Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Oklahoma City Podcasting Club – March 2010 Meeting Notes

These are my notes from the March 10, 2010 Oklahoma City Podcasting Club meeting, led by Chad Henderson. Chad’s podcast is Elmocast. The OKC Podcasting Club started in January 2010, tonight is the third meeting. It meets the second Wednesday of each month at 6:30 pm at the The Oklahoma City Coworking Collaborative (OKCCoCo.) Check the OKC CoCo Google calendar for other OKC area tech/geek clubs and meetings. MY THOUGHTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. The website for our podcasting club (note I’m just attending for the first time and I’m already calling this “our”) is www.okcpodcasting.com. Everyone at our meeting who has a laptop is on a Mac… coincidence. I think not! 😉

Chad has been using LibSyn since 2006
– really cater to podcasters

had a problem with iTunes where a feed was showing up twice, once with the www. and the other without

BlogOklahoma has a separate site / area for podcasters

There is a popular Judo podcast that is based in Oklahoma City
– we have a ton of churches doing sermons in the area
– but only about 10 people who are podcasting for fun, regularly
– (this does not count people who have streaming radio shows)

NPR specifically does editing and makes changes to their podcasts, so their content is not “just” re-purposed broadcast media

Chad and his wife did “the geek wedding podcast” when they got married, but that podfaded since the event passed….
– he also took that feed down recently from LibSyn (stopped paying $5 per month for it)

Content distribution networks are “the next level” for podcasters
– Akamai is an example
– Amazon S3 is very reasonable as a solution for podcasting hosting now
– Cloudfront is Amazon’s S3 distribution service
– other podhosts similar to libsyn

Adam Curry gets credited for podcasting because he made it popular, but Dave Winer was really the person who did it first

“Podcasts” did not exist until the media become SUBSCRIBABLE

Back “in the day,” RealPlayer had a technology that would pull content to your device via ftp

Now looking at the Presonus FireBox (about $150 on sale at Guitar Center – Amazon has it for $200)
– plugs as firewire into your mic
– you have two separate mics that show up as separately configurable in software programs like Garageband
– this is HUGE for interviews!!!
– is completely powered by Firewire
– Chad searched for 3 months for the cheapest firewire-rig he could get, this was IT

ON MY M-AUDIO MOBILE PRE IT CAN BRING IN 2 CHANNELS AS LEFT AND RIGHT, I HAVEN’T DONE THIS BEFORE BUT IT IS POSSIBLE. I THINK I PAID ABOUT

Chad’s current mic is a MXL 990, with a shock mount and case is about $70 (Chat got one for $50 on sale)
– it really sounds great

MXL 990 Condenser Microphone

An audio compressor is hardware that does the same thing as The Levelator
– new version came out recently, btw

Digidesign MBox2 retails for $500, can get sometimes for $300
– may have to install ProTool drivers tho

When you use a mic, if you can you want to talk (and have your mouth air) move across the microphone, not INTO it

Now we’re going to talk about promos for your podcast (commercials) and bumpers
– you can distribute your promos to other podcasts
– Scott Sigler is an author who reads his stories through his podcasts
— he has a HUGE audience
— he will play your promo at the end of his show

Keep it 15 to 30 sec
– just as a guideline

LibSyn

Just learned about the Okie Blog Awards

Bumpers
– “when you write something you break it into paragraphs… a bumper is that space between paragraphs”

Chad does recommend you write a script if you’re doing an informational podcast
– can use bumpers in between your sections

These are my social bookmarks for podcasting: delicious.com/wfryer/podcasting

There is software that can help you record your show in “1 go” and have all your bumpers go in
– UberCaster is great when it doesn’t crash… (it crashes a lot)
– Chad has had some audio sync problems in UberCaster once he’s into his show awhile, he thinks that’s a firewire driver issue
– UberCaster is Mac-only
– it can publish directly to LibSyn

Castblaster is Windows-based podcasting software, similar to UberCaster, but has changed to StudioRack

Chad uses some bumpers that people who he interviews say, like “This is [name] and you’re listening to the Elmocast…”

AscCap – enforces music royalties
– be careful using any ‘normal’ music in your show

