Welcome to the very first episode, the premiere of Podcast Perspective!

Podcast Perspective is the podcast about everything podcasting and new media! Whether you’re an experienced podcaster, or you’re just starting out, this is the show to learn about the practical tools, tricks, and techniques for the new media revolution.

The Internet has broken down the barriers, and removed the gatekeepers, giving anyone passionate the ability to make their message heard across the world.

Content is king… but then quality, presentation is definitely queen! I want to help make your message stand out from the crowd and get great audio.

Especially if you’re just looking to get started, there’s a paralyzing amount of information out there, and in this ever evolving medium, much of it out of date, or, in my opinion, some less than great advice. I’ve been there, “in the trenches” as an independent content creator for years now… and I’m here to help!

This episode features an overview of what is a podcast, and what makes this new medium so revolutionary, some fundamental audio concepts, and more…

Explaining Podcasting

What exactly is podcasting?

Regardless of your level of technical expertise, or whether you’re just getting started, or you’ve been involved with podcasting since its infancy, take a moment to step back and look at the bigger picture. To successfully produce a podcast, you not only need a clear understanding of what a podcast is, you’ll need to be able to explain it to the uninitiated.

These days, podcasting has become a buzz word that gets casually thrown around. People hear it all the time, but not knows what it means—how often have you heard people someone respond with “but I don’t have an iPod” in regards to podcasting? The term podcasting does date back to February of 2004, when it was coined by British Journalist Ben Hammersley, a combination of the words “iPod” and “broadcast”—but has come to mean so much more.

Technically speaking, a “podcast” is little more than rich media content—such as audio or video files—that can be automatically downloaded via syndication. However, downloadable media from a web site is not a podcast. The syndication element, done via RSS, is the “secret sauce” that lowers technical boundaries by automating the delivery of new episodes. A podcatcher program—such as iTunes—can regularly check this specially formatted RSS “feed” and easily see if there is a new entry, and will automatically download the associated attachment—in the case of audio podcasts, usually an MP3 file.

Subscribing to automatically download new episodes of a podcast isn’t unlike subscribing to a print magazine or newspaper—except that podcasts are (usually) free. Instead of having to go to the newsstand every time there is a new issue, you subscribe to get it delivered to your automatically. Similarly, when you are subscribed, the latest episode of your favorite podcast will be automatically downloaded to your computer, ready to be listened to on demand at your convenience—all without having to lift a finger.

In traditional media, there can only be a finite number of terrestrial radio or television stations, which means they must “broadcast” to the broadest possible audience, catering to the lowest common denominator.  By contrast, there is no limit to the number of podcasts there c can be on the Internet, and there can be specialized content “narrowcast” to a specific audience. With no traditional transmitter, unlike radio and television, podcasting is not limited by geographic boundaries, or limited by corporate media gatekeepers. Podcasting is democratized media, where you are in control. Anyone with something to say can make their message heard!

Quick Tip

When you’re producing your podcast, even if you do it “live to hard drive,” always record to an uncompressed format—such as WAV (Windows) or AIFF (Mac).

MP3 format should only be used for distribution, after you’ve completed recording and post-production, because it is a “lossy” compression format which discards less essential audio information while hoping the listener won’t notice too much. While recording directly to MP3, there is a chance of encoding errors, and and this process of discarding information happens every time you save to MP3. Once that audio information is gone, it’s gone forever, there’s no way to get it back!

Only once you’ve recorded, edited, and mastered your podcast, then export the finished product to MP3 for tagging and uploading.

Audio Fundamentals

Before diving in to some of the fun stuff, it’s important to establish some fundamental audio concepts. Content may be king, but then presentation is definitely queen—and having good audio is very important. You might already have an intuitive grasp, if not an intellectual understanding, of some of these concepts, but rather than spew a bunch of technical advice, without any foundation, and tell you what you should do, without any justification, I’d rather teach what it means, and why it’s important. You just might learn something!

It’s something most of us take for granted every day—but what is sound?

Sound is created in waves from air molecules vibrating against each other, and when those vibrations reach our ears, they are converted to electrical signals, which our brains interpret as sound. Similarly, when a microphone element vibrates, it is converted in to an electrical signal.

There are a few fundamental terms that describe sound. Remember that sound is a wave? Amplitude (think amplify, as in amplifier) describes how tall an individual wave is, and the taller it is, the more sound energy it holds. Frequency, measured in Hertz (Hz) is the interval between the sound waves, and the higher the frequency, the higher the pitch, and the lower the frequency, the lower the pitch. Lower frequencies also contain more energy than higher frequencies.

The human ear has a hearing range of approximately 20 Hz to 20 kHz (20,000 Hz), though extremely low-frequency sounds are more felt than heard, and with age, we lose the ability to hear some of those highest frequencies. For comparison, the human voice’s main frequencies are in the range of 80 Hz-12 kHz, though this varies by individual, such as men with that big deep bassy voice.

How does that translate in the realm of 1’s and 0’s? Digital audio is an approximate representation of an analog sound wave, and the higher the resolution, the more detailed and more-life-like. “CD quality” audio is the baseline for today, and is 16 bit, 44.1 kHz—but what does that mean?

A digital recording is a series of snapshots, or samples, of what the amplitude is at that specific time. This frequency of these snapshots is the sample rate, such as 44.1 kHz (or 44,100 times per second). The bit depth refers to a range of possible values for each sample, a higher bit depth allowing higher numbers, and a larger dynamic range between loud and soft sounds.

The bottom line: record at 16 bit and 44.1 kHz, or CD quality.

Finally, there’s the sound level, which describes the intensity, represented by negative decibels (or db’s) in relation to zero, or infinite energy. You want to make sure your levels aren’t set too high, so that you don’t go over 0 db. You can’t have more than infinity, so any audio over 0 db is thrown away (usually causing nasty distortion, or clipping), and is gone forever. However, don’t simply set your levels too low, because then you will have to artificially amplify your recording in post-production, which will not only bring up your voice, but any unwanted background noise and room tone as well.

It is important to properly set your levels so that when you’re speaking at a normal volume, your audio is peaking between -12 db to -6 db, which is high enough but allowing enough headroom that you shouldn’t have to worry about hitting that 0 db ceiling.

Now with these fundamental concepts, next time we can get to the more fun stuff, including how to get the best sound quality possible!

Share Your Thoughts!

Questions? Comments? Ideas? Suggestions? I welcome your feedback! Send your written text or recorded audio to PodcastPerspective@Gmail.com or call 424-254-9763, or leave a comment below!

Podcast Consulting

I am available for one on one podcast consulting, audio production, and voice over work. I’d love to work with you to make your podcasting dreams a reality. If you’re interested, please contact me!

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