Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with audio and podcast

Seeking guided relaxation / meditation cd's / podcasts.

mola — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:52:48 -0800

Seeking guided relaxation / meditation cd's / podcasts. I've been suffering from anxiety and insomnia lately, and want to get back to normal. The cd's I've tried so far are The Mental Medicine Collection (Sacred Moment and Sleep Ease, both with Pakvilai Sudhaswin), The Calming Collection (Sleep Solutions, with Roberta Shapiro), and Living Meditation (with David Harshada Wagner).

The ones intended specifically for sleep seem best so far. I do not want any religious-specific cd's.

Should I buy a suspension mount for my Blue Snowball microphone?

Ian A.T. — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:27:33 -0800

I'm about to start recording an audiobook / podcast. I've settled on Blue's Snowball microphone, and thanks to previous questions here I know that a pop filter is vital. Should I also buy the Snowball's suspension mount? I'll be recording with the microphone on my desk or possibly my kitchen table. On my desk is an external hard drive, which I'll of course be unplugging during recording, though I should point out that my desk backs up to an exterior wall. I'll also be the only speaker on the recording, if that matters.

It's not terribly expensive and there are bundles available, so I don't mind spending the extra money if it'll improve the quality of my recording. Will it?

Best setup for an interview-style podcast?

superbird — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:58:17 -0800

What affordable equipment could I buy to have a simple, professional-sounding conversational podcast? My podcast usual has a simple format: two people talking to each other at a table about a subject. Sometimes we bring in one or even two other guests.

So basically, it's an interview format.

I would like to invest between $100-$200 in whatever I need for 1-3 (and if possible, 4) people to sit around a table and talk. Right now, we just plug two headsets into my computer via a headphone splitter. It works fine but sounds kinda lame and feels iffy.

It seems like the Zoom H2 might be my best bet, but the concern is that it sounds too "airy" when it's set in the middle of the table with 2-4 voices around it.

Anyone have any other insight into this?

Podcasting software

tdreyer — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:42:02 -0800

Looking for website software to host podcasts & generate an XML feed to sent to iTunes. I've got the site, space, and bandwidth; now I just need software to organize the podcasts (audio) and generate an XML feed to submit to iTunes. Any suggestions for good software or tools to do this will be appreciated.

electronica just doesn't do it for me

kidsleepy — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:32:30 -0800

How can I create my own Couch to 5K running podcast? I'm starting the Couch to 5K program and I want to make my own podcast/music track to listen to. All I need is to combine some music tracks together into one long mp3 and record some vocal cues at the appropriate times (start running, start walking). What's a simple way to do this? (I'm on a Mac, with iTunes, if it matters)

Group podcasts on the cheap?

chrominance — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:06:40 -0800

Researching cheap and cheerful equipment (mics, mixers, etc.) for recording podcasts. The caveat: there will be several people in the podcast. There are a bunch of guides that say it's really cheap to get started with podcasts, and a lot of them recommend USB mics of varying sorts (the Blue Snowball and the Samson C01U seem to be mentioned a lot). But all these guides seem to assume your podcast will only have one speaker, and don't cover what you should get if you plan to have several people talking roundtable-style for a podcast.

The best options I could think of are a) buy an omnidirectional USB mic like the Snowball, or b) get a bunch of normal mics and a mixer. Asking a guy at the local music store led to a discussion of $400 USB mixers, though, which suddenly seems like a lot once you buy three or four mics to go along with it. We don't know if the podcast is going to be all that successful or gain a regular audience, and $700+ seems like a lot of money to spend on something that's far from a sure thing.

On the other hand, I've read comments that suggest the Snowball's omni mode is little more than a novelty unless everyone leans in really closely. Plus I'm worried about it picking up room noise that cardioid mics would cut down on. So maybe this isn't the answer either.

Are there any solutions, preferably less than $500 (and the lower the better!) that would allow three or four people to put together a podcast that sounds, if not amazing, at least decent? Or should we just bite the bullet and splash out for the mixer and mics when (if) we have the dough?

making podcasts easier to hear with dynamic compression

primer_dimer — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:02:01 -0800

Can I make podcasts easier to listen to in a noisy environment using compression? Calling all audio folks... I have a collection of podcasts (currently working my way through TED) to listen to on my boring commute, either by motorbike or car, both of which are quite noisy. Obviously I don't just want to crank up the volume on my mp3 player, for fear of damaging my hearing. So I'm wondering if I could use compression (of the dynamic kind, not the wav->mp3 file size kind) to even out the volume throughout each track and therefore make it easier to hear what's being said at a lower volume. This would be particularly useful where there are multiple people talking with different voices (e.g. radio 4's In Our Time, another current favourite). Will this work?

Help me find indie podcasts

reenum — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:52:47 -0800

Looking for off the beaten path podcasts and ways to find podcasts online. I've sampled the oeuvre of NPR, CBC, BBC and the Guardian. These organizations put out some high quality stuff, and I listen to several regularly.

I'm now looking for podcasts put out by individuals or those that don't get as much publicity as the ones from the organizations above.

