Audio Podcast How-to

Are you producing an audio podcast? Here is an example from one of our UTSC courses:

Oral history interview by UTSC Student Nancy Lee Download Oral history interview by UTSC Student Nancy LeePlay media comment. (see assignment details)

 

The technical steps to create an audio podcast like Nancy did is actually quite simple. You can use these resources for any audio podcast assignment, regardless of the discipline. In this tutorial video, we'll give you a walk-through of the process and give specific reference to the tip-sheets and steps that you will follow. Our goal is to make the technical process quite easy for any student regardless of your technical ability.

Of course, what we don't cover here is the discipline or course specific knowledge that you will require to properly conduct an oral history interview or to retell a popularized science piece. Follow the guidance from your prof on what matters most for your podcast assignment. But rest assured that these guides and tip-sheets will make it easy for you to complete the "technical production" part of the assignment!

 

How to make an Audio Podcast?

 

Technical Walkthrough

 

Resources:

How to Install Audacity

Audacity is the free software you will use to create your audio podcast. It will run on a Mac, PC, or Linux computer. You don't need a very powerful computer either. 

Visual tip-sheet Download Accessible tip-sheet

How to Create an Audacity Project File

Audacity uses special .aup file format. Create a folder with your audio source files, and keep the .aup file in the same folder. Combine multiple source clips (see below) into one project.

Visual tip-sheet Download Accessible tip-sheet

How to extract a clip from interview recording

Quite likely you will need to extract "clips" from a longer interview. Note: it's always best to save any extracted audio as a .wav file (with an .mp3 you will lose quality).

Visual tip-sheet Download Accessible tip-sheet

How to record a clip of your voice

Adding your commentary is easy. You can record your voice in Audacity, and export as a .wav file to combine in the project file. Or record directly into the project.

Visual tip-sheet Download Accessible tip-sheet

How to export the Audacity Project to a single audio file

Once your project is ready, you can export your project as a single audio file that you can share on the internet or submit to Quercus. Use .wav to maintain the full quality, but for the final product you may choose to export as .mp3 (smaller file; great for online).

wav for highest audio fidelity: Visual tip-sheet Download Accessible tip-sheet

mp3 for sharing on web: Visual tip-sheet Download Accessible tip-sheet

How to extract time codes from sound file

For more advanced projects, you may require time-codes, e.g. introductory commentary runs until the second 17, the interviewee speaks for 19 seconds (until 36s) then speaks on key topic for 22 seconds (until 58s). This works particularly well for a Spark Video.

Visual tip-sheet Download Accessible tip-sheet

 

Sample assignment:

Oral history interview by UTSC Student Nancy Lee

If you are just experimenting with Audacity and would like to see how Nancy and her team produced their assignment, take a look at these files. Please only use them for testing purposes!

Audacity project Download Audacity project (large file)

Original interview with Margaret McPhail (with caption .vtt Download caption .vtt)

 

Note: If you are using Audacity on a Mac with the newest Catalina OS Links to an external site., please see this workaround.