Technical Details
[Podcast Name] is an audio-only podcast, recorded on Skype. If you do not have a Skype account, please sign up for a free one by clicking here and downloading the software to your computer. My Skype name is [Skype Name], and you’ll need to add me to your contact list. I will call you via Skype at the time that we’ve scheduled for our interview.
To make sure our interview sounds great, please review my sound guide PDF.
[Sound Guide: Click Here]
You’ll also need to:
Sit in a quiet place for the interview (e.g., not a coffee shop).
Silence your phone(s).
Connect Skype to your headset/microphone.
Silence your Skype notifications (here’s how: Windows and Mac [include links]).
Turn off other on-screen applications that might be running on your computer.
Use a headset with a built-in microphone or a stand-alone mic with earbuds.
Interview Promotion
After our interview, I will promote your podcast episode extensively on social media and through my email list. I encourage you to do the same thing. Promotion on your part isn’t a requirement for being a guest, but I highly recommend that you bring our interview to your audience’s attention. I’ve created a guide to help with that, which you can download here [Download link]. The day before your episode airs, you will be sent links for all of your episode information.
Thanks, and I can’t wait to speak with you!
INGREDIENT #3: DESCRIPTION FOR ITUNES
There are two options for how to complete this section on preparing your description that will be displayed in iTunes (see Figure 12-3).
FIGURE 12-3
Write down, in your own words, what you think is the right description for the podcast. Explain what you hope to achieve and why people should listen. Ultimately, you’ll answer the question for readers of, “What’s in it for me?”
Simply record your thoughts and goals for the podcast and what people will be getting out of it. Our team will then take that audio and pull it apart to write a podcast description for you to review.
Recipe #2: Libsyn, iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play Setup
Your final step before recording your interview is to set up your Libsyn account so it is ready for you to upload your completed episodes. Hosting more than 25,000 podcasts, Libsyn has been a leading podcast-hosting company over the past ten years. At the time of this writing, we have produced, uploaded, and distributed nearly 1,000 episodes through Libsyn and have never had a single problem. We’ve never even had to connect with their support department. Their platform is that stable!
You may be asking yourself, “Why do I need a podcast host if I want my episodes to be available inside iTunes?” Excellent question. I wondered the same thing when we were working through the Onward Nation launch process.
Libsyn is where you will upload, store, or “host” all of your audio files (your episodes). When each upload is complete, Libsyn will give you a URL for where you can find the episode. For example, you can find my interview with Gary Vaynerchuk here in Libsyn: http://traffic.libsyn.com/onwardnation/Gary_Vaynerchuk_Interview.mp3. Or, you can find the same interview at OnwardNation.com/Gary-Vaynerchuk. Either way, it’s the same audio file. The only difference: OnwardNation.com is pulling the audio file from Libsyn into our website to give it a better presentation. But the content is still coming from Libsyn.
Plus, with each episode you upload, Libsyn will automatically update the RSS feed for your show. Your podcast will run on an RSS feed similar to a blog. When a new episode is available in Libsyn, and the publishing day and time you set inside Libsyn has arrived, Libsyn will add your latest episode to your RSS feed. Once added, your latest episode will quickly appear in iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play because your RSS feed is a new immediate conduit of content into those platforms.
Setting up your Libsyn account is simple. We created a step-by-step tutorial for setting it up: PredictiveROI.com/Resources/Stage-5.
And PredictiveROI.com/Resource/Launch includes tutorials on how to set up your iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play accounts. However, don’t set up those accounts until you’re ready to launch. That’s because once you provide iTunes with your RSS feed, it’s out of your hands; iTunes will immediately get to work in creating your iTunes channel and making your content available in its directory. That’s why setting up iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play are part of our launch recipe.
For now, please create your Libsyn account and then move on to Stage 6 to master all things audio.
CHAPTER 13
STAGE 6:
EQUIPMENT, SOFTWARE, AND EDITING YOUR INTERVIEWS
This chapter will provide you with specific equipment recommendations so you can begin recording the audio for your episodes for less than $300. We’re also including our full audio editing recipe so you can follow the same process used by our Predictive ROI team. We will cover how to record each interview, where to save the recorded files, and how to edit an interview into an episode using Adobe Audition. When you finish this chapter, you’ll be ready to produce your first episode and upload into iTunes for the whole world to hear!
Equipment Overview
Business owners might actually be surprised to find out that they don’t need an expensive studio to create an awesome podcast. It’s also easy to fall into the mental trap of thinking all the equipment is going to be confusing to hook up in a certain way, but I’m going to share a simple list you can just purchase from Amazon.
To start off, you will need a computer—it doesn’t matter if it’s a PC or a Mac. But I strongly recommend a computer with a lot of memory.
Invest in an external hard drive to save all your audio, because whether you are doing one, three, or five episodes a week, you are going to be using up a lot of memory on your computer.
It’s better to get an external hard drive, so you can store all that audio and all of your edits on there.
