There really aren't enough steps shown how people record their podcasts. So I decided to make a list of how I record my music podcasts (Renaissance Festival Podcast & the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast ).

Recording the Podcast at Home

Typically, I record my podcast at home. Here is my at home recording equipment:

• Computer: Microsoft XP with a AMD Duron processor. 850 MHz, 512MB of RAM,
  
• SB Live! Wave Card for my Sound card,
  
• Recording program: Adobe Audition,
  
• Behringer Eurorack UB802 mixer,
  
• Alesis NanoCompressor set to about 3:1 compression (actually, I don't usually use compression with the Ren Fest Podcast. More often for the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast),
  
• Shure SM58, I speak about 3-5 inches from the mic crosswind to avoid pops in the sound,
  
• Kristen records using a laptop with a microphone via Skype.

How recording is done:

The show is recorded live. We call each other using Skype. This poses an interesting problem though for sound. With our current setup, we cannot get a better sound quality from my co-host, Kristen's mic.

Once we are logged onto Skype, I select Record Master in the Recording Control (Volume Control). This allows us to record vocals and music simulataneously. Kristen mutes herself, and I start the show off.

Once my intro is done, I turn my volume off on my external mixer and hit play on my VU Player where I have a Playlist setup with all the songs from the show. When the song ends, I turn up my volume on my Mixer, Kristen unmutes herself and we record the next section introducing each band, songs, CD, and URL for the band. After the show is recorded, I edit the show by removing some of our vocal screwups and deleting space between comments and songs that is excessive.

I then use the Dynamics Compression feature and compress the podcast 2.5:1. The reason for this is that many of the songs recorded by folk musicians are not evenly balanced. Some use virtually no compression. The result is that one song by bagpipes is ten times louder than a song by a folk instrumental group. Adding compression reduces the overall variance. And it also balances our vocals a little bit better into the podcast. And some of the dynamics aren't necessary when I save the file as an MP3Pro at 96kbps, constant bit rate.

I use Windows MediaPlayer to add ID3 Tags to the file and insert the shownotes in the comments section. Then I upload the show to my server.

Recording the Podcast on the Road

Recording on the road is a bit different. I can't easily record shows live because my laptop sound card doesn't allow me to use the Record Master feature. Thus, I cannot record live. This means more work for me, but a better sound quality.

• Computer: Microsoft XP on a DELL Inspiron B130 Laptop computer,
  
• Battlefield 2 headphones,
  
• Adobe Audition.

How recording is done:

This setup has not been tested yet. However, this is my plan for the next show.

The show will not be recorded live with music. Instead Kristen and I will record our audio tracks separately. When the show is over, she will email me her saved audio tracks and I will mix them in with my own. Then I will insert the music in post-production. All else is basically the same.

This should yield a cleaner sound, but it's not as much fun as listening to all the music live.


UPDATE: I have since had numerous opportunities for recording shows using the later technique. Apparently, this technique has its own name--"double ender".

This is definitely my preferred way to record these days. While I miss hearing the whole show, it is faster, easier, and offers a higher-quality sound to the final recording.


UPDATE: One of the biggest problems I had early on was getting a normalizing the sound. I had too many audio files that varied from no compression to way too much. This is ONE of the reasons I originally decided to compress the show. Rather than adjusting the volume of each song, I had to come up with something different.

- Now I copy each MP3 into a specific work folder.
- I then record my vocals for the show and add compression to my vocals.
- Next, I insert all of the MP3s into the correct order.
- Finally, I use the group waveform normalize feature in Audition to normalize all of the MP3s.

This makes improves the overall sound balance. A little compression adds to the overall listenability on MP3 players and on the road.