Music to Their Ears
Mar 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Jason Scott Alexander
We know you're not growing mold from living under a rock. We know you know about podcasting by now. Most articles on podcasting, however, make the presumption that you're producing a talk show with (maybe) some sporadic hints of background music thrown in for good measure. As musicians, of course, our music is the show, and podcasting presents the perfect outlet for us to promote our own, or many other artists', music. Along with that directive comes a set of content and production challenges different from the talk-show paradigm.
CONTENT IS KEY
Podcasting's explosive growth over the past two years has shuttled the new broadcast medium from mere novelty status to that of a hugely competitive marketing tool. Still, your greatest competition when producing a podcast is often yourself, in trying to produce something that people will actually want to listen to on an ongoing basis. While the medium is a great way to push your music out to fans, you may not want to release all your music as freely copy-able MP3 podcasts. This is where vision comes into play.
Many artists and bands are starting to post podcasts to their Websites on a regular basis, somewhat akin to audio blogs. Rather than being a journal-style stream-of-consciousness rant, however, podcasts can act as edited peeks behind-the-scenes, with colorful accounts of recent shows or tour travels, previews of new material taken directly from studio sessions and candid interviews with producers, posse/crew, fans and more. Surprise loyal listeners with B-sides, unheard rarities, demo tracks or preproduction teases. Make the material something that not only die-hard fans, but also listeners in general would be interested in — often, in hopes of hearing news first. You'd be surprised at how the little everyday things can mean a lot to your fans. Keep it fresh.
A more altruistic approach that has worked wonders for many is to create a show entirely for, by and about your local or global “niche” music scene. You become the host and discover new music with your listeners, catch live shows and talk about or play clips from them, incorporate snippets of DJ sets or invite listeners to create and send in guest audio commentary for your show. People love intriguing discussion and reflection, so real interviews with exciting new bands, artists and DJs within your scene are always cool to hear. Because this will be listened to and not read, remember to give proper shout outs by mentioning guests' names and URLs often, along with dropping upcoming live show dates (including the year, just in case someone downloads the podcast next year).
By formulating a receptive and captive community, in which you can promote other artists, you're also promoting yourself. Of course, it goes without saying that you must always respect the copyrights of others and first get permission/clearance for any outside music or performances you include.
No matter the target audience or the purpose, an effective podcast must be well-focused and stir emotions. Because most listeners will either pass up or subscribe to podcasts based on the first 30 to 60 seconds, use a short, concise and enticing introduction to lay out the goods by mentioning the podcasts lineup with approximate times. For example: “Halfway through the show, we interview DJ So-and-So, followed by a hot new remix by yours truly.”
If you plan on developing a series or an episodic-style podcast, always mention the name and the subject matter of the podcast over the intro music, and do that the same way on every podcast, so as to brand it. Use the final minute or so to preview future podcasts' musical lineups, interviews or where your band will be podcasting from next if on tour. Most important, come up with a schedule and try to stick to it; that gives listeners something regular to look forward to.
A 2-TRACK MIND
Multitrack DAWs are ideal for show production because they allow you to assemble and layer music, voice, effects elements and other segments of your podcasts as easily as you produce elements of a song. Once your show's basic structure is assembled, however, it's often easier and more desirable to do the final editing, cleanup and prepping for conversion to a final publishing format (such as MP3) in a 2-track environment.
The newly released BIAS Peak Pro 5 ($599) for the Mac is my favorite for that. The Peak Pro XT 5 bundle ($1,199) also includes the podcast-friendly SoundSoap Pro restoration software and the Master Perfection Suite of mastering processor plug-ins. Note that many of the following tips and features are not available in Peak LE 5 ($129), therefore all references are to Peak Pro 5/Peak Pro XT 5.
Some podcast producers convert audio files to MP3 first and then edit them, but I recommend working with raw audio for all editing and prep work. Decompressing and recompressing audio will degrade its sound quality each time it undergoes recompression, so it is best not to save with compression until all editing and mastering has been completed.