You will also need editing software. There are several options to consider, including:
Adobe Audition
GarageBand
Audacity
If you want to use a free version, go with Audacity.
At the time of this writing we have used Adobe Audition—on which the editing checklist in this chapter is based—to edit nearly 1,000 episodes. It is awesome and a good investment. The monthly cost is approximately $20 through Adobe’s Creative Cloud.
You’ll need to purchase a tool that helps remove the echo in your audio. It is called DeVerberate. You can buy it from Acon Digital for about $100. You can find it here: https://acondigital.com/products/deverberate/.
Most important, you will need a high-quality microphone. At Onward Nation, we use the Audio-Technica 2100, or ATR 2100 for short. You can find it on Amazon for around $80. But you definitely need a microphone. Do not try to record your episodes using your computer’s built-in mic.
Recording and Editing
Let’s say that I interview a guest on Skype, and because I’m using a Mac, I installed the Ecamm Call Recorder, which is a onetime $30 expense. It works like a plug-in that bolts onto Skype so whenever I open Skype to connect with a guest, Ecamm automatically opens and is ready to record. And when my guest and I end our Skype session, and I close down Skype, Ecamm captures the audio and saves it directly into my Onward Nation Dropbox folder. Then my team can grab the audio file and begin the editing process.
Stay organized by getting in the habit of creating folders with your guest name as the title of each folder. It’s pretty basic. Just go to your external hard drive and create a simple folder you’ll call “Joe Smith.” Then, you’ll take your audio file from your interview and put it in Joe Smith’s folder. Then open your Adobe Audition, and once that is up, you’ll place the file for your interview into your left window where it says “Files.”
Then, simply go up to “Edit” at the top of the window and click “Split into Mono Files.” You are going to want
to do this, because if you are recording correctly, you should end up with a “dual track” where you have your voice at the top and your guest’s voice at the bottom.
This will be awesome, because then you can go into that file and touch up the voices and make sure everything sounds clean. You can go in there and fix the audio track. When you do that, just make sure you split it into mono files. Your audio files should either say “Joe Smith left” or “Joe Smith right.” It’s going to split that up or it’s going to say “one” and “two,” but you’ll be able to tell which “one” is your audio and which is your guest’s audio.
Once that is split up, remove anything before your introduction to the episode. I tend to begin Onward Nation episodes with, “Good Morning, Onward Nation, I’m Stephen Woessner.” So that is my team’s audio cue: Delete everything before that marker, such as chitchat with guests.
Also, you should apply your noise reduction. Remove annoying static. That’s key to just a nice, clean audio. Here’s how: Go to your “Effects” and then go to “Noise Reduction.” Once you are there, select an area right before you start speaking in your podcast. Before you speak in your audio track, before you say, “Hello. This is my podcast,” you are going to want to take a sample of your audio, copy it, and then select your whole audio to get rid of that static.
Once you are done with static, locate the volume tool on your track and lower the volume during the silences when your guest isn’t talking.
Also be sure of your own audio wave as the host. Suppose you hear yourself saying, “Aah” or “Mm-hmm”—you may want to edit that out. If you do, just be aware: You don’t want to accidentally get rid of the part after the “Mm-hmm” where you said, “Yeah. I definitely agree with your answer,” or something else that’s relevant.
Once you are done going through the whole track, go to the “Effects” menu. Select “VST.” Then right-click your mouse. It’s going to read “VST” a couple of times.
That’s where you will find the DeVerberate tool you purchased. Click DeVerberate to open it. Once you do, you will see a window pop up. There are going to be some dials. One setting reads, “Reduce Ambiance” at the top. Just make sure that’s your setting. The dials on the bottom left are where you will change your echo.
Be a little sensitive in this area. Try not to make yourself sound like you’re in a tube. If you are left with a little bit of an echo, don’t freak out. It’s going to be better than when you first had the audio.
Next, reapply “Match Loudness,” or if you have an older version of Adobe Audition, use “Match Volume.”
Now it’s time to lower your volume down to -16 LUFS. This level is an ideal setting for a podcast. It’s the standard.
Then you apply the same recipe to your guest’s audio.
When listening to your guest’s audio, listen for the part where you know they’re saying, “Thank you for having me on the show,” which represents the start of the interview. Delete everything before that. Then, go through and apply the noise reduction tool again, finding that one piece where it’s just static. Copy that, and select the whole file. Apply it so it gets rid of all that static. Then go through and delete the waves of audio that are just little noises. Even on the guest’s end, you might hear them clicking or tapping on the desk, or drinking a glass of water. We’ve heard—and gotten rid of—a lot of things that come through on the guest’s end.
After the noise reduction process, don’t apply the DeVerberate tool right away. I find that it’s better to wait until the “Multitrack” stage in Audition.
Next, just do the “Match Loudness” or “Match Volume” and go to -16 LUFS again. We’ll have the screenshot for all the settings on how you get to -16 LUFS.
