Recording your podcast without a microphone
Sometimes, the computer and/or the microphone you have doesn't do a very good job of recording your voice. Depending on how sophisticated your computer is (and how good its sound card is), the quality of your voice recording can vary. The same thing holds true for microphones -- lesser cost microphones often result in lower quality recordings. And if you don't have a quiet place to record, well, even the best mic and the best PC may not block out the background noise of children, city streets, or whatever else life brings within hearing range.
What's more, even if they do record a podcast successfully, people can get hung up on audio editing software. Setting preferences like "bitrate" can stump some people. And arranging the proper levels and "I/O sources" can be confusing. What's more, not all programs come ready-made to encode shows to MP3 format, but need an additional encoder to do so. Downloading and installing and configuring the encoder can stump the uninitiated and stop them in their podcasting tracks.
There's something to be said for keeping on trying till you master the finer points of recording, editing and encoding sound files. But for some folks, it's a losing battle. Some people buy microphone after microphone, but they never get the quality they want. Or they don't have a computer with a good sound card and they can't afford to buy a better one. Or they get hung up on audio editing software and never really "get the hang of it".
Fortunately for people who want to record audio, but don't want to bother with setting up a home sound studio, there is another way to record your podcasts for upload to Podtopia.net. All you need, is a telphone and a good idea what you're going to say.
An increasing number of sites now offer the service of recording a voice podcast over the phone. Search the web for "record podcast by phone", and you can find services which let you record your audio with just a phone call to a number they publish on their websites. Signup for their services is usually required, but it's also (sometimes) free. And once you record your podcast to their servers, you can usually copy the file, change its name on your hard drive, if needed, and upload it to your regular podcasting account. Or, you can simply use the link to that file in your podcast, and not worry about moving and renaming files. It's totally up to you.
Phone call recording of podcasts vastly simplifies the process of recording voice audio for podcasts. It's not recommended for creating shows which include music or other sound effects (well, you could hold your CD player up to the phone and play music, if you want to include it in your podcast, but we can't vouch for the quality). And if you want to "mix" your show and include snippets of audio you've recorded on other podcasts, you'll really need to use a computer/home sound studio. But if all you want to do, is record a 5-10 minute talk and have a computer encode the audio and generate the sound file for you, there are now more options available to you.
Copyright © 2005-2007 by Kay Stoner - All Rights Reserved
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