Peak holds powerful interactive, nondestructive capabilities for editing and manipulating podcasts, but the completely redesigned Edits history in the Contents Drawer of version 5 is a real treat. With unlimited undo/redo and the ability to navigate back and forth in time to individual edit steps, this feature can help compare many different crossfades, level changes, plug-in settings and segment placements with a single click of the mouse. Changes made are not permanently applied to the file until you save it.
Likewise, the completely redesigned Playlist features unlimited undo/redo and allows sections of audio to be strung together in a specified order. Though its conventional use is clearly for assembling a Red Book CD playlist, lengthy podcasts can benefit by being created modularly or even as templates. Try developing templates where the intro theme music, featured music spots, public announcements/commercials and outros are already mapped.
When editing regions, Peak's Blending feature is invaluable. An automatic crossfade function with a user-editable envelope, it applies blending to areas of an audio document as they're cut and pasted, smoothing transitions between edits that would otherwise sound too abrupt. Using the Blending Envelope Editor, you can create the exact envelope that you desire by dragging the breakpoints, and it will be applied to every edit as long as Blending is toggled on. (Toggle by clicking on the Blending button in the Audio Document Window, or by pressing the Caps Lock key on your keyboard.) You can save your custom envelopes as user presets, which is a great time-saver.
The Plug-Ins Envelope is a similarly useful tool in preparing segmented material for podcast. Using it, you can apply plug-in effects gradually according to the envelope that you create in the Envelope Editor dialog. That is useful for varying the intensity of effects over time. I use it to gently introduce new EQ and compression/limiting, creating a more pleasing transition from regions that contain talk, music, sound effects and so on.
The Batch Processor is one of the most powerful and versatile features in Peak and is a secret weapon in streamlining regular podcast production schedules. From the File menu, select Batch Processing, and a dialog box that is split into three areas — Input, Process and Save Changes — appears. You can sequence a series of steps for Peak to execute in the process section and then set your output file settings in the save area.
Once configured and turned on in the input area, any files, folders or disks that you drop onto Peak's application icon (or an alias) will be batch processed and saved under the Batch File Processor's output directory, preserving all file/folder structure and organization. That is incredibly handy for auto-converting old podcast formats (from MP3 to newer AAC, for example), sampling-rate conversion, adding new intros or outros using the “Apply to First XX Seconds” parameter or automating other redundant and complex multiprocedure edit chains.
For podcasts that seem to drag on a bit and could use some speeding up, the Change Duration DSP allows any audio selection to be sped up or slowed down without changing pitch. The new DSP algorithm in version 5 is particularly well-suited for electronic and heavy rhythmic music, because it includes a special transient mode that offers a much better preservation of attacks.
CLEAN UP YOUR ACT
There are several ways to optimize audio for podcasts; many of the same techniques used for creating quality masters apply. The biggest difference is that the final destination for a podcast is a compressed format, and certain considerations need to be made up front. Depending on how the audio is processed beforehand, artifacts and noise may be accentuated in the final file.
During spoken-word sections such as narratives and interviews, you can actually help the process by prefiltering. By cutting the lows and highs, you'll present less information to the encoder and therefore allow the encoder to concentrate on what's important. Throwing away everything below 80 Hz and above 11 kHz helps considerably on telephone recordings, for example. BIAS Freq-4 is a powerful paragraphic equalizer plug-in that is ideal for that sort of thing. It may also be used to add coloration to compensate for frequencies not present in the original signal.
Repli-Q (included with BIAS Pro XT 5) is an absolute savior for preparing podcasts. While assembling a show, you're often dealing with combining multiple files recorded in different environments or with different microphones. That EQ-matching/linear phase EQ plug-in allows the spectral characteristics of one file to be matched to another.
Another high-quality process in Peak 5 favored by podcasters is the new RMS Normalization DSP tool. Using an averaging approach to normalization (rather than a peak approach), RMS allows you to enter the desired average level and then limit the digital ceiling to prevent clipping, all without the increased noise floor associated with regular normalization. Jason Davies, BIAS vice president of Worldwide Sales, says that “it is typically recommended that a value of slightly less than 0 dB is used to account for other gain changes that may occur with subsequent equalization processing, mixing and so on.”
