When shooting video podcasts, light is probably your most important factor.
Digital video needs light and often times, lots of it. You can help a bad video camera look better with a well lit scene or make your high end video camera look professional by knowing some basics about lighting.
Below, you see a screenshot from an upcoming YouTube video I’m working on where I talk about the 12 minute recording limit on most Canon DLSR’s.
In this lighting setup, I’m using a large window as my “key” (main) light, a small LED light for a “fill” light and I’m illuminating the background with a simple “can” light (a cheap aluminum tin purchased at any hardware store with a household bulb placed inside).
I’m playing around with mixing color temperatures (Kelvins) as well as using an extreme angle. Experimenting is a great way to find your own “look.” [click to continue…]
There are many ways to create an .mp3 file. Some methods include creating an mp3 directly from your editing system including Audacity, Garageband and others.
My preferred method is to use the free iTunes software. This gives you a better sounding file due to the technology (Fraunhoffer (best for voice)) that iTunes is using to compress your audio into the .mp3 format.
The video below shows you how to setup your iTunes software for compressing an uncompressed file (.wav or .aiff) into the .mp3 format.
The settings shown are my preferred settings for audio only (mostly voice) for podcasting. You can change the bit rate to your desired setting for the best compromise between size and quality.
After properly setting up the iTunes software to create mp3′s, I’ll show you how to add in metadata to your file. ID3 tags are the information that helps identify your podcast episode within someone’s portable media player such as an iPod, iPad, or Android device.
This information will display each episode’s title, description and album cover art as well as any other information you choose to include.
Your version of Skype might be doing a couple things with your audio that you don’t want it to. Here’s how to fix it.
To disable Skype’s auto gain control (AGC) for both Mac (5.6.0.143 and later) and PC versions, simply go into your Preferrences > Audio/Video and deselect the Automatic Microphone Control checkbox. [click to continue…]
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If you weren’t already aware, Skype is likely controlling your audio levels. As podcasters, we want to make sure we are in control of all our settings all of the time. This is how you can make sure Skype isn’t changing your audio quality.
Skype just released (03/06/12) a new version of it’s software for the Mac (version 5.6.0.143). In this release they placed a check-box (already found in the Windows version) for controlling Skype’s auto gain control (AGC). What AGC does is listen to the proximity of your voice to the microphone and adjust the volume as necessary so that the person on the other end can always hear you at a decent level. However, as podcasters, we don’t want anyone besides us deciding what our gain level should be and we certainly don’t want it to change during recording.
Now you can simply go into your preferences audio/video settings and uncheck the “Automatically Adjust Microphone Settings” box. Then go into your computer’s settings and set the level you want your mic to be.
When enabled, AGC will constantly adjust the level of your audio based on your relationship to the mic and whether or not you are speaking into it. During times of silence or if you move too far away from the mic, this can cause the “noise floor” to be raised higher thus producing an audible hiss. Disabling AGC will help to prevent unwanted noise.
I’ve spent hours culling through all the video tutorials I could find to help you get a better understanding of specific audio production concepts. The videos on this page all deal with the concept of compression and help you understand how to go about using this effect in your audio editing. Underneath each video, I’ve [...]
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When you insert a link to a hosted audio file into Facebook’s link section above the status box, Facebook will automatically create an audio player. Below this audio player is a couple areas of information about any particular audio file you link to. They don’t make it obvious that you can actually edit the information [...]
If your RSS feed stops updating and you are using Feedburner, it’s likely that your feed size has become too large. Feedburner stops updating feeds when the size of your original feed is larger than 512 KB. This video shows you how to check the size of your Feedburner feed so that you can avoid [...]
Here’s a way to see if you have received any iTunes reviews and/or ratings for your podcast in different countries. There are 123 different countries with an iTunes store. And although you can’t purchase from countries you don’t reside in, you can see your ratings and reviews for each podcast you have in the iTunes [...]
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
If you use WordPress to create your podcasting RSS feed then you may have noticed that only ten or less of your most recent episodes are showing up in podcatchers such as iTunes. There’s a simple fix. Simply adjust the default syndication setting (10) in the Reading section of your WordPress settings. Click here to [...]
If you are having an issue with iTunes, or any other podcatcher, only showing your most recent ten (10) or less episodes and you are using WordPress to feed your podcast, this is the fix for you. Even if you are also using feedburner, changing this simple setting will allow more episodes to appear in [...]
In this lighting setup, I’m using a large window as my “key” (main) light, a small LED light for a “fill” light and I’m illuminating the background with a simple “can” light (a cheap aluminum tin purchased at any hardware store with a household bulb placed inside).
