Podcasts Procedures
GarageBand 3 – April 2006 In its simplest form, a podcast is an audio file that can be shared and played on a computer or other media player. Its name is derived from Apple’s ubiquitous iPod, but it is not necessary to have an iPod to create or listen to a podcast. In its most convenient form, however, a podcast can be delivered automatically to your computer, perhaps into iTunes, and transferred to your iPod for listening at a time you choose. Podcasts are like radio shows that can be recorded for later listening. The basic steps to create a podcast are: 1. Record your voice using GarageBand™. For best quality, it is recommended that you use an external microphone, although it is certainly possible to use the builtin microphone on your computer. 2. Add music/sound effects and mix the music and your recorded voice together. 3. Export the finished product to iTunes. 4. Use iTunes to convert the podcast to mp3, the standard file format used on the Internet. GarageBand does not have a function for direct export to mp3, so that is why you use the intermediate export to iTunes. 5. Link the file to your website or blog. Optional: GarageBand 3 has a special podcast track into which you can place photos and other images to create an “enhanced” podcast. This type of podcast should not be sent to iTunes to be converted to an mp3. You may export it directly to your Sites folder and use your Planner to link to it. GarageBand exports the enhanced podcast as an m4a file which is not compatible with Windows computers. If you want to be able to view your enhanced podcast from a Windows computer, you will need technical assistance to convert it to a mp4. A true podcast would be linked from an RSS enabled web page (e.g., a Blog) so that people could “subscribe” to it and have subsequent editions automatically downloaded to their computer. Detailed Steps for an Audio Podcast 1) Launch Garageband. Like the other iLife software, GarageBand will automatically open the previous project, so use File/close, if necessary, to bring up the screen below and select “New Podcast Episode.”
2) GarageBand requests that you name and save the project. The default location is the Music/GarageBand folder on the hard drive. Similar to iMovie projects, it is important to save to the hard drive, not to your server folder. Creating and saving the project to your server folder doesn’t work very well because of the wireless speed limitations when recording sound. Special Sound Settings for Your Project 3) The sound quality of the final product will be significantly enhanced if you: a. connect an external microphone to the laptop. b. open the Apple/System Preferences/Sound control, select the USB microphone and increase the input volume.
c. open the GarageBand preferences and tell GarageBand that you are using the external USB microphone (AK5370 as shown below).
4) The Export settings should also be optimized for a podcast as shown below.
5) The voice track in GarageBand defaults to stereo. On most audio setups, this means your voice will end up in either the left or right channel---which may be fine for an interview, but not so great when it’s just you. To avoid this problem, click the voice track and choose Track/Show Track Info. In the Input pop-up menu, choose Channel 1 (mono) to put your voice front and center. Recording and Editing your Podcast 6) You should position yourself approximately 12 inches from the microphone when recording. Don’t get too close to the microphone or it will pick up the sound of the air puffs from your mouth. Don’t touch the microphone when recording because it will pick up those sounds too. Turn off the laptop’s speaker (press F3) to eliminate an echo in your recording. 7) To record your voice, select either the Male or Female voice track and click on the record button. record
8) You can adjust the output volume of a track in the track mixer by dragging the volume track icon left or right. If the mixer isn’t shown, click the triangle next to the word “tracks” near the top of the window.
9) You can adjust the volume on sections within a track by clicking the arrow in the track area to display the audio track. Clicking in the track adds “nodes” which can be move to adjust the volume at any point. This would primarily be used to adjust the volume level for music and other sound effects (see #10 below for adding sounds) click triangle Click to add nodes
10) If you wish to add music, jingles or sound effects to your project, you have several options. Note the icons and their functions in the control strip below. Loop browser for access to GarageBand sounds. Media browser for access to iTunes library.
Record button for recording your voice
Open the track editor to edit portions of your audio.
Open the “track info” window to change settings.
11) iTunes tracks can be dragged into an existing GarageBand track. If you drag into a blank area of your project, GarageBand will create a track for you. 12) Music for this project must be royalty-free, so you may not bring in sound tracks from CDs that you own. Please use only tracks from our database in the Students_share folder on Eagle. Double-clicking one of the tracks will transfer it to iTunes. Ask for a demonstration. 13) Keep your GarageBand tracks to a minimum for faster performance and fewer problems. Use the Track/Delete Track command to remove any empty tracks. If you have several tracks, it is also recommended that you lock tracks for which you have finished editing. This will improve GarageBand performance. 14) Optional: To equalize the soft and loud parts of a track, compress the track. To compress, select the track, pull down the Track/Track Info menu, and turn on the Compressor in the Track Info pane. Move the slider to the right for more compression. Exporting your project 15) The GarageBand file needs to be converted into an mp3 file which is the standard format for listening and sharing files for both Macintosh, Windows and other operating systems. The built-in menu “Share/Export as Podcast” does not create an mp3. GarageBand doesn’t have a conversion utility, but iTunes does. 16) Pull down the Share menu and select “Send Song to iTunes.”
17) Use the File/iTunes Preferences /Advanced/Importing menu to make the desired change as shown below.
18) Click the “Custom” button and change the settings to 112 kbps
19) Select the song in iTunes and use the Advanced menu to “Convert Selection to MP3” as shown below.
20) After iTunes finishes the conversion process, the new MP3 file will be listed above the original and will begin playing. 21) Login to the Eagle server and drag your mp3 to your teacher’s Drop Box or to your Sites folder.