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Get Started With Podcasting on the Mac Once you've recorded your podcast, you'll probably want to do some editing. If you're planning on editing for content, a tool like Garageband should work just fine. Handheld microphone—In noisy environments, or when you need to interview someone at an event, a handheld microphone is often the best choice. This does a great job of reducing background noise and focusing more on your voice, all with very little setup.
This tutorial will provide instructions on how to create an audio recording suitable for a Podcast using the Open Source software Audacity. This is not meant as an in depth tutorial on all of the functions within Audacity, but rather how to set it up so that you can record an audio file and save it in such a way that you can then upload it as a Podcast.
All of the screenshots will be taken in Mac OSX, but you should be able to follow along in Linux, Unix, or Windows. This tutorial assumes you have already downloaded iTunes from. We should start by actually downloading the application from. As I mentioned in the introduction, Audacity is Open Source, which means you have a lot of freedom, and the software comes at no cost, but it does come with a license called the GNU Public License. Make sure you respect this software license as you would a commercial license! On the downloads page you’ll notice there’s a stable release for Windows, OSX, and LInux/Unix, but there’s also a Beta release. Choose the 1.3.3 Beta version – even thought that sounds scary, it’s very stable and has been listed as beta for about two years as of this writing in February of 2009!
![Best Podcast Setup For Mac Best Podcast Setup For Mac](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125447318/559056333.jpg)
If you’re on Windows or Linux, the Downloads will show for your Operating System (the screenshot shows OSX because that’s the operating system from which I hit the site). After it downloads, run the Installer and launch Audacity. The interface of Audacity isn’t exactly clean and uncomplicated, but in this section I’ll demystify them for you and you’ll be able to make a recording and even do some simple editing. The upper left corner contains the main buttons you’ll be using during your recording.
They’re fairly standard for audio applications and are as follows: pause, play, stop, rewind, fast forward and record. As tempting as it is to hit that record button, first we have to make sure your microphone is set up and your file format will be right. Next click on the pulldown next to Channels and you’ll see options for Mono and Stereo. Your first instinct is probably that stereo is what you want anyway, because we all know stereo is better than mono, right? If you are recording by yourself, you’re only one voice going into one microphone, so recording in stereo doesn’t buy you anything, and makes the file twice as big as it needs to be, which wastes disk space and bandwidth for the person downloading your Podcast. If you’re recording two people, then stereo might be worth the bandwith.
Once you make your choice, click Ok. Find your recording in the Finder (or Windows Explorer) and right click on it, and choose Open With and select iTunes. Once the file has imported into iTunes, we need to double check that iTunes is set up properly to encode MP3s. They’ve buried this in a rather odd place, but if you think about the fact that iTunes was intended to rip CDs as MP3’s then the location makes sense. The good news is that the next couple of steps are only required once (and perhaps again if you ever want to use your iTunes to rip CDs you’d want to undo these settings).
Open iTunes Preferences, 1- Click on the General tab, 2 – click on Import Settings. 1 & 2 – In this last menu choose a Stereo Bit Rate of 128kbps. I know, I said mono but it turns out that if you select 128 kbps stereo, and Mono for channels, that’s the same as saying 65kbps mono. I sure wouldn’t have done the menus like this! 3 – Make sure your Sample Rate is set to 44.1 kHz (or you could sound like a chipmunk in some media players) 4 – Click OK We’re done configuring iTunes now, and like I said you only have to do this once to encode from now on. But don’t forget to come back here if you want to rip CDs with this version of iTunes, or you’re be really sad when you realize that you’ve ripped all of your Karen Carpenter albums at 64kbps mono!