My interests include: writing, storytelling (a la This American Life), writing, fantasy sports, personal finance, pop culture, and interesting or offbeat takes on the news.

I've noticed looking through the past posts that the recommendations tend to be weighted towards science and tech. That's understandable given the MeFi population, but I'm not terribly interested in either subject.

As a corollary, are there sites or blogs that review podcasts that you use? I'd be really interested to learn how everyone finds new stuff to listen to.

Thanks!

Soothing podcasts recommendations

jchgf — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:38:26 -0800

Asking for philosophically-oriented podcasts and lectures recommendations. I enjoy listening to quiet, contemplative and philosophical podcasts and lectures at night before going to bed or on slow Sunday afternoons, but it's been a long while since I stumbled on something new and interesting.

Some of the things I enjoyed in the last couple of years:

- Alan Watts lectures
- Ron Stephen's Awaretek podcast
- Oliver Stone audio commentaries and Charlie Rose interviews
- TTC philosophy and history lectures

My favourite in the above was actually some of the Oliver Stone audio commentaries, as the sound of his voice is sometimes hypnotic and trance-inducing.

So I am looking for podcasts, lectures or even videos of lectures with interesting content, but ideally spoken with someone with a soothing, hypnotic voice. I have a hard time following lectures which are read from a pre-written text and I prefer spontaneous, improvised speech, even if it means double-takes or confused syntax.

Most of the academic or slick NPR or CBC podcasts don't really work for me, but feel free to recommend what works for you.

I hope to stumble on some wise old man recording podcasts in his basement.

I love This American Life, but it's too long!

reenum — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:31:32 -0800

I need some short podcasts to listen to at work and the gym I searched the old posts on AskMeFi, but none of them really applied.

I'm looking for podcasts that are up to 20 minutes long. I love This American Life and Fair Game, but find they're too long sometimes. I want shorter podcasts so I'm not always starting in the middle of a show.

Thanks!

Good production mixers for a podcast?

clockworkjoe — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 11:28:13 -0800

I am looking to get a mixer for my podcast, 300 bucks or less. I would like to get the Alesis IMULTIMIX8USB but I'm not sure if the recording to ipod is worth the extra 100 bucks. Can someone recommend a good usb or firewire mixer? I am recording to the latest version of garageband on my macbook. You can hear the quality of my work here http://www.slangdesign.com/rppr

Also, would a USB mixer send each channel to a separate channel in garageband? When I record two voice now, it mixes to a single channel. This is a pain obviously, as my cohost has a different voice than mine so it needs to be mixed differently.

http://www.bswusa.com/proditem.asp?item=IMULTIMIX8USB

I don't even know which "For Dummies" title I need

thehmsbeagle — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:48:15 -0800

I need to know how to do some exceedingly simple animation. Problem: I'm an idiot. This is what I would like to be able to do: take line drawings, somehow magically import them into a computer (this may be that "scanning" I've heard so much about), combine the line drawings at various glacial speeds in slideshow-like fashion, and then put an audio track under the whole thing. Only, not like a slideshow. Like extremely simplistic stop-motion animation. (I think. That may or may not be the right term. Argh.)

Put another way - and perhaps I should have led with this? - I more or less need to be able to illustrate a podcast and turn it into a short little video.

It's ridiculous that I don't know and can't figure out how to do this. But I'm stuck. I don't even know what to search for, or what kind of book I should be looking for. Or what kind of expert to ask for advice. Let alone what kind of software one might need for such a project.

Help? Please to assume that my baseline of knowledge about these things hovers somewhere around that of a kindergartener. You know, in case you couldn't tell.

Direct Audio Capture options?

griffey — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 09:07:25 -0800

I need to ensure that I can record, via line-in or other direct method, audio at conferences...how? I'm going to be recording audio for podcast at a number of upcoming conferences, and would like to get past the "microphone in the room" method and move to directly capturing the sound from the mic that the speaker is using.

In the past, I've used a Blue Snowball USB mic connected to my Macbook to capture the audio. It does a good job, but nothing beats direct capture for clarity. The problem is that I have no way of predicting what sort of setup the conference rooms will have...they will almost always be in hotels, and I'm assuming that most will use microphones on a podium that feed into speakers set up around the room.

Should I assume that most of these microphones are XLR mics, and that they are feeding directly into powered speakers? If so, can I use some cables to go:

mic cord>recorder in > recorder out > speakers?

Or do I need a mini-mixer to do that?

Current tools available: macbook, mini-mixer. Will probably need to buy cables/adapters...what sort? Will it significantly hurt my signal if I use adapters to go from 1/4 inch mono jacks to stereo miniplug? The reverse? What about XLR to 1/4 inch?

I'm a technical guy, but this audio stuff is driving me nuts.

Help me, oh audio gurus of mefi!

My Computer Can't Hear Itself

superbird — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 12:49:27 -0800

Vista screwed up my ability to record inline audio. How do I fix it? I use Audacity to edit a podcast I'm working on. I would like to have audio from movie trailers and such in my podcast, but can't get audacity to record the sound coming out of my computer. After doing a bit of research, I've figured out it's because I have Vista. More specifically, I have a Gateway MT3705 with Vista and a SigmaTel Sound Card.

