MIXING YOUR PODCAST

Once you have recorded and edited your podcast its time to mix it with other recordings to make it sound really good and professional.  The basic elements to a good podcast are listed below:

• Music or sound that starts at the beginning of your podcast.
• Comments before the podcast begins
• The podcast
• Ending comments after the podcast
• The ending sounds or music

Now there can be much more but I consider the to be the basic elements of a podcast.  So lets start off with the music or sounds that usually begin or end a podcast.  Once you have decided to make podcasts you should start listening to radio programs closer then you have in the past.  Notice that when a radio program starts there is usually some music that generally starts fading.  While the music can still be heard you hear the opening comments begin as the music and comments are mixed.  Eventually the music ends while the comments continue and the same volume level.  The generally there is a pause for a commercial and again there is no sharp break where one ends and the other takes over.  The sounds just kind of blend.  Then when the radio program starts, maybe its and interview there is now background music.  As we reach the end of the radio interview you start to hear some music in the background that is a signal the interview is coming to an end.  The music may get louder to eventually start fading as the final comments of the person doing the interview makes their final comments. 

This smooth flow is sometimes accomplished by mixing different clips of sounds together.  The big studios may have big boards where the volume of different feeds are mixed and faded.  Since you probably don't have a big studio to work in you can accomplish the same effects with a good mixing piece of software.  I use Acoustica Audio Mixer program,  It costs about $30 and works great.  I suggest that you go to their web page and let them tell you all the things this software can do for you and your podcasts. 

One thing I will tell you that Acoustica Audio mixer cannot tell you is the settings to save your mixed podcast so you can move to the next step.  To save the mixed podcast I use these settings and steps.  Click on file - save as a - mp3 file.  Then in the box that appears move the slider over in the "Preset Quality" section to: mpge1. Layer 3 128 kbps joint stereo.   Don't worry about the information on the file because although Acoustica mixer has a place to put the mp3 information it does not have all the field you will want to use.  If your following my advice and have bought the GoldWave audio program it does have all the field we will want. 

Next were are going to take the podcast that has been saved and open it up in GoldWave for the final fine tuning.  Now GoldWave is capable to doing a lot of things to any audio file that you load in it.  I have tried all of the settings and now I know just what I want to do with this file.  So after I open up the stereo file I saved in Acoustica in GoldWave I will mono file again.  The reason I saved the podcast as a stereo file in Acoustica was I had to with their presets if I wanted to save it at 128 kbps which is the setting I have used from the very beginning.  A file that has been saved at 128 kbps is great file but it is way to large for podcasting.   The size of the file when we saved it in Acoustica might be, say 28 megs.   By the time we get done with it in GoldWave that 28 meg files will be around 5 megs and sound great.

Podcast don't need to be in stereo so we want our finished podcast to be a mono file.  When you open your podcast up in GoldWave follow this sequence: Edit - Channel - left to make it a mono file.  The click on the following: Effect - Plug-in - Gwvoice - auto offset removal - default preset.  When the auto offset plug in have finished working it's time to make the volume on the podcast even.  You want to even out the volume levels between you and the person you interviewed.  The next step is: Effect - Plug-in - Gwvoice - Auto Gain.  At this point you have to choose the preset to use.  If there was a lot of difference in the volume levels of you and the person your were interviewing use the 50% preset.  If the sound levels were not so bad when your recorded the podcast use the default preset.

Now it's time to add the mp3 information that is displayed as the file is being played so click file - information.  Were almost done so now its time to save the file as an mp3 and save it at "mp3 Layer3, 44100 Hz, 32 kbps, mono.
 

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