Digital Trends

The Audacity program automatically saves your recordings as an .aup file, which many other programs cannot open. You can export the file as an MP3 after recording from the File menu. Audacity will let you know that it requires you to have the LAME library to handle MP3 encoding in order to export files as MP3s.  LAME can be found at http://lame.sourceforge.net/ and is a free download, to boot. Once you have downloaded LAME and have clicked on Audacity's warning box to locate LAME, you're well on your way.  Believe me, this is all easier than it sounds and it will make sense once you get there. 

Audacity 1.2.3 During the Recording Process

Image Courtesy of Audacity 1.2.3

A side note: once you have made a recording, exported it and are done with it for the moment, be sure to close out the window, or begin a new project.  If not, you're going to lay another track right on top of your first recording.  That may be your desired effect, but for the purpose of this article, we're going to focus on just the basics.

Now, the fun part.  You probably already have a general idea what you want to do, as far as content goes.  Figure out what you're going to say and with whom you would like to work, if anyone. The content is up to you, whether you want to play obscure music, converse with callers about ancient cultures, give tips on budget travel, broadcast your own band, or perform a weekly comedy routine. Remember, this is your show and you get to make the call.  A few general things to think about are that many shows have some kind of identifying intro, like a jingle, tone or obnoxious noise.  You should ideally aim for a show length of about 20-30 minutes.  If you do a talk show, try to limit each topic to about five to eight minutes, transition with a jingle, then move to the next topic.  Whatever you do, just keep it moving. 

Next, upload your MP3 file to your website, and voila, you have just embarked on the new digital revolution, known as podcasting. All that's left to do is to shoot your friends an email to let them know where to find your file.  Tell your friends to tell more friends and the next thing you know, through word-of-mouth (still the best form of advertising), you're a star, if only in your own mind. 

If you want to reach a much larger audience, you can publish your audio file as an enclosure on blogging services, like Blogger.com, or you can share your podcast on Podcasting.com, or the behemoth iTunes Podcast Directory.  For regular, frequent publishing as well as using iTunes, you will need to create an RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication).  There are a couple of ways to do this once you get to that stage.  You can either take the time to hand code it (http://www.rss-specifications.com/), or just download software that will make it a snap to create and manage your feeds, such as the $39.95 software from FeedForAll. 

That's it for the basics.  Good luck and happy podcasting!

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