audacity is clever enough to fix this for you. Just record your signal as mono. Get it edited as you want it to be. Then:
1. On the Project Menu, click “New Track”
2. Go back to the track that has your audio in it and select it.
3. Go to Edit -> Select -> All
4. While you have your track selected, go back to Edit -> Duplicate (this should create a new copy of the track you selected)
5. Go back to your original track and click the little drop down arrow next to the words Audio Track (top left of track frame) and click Make Stereo Track
Voila! You have a stereo recording from your mono track!
Now as to your headset mic …
The answer quite honestly is “it depends.” Yeah, I hate that answer too. But it is the truth in this case.
The quality of the microphone you use depends upon what you want to achieve, as well as what the level of quality you’re able to get right now out of the gear you have. Can you point me to a sample of your audio? I’d be happy to listen to it and give you my opinion.
Let me know if this helps.
Wow!! That was such a thorough and valuable post on podcasting. You answered so many of my questions so simply! Thank you very much.
You’re welcome, Todd! And I’m sorry that I still owe you an email. I will respond, promise.
Christy, YOU ROCK!! I’m an old fart trying to learn new tricks so this is mostly an attempt to learn things before they are needed. I don’t have a sample anywhere on-line since I have mainly been using audacity to make my own subliminal reprogramming recordings. The mic seems to work well enough and you answered my question better than I had hoped possible. I only hope that someday I’ll be able to direct some business your way. Thanks again.
Thanks so much for the time breakdown. I haven’t yet started my podcast, and this will be such a big help in my planning.