Podcasting Howto: Using Audacity to duck music behind voice tracks

25th January 2008, 12:55 pm

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts on a wide variety of topics lately, getting ideas for how faculty can integrate podcast creation into their own classes. One thing I’ve noticed is how polished and professional some podcasts sound - since I want our faculty to be able to produce professional-sounding media, I’ve been trying to identify specifically what separates the professional from the amateur. While many things seem to play a part in that professional sound, one consistent feature I can easily teach and replicate is the use of music. Some podcasts use only intro and outro music, others use music to indicate section breaks, and still others play constant, faint background music. However, all professional-sounding podcasts using music share one thing in common - ducking or fading music behind the voice track(s).

We’re promoting Audacity for basic audio recording and editing, so I looked into how to achieve ducking in Audacity. While there are several ways to duck or fade music, the most professional-sounding method involves the use of the envelope tool, which fades the volume of a track to a constant low level, then fades back to the original loud level. It’s pretty easy to use once you’ve gone through the steps; since video is much easier to follow than text-based documentation, I whipped up a screencast demonstrating the envelope tool, which I’ve embedded below. Tell me what you think.

As an aside, I also used this opportunity to play around with some alternative video upload services. Out of all the ones I tried, I liked Revver’s embedded video object the best. It’s interesting to see how some video services use more compression than others when transcoding the .avi I uploaded into .flv. Here’s the services I tried:

Do you have a favorite video upload service I didn’t try? Tell me about it - I’d love to test it out.

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Category: Podcasting, Video  |  4 Comments

Build and organize a podsafe music library

7th January 2008, 12:17 am

Recently, I’ve been assisting instructors interested in offering podcasts to their students. Since many others write articles on podcasting basics, I won’t belabor those topics here (unless, of course, I get requests for it). Instead, I intend to share some tips on topics that I don’t see others covering, starting with building a music and sound effects catalog.

When used effectively, music and sound effects give podcasts a professional quality - introductory and “outtro” music, background music, pieces of music separating show segments, and sound effects all contribute to a podcast’s polish. In some cases, like the podcasts (or “netcasts”, as Leo likes to promote) offered by the TWiT network, music choice sets the mood for the show and helps establish a brand. However, it already takes so long to record and edit podcasts without adding additional audio that often people find they don’t have time to add that extra polish. With the right tools and resources, I’ve found I can collect and maintain an easily-searched database of podsafe audio, ready to drop in podcast episodes in minutes. Generally, the steps I’ve taken to build my podsafe catalog include:

  1. Collect the music using Firefox and DownThemAll
  2. Import music into MusikCube
  3. Rate and tag songs as I listen to them
  4. Prepare frequently-used songs with desired volume, fade and trim edits

After the jump, I’ll cover each step in depth.

Continue reading ‘Build and organize a podsafe music library’ »

Category: Podcasting  |  1 Comment