Podsafe music services
– Podsafe Music Network has changed names: MusicAlley for Media (founded by Adam Curry)
– Music Bakery is a great source
– Magnatune is also good but a little different
— they are actually a record label
— if you are a podcaster and you credit Magnatune, they give you a fake CC number to use on their site (using their shopping cart)
— when you buy an album from them, they give you a code to give that album FREE to five of your friends (great viral marketing strategy)
– Jamendo is good (can search by license)
– Garageband.com lets you use music with attribution
– The Funny Music Project (Dr Demento style)
– Incompetech Royalty Free music
– Promonet is another source
– www.thesixtyone.com is an interesting take on music sharing and exploring, not sure what the sharing rights/terms are tho

Glenn Fry, Casey Kasem, Adam Curry, Linda Ronstadt: They all use/used tweaks in their audio recording boxes to give their voices “that sound”

Chad has developed some cool relationships with people, bands, gotten some good interviews, as a result of using/sharing other’s music with attribution

Chad likes to record his own sound effects 🙂
– Chad loves SoundSnap

THESE ARE THE MUSIC AND AUDIO SOURCE LINKS THAT WE USE FOR CELEBRATE OKLAHOMA VOICES…

Chad recently bought (as part of Nano bundle from MacHeist)
– highly recommend RipIt and Tales of Monkey Island

In a future episode we’ll cover BoinxTV

Audio Hijack Pro is highly recommended

Ambrosia Wiretap Studio is another option for getting audio recorded from different sources

Very good idea to use a consistent intro and outro

Pro tip
– at the beginning of the show tell them, in the first 10 seconds, your name, what the show number is, the date, etc.
– this helps people to figure out if they have heard your show before or not

Always listen to your own podcasts to make sure everything sound-wise is good….

How many episodes should you keep in your feed?
– Chad says keep them all in

I RE-CREATED MY PODCAST AFTER 174 EPISODES, SO MY CURRENT FEED DOESN’T INCLUDE ANY OF THOSE SHOWS, JUST EPISODE 175 ON…
– making it ‘easy for people to get to your stuff’ is the key

Podiobooks does a great job with a “timed subscription” unique to you, SUPER for audio books you buy and want
– like controlled release

I ASKED A QUESTION ABOUT BUILDING A CUSTOM RSS FEED FOR SEPARATE MEDIA FILES, LIKE PODCHAINS.NET USED TO ALLOW…
– For this Chad suggests using a custom tag in your delicious account, and using the automatically generated RSS feed for that tag
– THIS IS A GREAT TIP! I HAVE REALIZED THAT WAS POSSIBLE PREVIOUSLY BUT HAVEN’T DONE IT

Chad has been doing podcasting since 2005

Chad recommends MailChimp as a great email / mailing list, it is free as long as you don’t exceed 500 subscribers

I ASKED A QUESTION ABOUT RECORDING IN THE CLOSET TO MINIMIZE AUDIO SOUND…
– Chad says a photo of Scott Sigler podcasting in his closet made the New York Times
– clothes in your closet is a fantastic audio baffle

SEE THE MARCH 2007 NYT ARTICLE: “Authors Find Their Voice, And Audience, in Podcasts”

Chad has seen portable sound baffles that you can
– can use egg crate foam too (maybe not too firesafe…)

Chat highly recommends that you set up your mic so you can hear yourself, because you can modulate yourself much better than a computer can
– you can do this with Audacity, just turn on the monitor
– be sure to change your software to MONO from STEREO
– latency can be an issue with some setups for this
– getting an external rig with it’s own headphone jack can fix that
– firewire boxes like the FireBox also help (much faster than USB)
– firewire is more ‘ethernet-ish’ because there is no latency
– many musicians won’t even record without monitors
– you can use one headphone on, one off too…

Great suggestion for USB from Greg Sudderth: There should be a ‘light” when your USB 2.0 is messed up and it is going down to USB 1.0 speeds!
– Koss K-1’s are fantastic, old-school headphones
– get the “NPR sound” by turning your head down from the mic, make sure you have enough breath to say what you want to say…

Greg highly recommends “Daniel Odio gives tips and tricks for entrepreneurs” podcast
– he always records himself
– he always gets his stuff transcribed (overseas outsourcing)
– follow Daniel on twitter.com/drodio

THIS WAS AN AMAZING MEETING! SO MANY GREAT TIPS… MY #1 TAKEAWAY IS DEFINITELY TRYING MY NEXT PODCASTING RECORDING WITH MONITORING TURNED ON!

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