This week is the moment of truth, where we produced our initial podcast. I took advantage of my parents visit by interviewing them about their upbringing in the UK in the 1940’s. If you want the details and how I prepared, please see last week’s blog, UK Childhood in the 1940’s Swing Era.
CREATE
After all the preparation, including creative brief, rough script and mind map, I took the extra step to create the actual questions that incorporated some of the suggestions from Prof Golden, including some of the hardships and what first came to mind. The interview came together like a mini time capsule and I learned a few things about my parents upbringing that I didn’t know. For instance, I had no idea that my father’s initial home did not have electricity!
Enjoy listening to the podcast here followed by a recap of this week’s readings and tutorials.
READING & WRITING
To help prepare for the conversation, I read the assigned reading, 7 Secrets on Getting Pro-Sounding Vocals on Home Recordings. The upstairs bedroom where I work is pretty cavernous, so I decided to have the conversation in the living room where there is a comfy sofa and a rug to help absorb sound.
For this initial recording I used my MacBook Pro. When I do buy a plug-in mic and pop filter, I will listen up to see what a difference that makes to the overall sound quality.
It was helpful to read that you should try and capture as much of a “take” as possible, so not to distort the vibe. I followed this advice as much as possible, while removing a few of the run on sentences. I cannot help but focus on vocal pitch when I listen to podcasts, but do understand the idea of giving more credence to performance than pitch.
Sampled Podcasts
I have listened to Brene Brown for a few years now and enjoy her Texas style and content. Her Dare to Lead show is particularly enjoyable and uses the same upbeat music in each episode. The show is artfully mixed like the way the music comes in after her introduction to let listeners know we are about to move to the conversation. It then comes in at the end of the introduction to let the listener know we’re about to transition to the conversation. I like the way she credits everyone at the end of each show.
I was first introduced to Tim Ferris when I read his book, the four-hour work week. I enjoy the topics he covers including health, business and relationships. When he interviews someone, you can tell that he has always done his homework and makes follow up statements and questions that expand the conversation. His show notes are a work of art and his penchant for productivity and continuous improvement is inspiring.
Finally, I picked this series because Tim Ferris has a deep vocal timbre that adds gravitas to his podcast and personal brand.
Diane Sawyer on Oprah’s Master Class
For any young person starting out and thinking about a career in journalism, this point of view presented by Diane Sawyer is a compelling listen. She too has a vocal quality that draws you in. There’s nothing like listening to an expert who is speaking from a depth of experience and curiosity to bring her truth to others. Unlike the above shows, I selected this because it includes intermittent narration from Oprah with no sound effects, which does give the content lots of breathing room.
RESEARCH TO INFORM
Since my home computer is a Mac, I found GarageBand to be a more intuitive tool than Audacity. It is also free and secure to download.
Most of my own research this week was focused on the nuts and bolts of editing podcasts and finding royalty-free music and sound effects.
Here is a sampling and recap of this week’s readings:
How to record/edit in Garage Band
This showed me the basics of creating a new podcast and all the tracks that go along with it. It took me a while to get the hang of trimming the audio and made plenty of mistakes along the way.
When it comes to dropping in audio or sound effects, two options are provided here. After finding the music and sound effects in Pixabay and used the drag and drop approach, pulling in the new audio to different audio tracks.
Safely using music and sound effects
I searched several royalty-free sites for a news report from the 1940’s or the Glenn Miller track I’d originally had in mind to open up the podcast but fell short in my search. So, after some time of searching several of the sites below, the closest thing that fit the times was an upbeat jazzy instrumental track called Bobby Swing from Pixabay.
In my search for audio, I looked for tracks that were either in the public domain, free to modify, or marked royalty-free. I also found a few relevant sound effects, including the sound of trains, low flying airplanes and bombs exploding.
- Creative Commons
- Royalty-free music is the most popular kind for podcasts (free or one-time)
- YouTube music archives
- Incompetech.com – requires you give credit
- SoundCloud
- Free music archive.org
- Pixabay
- Royalty-free Paid Music
- Sound Stripe
- Audio Jungle (choose right license – looking for multi-use license)
- Stock music.com (can use it forever)
- Epidemic Sound
- Art List
A note on mixing. I did find the volume adjustment setting and played around with them, fading in and out sound effects. I now have a greater appreciation for the skill it takes to artfully mix a podcast, so this is just a starting point!
On A Mission 
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