I've done my best to fix the problem by updating drivers, but the whole thing has basically just caused more problems. Any other ideas or suggestions?

Shows similar to This American Life?

Tlogmer — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:20:00 -0800

Listening to This American Life (and motown) keeps me sane at my data entry job. Are there any other podcasts similar to TMI?

How can I record speech in stereo?

featherboa — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 04:53:32 -0800

Oh, how I wish I could record in stereo, but as things stand, it's looking like it's going to have to be a mono-podcast. Help me get into both channels. So, I'd like to start podcasting, and I've been experimenting this week, but at the moment I can only seem to record in mono (coming through the left channel).

I'm using an old Peavey dynamic mic from my days as a singer, which has an XLR cable to 6.3mm jack, which in turn is plugged into a 6.3mm to 3.5mm converter, that goes into an iMic which is stuck in the USB port of my iBook G4 (OS 10.3.9). I've tried Garageband and Audacity, but nothing gets recorded in the right channel. Even though I've told it to record in stereo.

Is it something in my set-up that's causing the problem, and are there any get-arounds? Is there some way I could copy what's in the left to the right to give the impression of stereo sound? Would it work better if I went through my amp and then to the imic's phono input?

I'm not that technically skilled and I've only ever used Audacity to trim recordings down, so this is a bit beyond my capabilities, but I want to learn!

What's a good, cheap outdoor mic?

aaronetc — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:55:41 -0800

What's a good microphone for recording audio of outdoor TV interviews? I'm working with a local alt. weekly on a video podcast covering the local music scene, which we plan to produce on the cheap (for both pragmatic and aesthetic reasons). I'll be shooting it on a Sony Cybershot and a Sony analog camcorder, both of which record decent-enough audio when there's no significant interference, but they're not going to cut it for any interview or intro segments that take place outside, and won't be ideal for indoor segments.

I don't have much money to spend, but I'd like to get some kind of boom or shotgun mic that I can easily attach to a) the camcorder, or b) digital storage. My current laptop doesn't have audio-in, but the one I plan to buy in the next couple months will, and I think it would be fine to just record to the laptop if necessary. It doesn't need to be too fancy, but it should be relatively easy to operate since I probably will have just one production ~~assistant~~ intern.

What equipment do I need for portable podcasting?

bjennings — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:53:20 -0800

I'm looking for an inexpensive set-up to allow me to do portable podcasting. Is there a good combination of MP3 player and microphone that can be had for less than, say, $350 that would still result in decent audio quality? Also, will I need to get a mixer, or can I edit the audio on my laptop later?

Best Mic for Recording a Discussion?

jeresig — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 17:53:08 -0800

I'm clueless when it comes to audio recording - what's the best way to record about 1-2 dozen people, in a larger room, having a roundtable discussion? A little background: I'm going to be helping to run the local Social Computing Club this next year. The primary purpose of this group is to discuss new technologies - and then to build applications using them, later. Due to conflicts with assignments and other classes, members, frequently, are unable to attend - but would still like to keep up on the discussions. So, I'm going to be setting up a Podcast of the weekly talks and posting them - but that isn't the hard part. I've hit a wall concerning which microphone would be best suited to record our discussions.

A couple stiuplations:
- Even though there may only be one person talking at a time - it will be infeasible to be constantly moving the microphone. This is due to the fact that the discussions are very much conversational in nature - with the occassional presentation.
- Some form of a stand, to hold the microphone, would be nice.
- It may be possible to position everyone within a 12" radius of the microphone, itself.
- The discussion will be taking place in a larger room, although there is very little echo.
- My budget is anywhere from $50 - $100 - but may be flexible to $120.

What I've done so far: I just purchased a Cardioid condenser mic based upon a number of positive reviews. I have done some testing and it seems to only pick up audio within 3ft of the front of the microphone - which is acceptable for a desktop recording (or for recording music, I assume) but not really what I'm looking for. If there was some way to amplify its recording capabilities, that might be acceptable - but, ideally, I'd like something that could record from any direction.

I then looked at a couple different Omni-directional microphones (omni = any direction, I assume?) but they seem to be either incredibly cheap handhelds or wildly expensive clip-ons. I'd hate to shell out a lot of money (again!) for something that may not even suit me.

Where would I begin to look for something of this nature? What is this type of microphone called?

French spoken-word podcasts or MP3s

amtho — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:33:46 -0800

I'm interested in acquiring a little comfort with spoken French - passively, by listening to it. I looked through a Podcast archive (and looked through some AskMe threads), and could only find French music. I'm interested in news, stories, interviews -- basically just listening to French people talking. Even stuff intended for children might be good. Since I don't speak French, it's a bit of a challenge to go looking for this stuff. Can anyone recommend a way to find spoken-language French MP3's or podcasts?

Help me with the Jaeger podcaster?

lilboo — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 07:52:32 -0800

Anyone out there using the Jaeger podcaster?

I was hoping that I could use it to listen to the Teenage Wasteland archives from WFMU. But I'm not sure how to set up a feed, any ideas?