The good news is that you’re done with the hard part!
The entire process should take you about thirty to forty-five minutes.
Once you have all that together, take a look at your Multitrack session. It should read, “Host, Interview, Sound Effects, Music Bed, and Master.” You’re going to want to go into your “Effects Rack” on the left. Once there, go to “Track Effects.” For your Master, Interview, and Host rows, turn off all the effects. We find this easier because, depending on the quality of your guest’s audio compared to yours, there may be obvious differences so, ideally, keep them the same level. Sometimes if you have your audio very advanced and your guest’s audio is different, there might have been some connect troubles. Your audience is going to be able to tell, so it is best to keep them similar, at the same level, same effects.
Once you’ve removed those, take a look at your left panel and double-check again that you have all your files. Then go ahead and set your audio file into the host—because you are a host. Then set your guest into the interview row, and then set your intro into the sound effects. It is okay to keep your track effects in the sound effects, because you probably had a professional make them, and, thus, their files are likely compatible with that.
Once you have your intro into the row, and you have all your other audio pieces in there, you’re going to want to fit them like a puzzle, because the pieces are not going to be perfectly aligned. Take a listen to make sure that your audio is falling into the same place when you are talking, as when your guest is speaking.
Go ahead and line that up. You may notice delays when you are looking through your audio, say maybe a few five-second pauses. Double-check those pauses; if there is some sort of awkward pause in between conversations, cut it. You will see the eraser tool at the top left. It looks like an actual eraser. You can go through and give your audio a nice cut with your mouse. Select both rows and move the eraser over them. Just take your time with this, so you make sure that everything continues to follow through.
Once you’ve gone through and made those cuts, select all the audio that you have in there. With “Command A,” all your audio is going to be selected—and you can listen at up to +65 percent speed and take out cell phone rings, reminder beeps, lags, glitches, and other extraneous noises.
Unfortunately, depending on how bad the glitch or lag is, you might not be able to remove it. If you don’t want to seek out professional help for the fix, be sure you let your guest know.
Once you have listened to all of it at that speed, click all of your audio again. Stretch it back to 100 percent.
Once it is back to normal, you can go to your “Mixdown Session” and then to “New File” and click “Entire Session.” This might take a minute depending on how big your file is, but just give it a minute. Once it’s all mixed together, you will be able to “Export” the file.
The file name is going to read “Mixdown 1.” Delete the “Mixdown 1” and leave the name you gave it originally. That’s going to end up on your desktop, and you just throw it into your Google Drive, which is what we use, and put it into Libsyn.
If you’re new to this, editing an entire episode could take a couple of hours. But once you have it down, you should be able to edit an hour podcast in sixty minutes. For a thirty-minute show, editing should take only thirty minutes.
YOUR AUDIO EDITING CHECKLIST
1. Create a folder on your computer desktop and name it using your guest’s name (Example: Joe Smith).
2. Place your recorded audio file from your interview (.mov file) into the guest folder.
3. Open Adobe Audition.
4. Import .mov file into Adobe Audition.
5. Select the .mov file, go to “Edit,” then to “Split into Mono Files.”
6. Keep your audio (as the host) on an L (1) and the audio for your guest on an R (3).
7. Edit your audio first.
8. Delete all audio before the point where you say your countdown to the episode beginning. To use Onward Nation as an example, I let our guest know we are about to get started by saying, “Okay, let’s get started in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1, Good Morning, Onward Nation, I’m Stephen Woessner.” This is an audio cue to my guest that we are about to begin the interview. It also serves as an aud
io cue to my team that any audio (the pre-interview chat) that comes before my “3 . . . 2 . . . 1” can be deleted.
9. Delete all audio after you and the guest say good-bye. You do not want any of your post-interview chat accidentally sneaking its way into your episode.
10. Apply “Noise Reduction” to your audio—not your guest’s. We are still focusing on just your audio for right now.
11. Go through and lower the volume on the pieces of audio in between you talking. Be sure to listen to the small audio waves!
12. Apply the “DeVerberate” tool to the audio once you have thoroughly gone through the audio and removed any noises you don’t want.
13. Apply “Match Loudness” so it is -16 db (-3).
14. Now you are ready to edit your guest’s audio.
15. Delete all audio before your guest says, “Thanks, Stephen! Happy to be on Onward Nation . . .” As with Step 8, this eliminates any audio from your guest that may have been recorded during your pre-interview chat.
16. Delete all audio at the close of the interview. Delete everything after your guest thanks you for being invited onto your show.
17. Apply “Noise Reduction” to audio.
18. Go through and delete the waves of audio in between the guest talking. Please listen to the audio waves first. They could be important responses to questions you asked during the interview.
19. Apply “Match Loudness” so it is -16 db (-3).
20. Once you have applied the “Match Loudness” (Match Volume) to your guest’s audio, please go to “File” and click on “File” > “New” > “Multitrack Session.”
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