Last week I was very busy with various work efforts and with this blog. I did manage to post my first podcast. I was inspired by some of the podcasts I listened to a few weeks ago, and thought why not do my own. Over a few weeks time, I traversed the internet in search of some help on creating my first podcast. I found it, but it was in many different places. I decided to put it all together in an end-all-be-all-podcast post smörgåsbord! I hope you enjoy part one of this two part podcast series.

Podcasting Tools

My need to podcast led me high and low for the perfect solution to recording my voice. Of course, to do this on your computer you first need a quality headset or microphone. I used a microphone headset specifically designed for Skype. It worked well, and gave me the ability to move around a little while I was recording. Everyone’s preference may vary on this piece of equipment.

Once you’ve found the right mic, you need the right software to record your voice. I found many sites recommending Audacity as the perfect open source solution to audio recording. I first downloaded the program to my Ubuntu machine, then remembered Linux is still terrible with audio, so I downloaded it on Vista.

Using Audacity to Record a Podcast

At first Audacity looked like one of those giant soundboards at a rock concert, I was just standing back trying to figure out the knobs. I toyed with recording audio, making the obligatory noises to test decibels. One, two, three — voila! I had recorded my very own audible countdown. I was on the road to podcast mastery. Well, not quite yet.

I now had my voice recorded, so i simply closed out the audio track (the small X inside the program), and began recording for real. I must say I did most of the Boombox Episode One podcast in one take. I tried the opening a few times though, but the bulk of it was one recording. After I nailed it, I realized I forgot to say one thing in particular. I had already stopped recording and couldn’t figure out how to start recording inside a specific time.

I selected the end of the audio file with the finger pointer, then on the toolbar I selected record. This action created a new audio track, where I could say what I wanted to say. I recorded the few seconds worth of information and now had to figure out how to plug that blurb into the existing podcast.

Pasting Audio in Audacity

You can copy and paste pieces of audio in Audacity. Before you can do any copying or pasting, make sure you have not simply paused the recording but completely stopped it. You cannot paste when the recording is simply paused. Now you can select the portion of the audio you want to copy by dragging from left to right across the audio file. Once you have the area selected you want to copy, just hit CTRL-C or select Edit>Copy. Now go to Audio Track 1 inside your Audacity window, use the finger to select where you want the audio pasted, then hit CTRL-V or Edit>Paste.

When I finished, I disliked the number of “ums” and wanted a way to strip those. I highlighted these “ums” and also removed some of the more obvious pauses in my podcast. This tightened up the audio and allowed me more freedom when recording. I could curse and mutter all I wanted, just as long as I remembered to cut those out of the end product.

I saved the audio file as an Audacity Project file, but also exported it to MP3 format. I then uploaded the MP3 to my server in order to stream the podcast.

At this point, I have my Audio podcast ready to be streamed. I don’t know quite how to do this though. I searched online. I watched tutorial videos. I installed faulty plugins that momentary took down my site. How did I get the podcast to work with Wordpress? You’ll have to wait for Part Two to find out how I got the podcast to work with Wordpress. Stay tuned!

How to Podcast with Audacity and Wordpress Part Two is now online.