Develop a description of your podcast. Make sure it explains the purpose of your show and accentuates the theme of your podcast. Aim for two or three sentences.

Sample Show Outline

• Show intro monologue (who you are, what you're going to talk about): 30-60 seconds
• Intro music jingle (repeat for each show so listeners identify the jingle with your show): 30-60 seconds
• Topic 1: 3 minutes
• Topic 2: 3 minutes
• Interlude (music or break): 30 seconds
• Topic 3: 3 minutes
• Topic 4: 3 minutes
• Closing remarks (thank audience for listening, thank guests, talk about the next show, briefly): 2 minutes

This can be done on your existing computer with free software and online tools.

Computer Based Recording

The recording of audio onto a computers’ hard drive allows you to edit and manipulate your sound files. This data can be stored as a sound file such as .wav or. aiff.

There are multiple advantages to recording and editing your voice-overs using your personal computer.

• The ability to record long and uninterrupted narration.
• Digital editing.  Quickly and easily remove unwanted background noise or embellish the audio track with music and sound effects.
• Digital Processing.  Add effects to your voice, such as reverb, or echo, and master your entire demo for sonic clarity.

PC Computers: Minimum voice-over requirements for PC

Personal Computer

• Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent Processor
• Windows 2000 / Windows XP
• iTunes for PC
• 1 GB of available disk space
• 512 MB of RAM
• Audio Line In and Audio Line Out

Mac Computers: Minimum voice-over requirements for Mac

• Mac G3 or better
• Mac OS X
• iTunes for Mac
• 1 GB of available disk space
• 512 MB of RAM
• Audio Line In and Audio Line Out

Microphones

Whether you are using a Mac or a PC, you will need a microphone to record your voice into your computer. You may already have a microphone or you can purchase one. It needs to have a connection the size of the jack or audio line in port on your personal computer. A USB microphone would also work.

Examples:

Recording a Long-Distance Interview

For interview-style podcasts, you can record using Skype to record, or plan to record via a conference call to allow multiple participants.

Recording an In-Person Interview

To conduct an on-site interview, visit the site ahead of time to become familiar with the surrounding. Scope out the best place to set up in order to minimize any extraneous or background noises.

Recording One Person Shows

You are the host, so you are speaking directly to your audience. You are in control of where you record, how you record, and the materials you present. Have your show outline ready; plug in the microphone, set-up your recording hardware and hit record. Be sure to record in a quiet environment.

Your Goal with Editing

Your finished podcast should flow seamlessly from one sentence to the next. If your editing has caused abrupt interruptions, or simply doesn’t make sense (not a good thing), then perhaps you should reconsider your editing style.

Room Tone - Natural Sound Temperature

A location’s room tone is its auditory fingerprint. These are non-specific sounds generated by the natural acoustics of the room. Editing may also be required when sounds overlap. If they occur while you or another individual in your podcast are speaking your editing can be more challenging. To preserve the original performance, try to find another take of the word(s) in question (the one you want to replace) and edit or splice the word in to replace the unusable take.

Production Techniques - Mixing in your show intro, imaging, and musical transitions

Remember when you wrote your podcasting script? Now is the time to mix in your show intro, the section that announces the name of your podcast and the episode number. It is most effective if this is the voice of an announcer, distinct from your own. Try fading your background music in when a new segment beings. Lower the volume level of the music when you are speaking so that your listeners can hear every work you say. At the end of the segment, fade your background music out. Use musical transitions between the various segments of your podcast. These musical transitions are known as bumpers, stages or sweepers.

Key Points About Mixing

In this section you balanced the volume levels of the voice-over(s), music and sound effects. You are now ready to export your podcast recording into an MP3.

Next, you'll need to upload your MP3 file to Drake’s iTUNES U.

• Give your podcast a title
• Number your episode
• Add a short description for your episode
• Add a hyperlink to the MP3 file for this episode
• Add tags to help search engines identify the contents of your podcast episode