The result is that the dynamics are evened out, and the file's amplitude high and low points are maintained but brought closer together, creating a much louder-sounding file. That is great for boosting the volume of material that was recorded at too low a level (such as telephone interviews) or, if used on multiple audio documents, for making sure that several files have a similar overall level. You may want to pretreat files with Peak's Strip Silence DSP tool; set its noise threshold just right, and it will save you countless hours of manual trimming.
For trickier restoration tasks, though, I can't say enough about SoundSoap (standard and Pro versions included with BIAS Pro XT 5). Podcasters should use it to clean clicks and crackles out of vinyl-record transfers, scrub hiss and hum from field recordings and eliminate complex noise.
CODECS AT WORK
Finally, we're ready to compress the podcast into its downloadable form. There are two popular choices: MP3 or AAC. Though AAC (a specialized subset of MPEG-4) offers superior sound quality and enhanced podcast features (such as chaptering) compared with MP3, it's probably still a bit early to fully adopt that as your conversion of choice; many audio-playback applications and portable music players don't support AAC.
Concerning bit rate, I recommend using 128 Kbps or higher from a 44.1kHz stereo source file for high-quality, music-centric podcasts. A 96Kbps podcast offers a nice balance between voice and music quality, but it sounds similar to FM radio. Lower bit rates significantly reduce the size of your files, but the tradeoff of poor audio quality on music that you're trying to promote isn't worth it. Don't use 24kHz or 48kHz sample frequencies, because some MP3 players refuse to handle those nonstandard rates. Likewise, stick with constant-bit-rate (CBR) conversion for podcasts, because variable-bit-rate (VBR) conversion is valuable only for much higher-resolution MP3s (192 Kbps and more) and can't be rendered on some players.
Lastly, the ID3 tags section of an MP3 file contains crucial information that allows your podcasts to be organized. Though the field descriptions may be geared toward album cuts, appropriately enter your podcast name (album), episode (title), your name (artist), year and episode number (track number). Use the comments section extensively for a table of contents/playlist and any contact info/Website URLs. Remember, the only thing that stays with your podcast is your ID3 tag. Fill it out!
POSTING & HOSTING
An MP3 alone does not make a podcast. You must also generate a text file known as an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or a podcast feed, which is based on XML technology. An RSS feed acts as a visual index to all of your podcasts (including dates, titles, descriptions and so on) for “podcatcher” software such as iTunes or iPodder, and it displays episode information on players like iPods. It also contains links that point to the physical location of your podcast MP3s on the Internet. Although they work together, the RSS feed and MP3 files need not be located on the same server.
While a provision for creating RSS feeds is reportedly on the radar for a future Peak release, there are several tools available that automatically generate rich-content compatible RSS 2.0 files, including FeedForAll ($39.95, Mac/PC; www.feedforall.com) from NotePage, Inc.; Reinvented Software Feeder ($29.95, Mac OS X; www.reinventedsoftware.com); and the free online FeedBurner utility available to Blogger users (www.blogger.com).
Whichever route you choose, you'll want to test the syntax of your RSS at FeedValidator.org by pasting in the URL of your RSS feed for approval. Compliant files in hand, you're now ready to unleash your podcasts upon the masses. Catching many newbie podcasters by surprise, though, is the fact that their personal Website bandwidth limits may be exceeded quickly with all those MP3 files being downloaded by adoring fans. Fortunately, there are unlimited bandwidth sites out there willing to host your podcasts for a small monthly or annual fee. Favorites include AudioBlog.com and Liberated Syndication (www.libsyn.com); the latter even offers free RSS 2.0 feed generation for members.
YA GOTTA SELL IT!
Simply throwing podcasts online doesn't mean anyone's actually listening. You have to attract, generate and grow an audience. There are literally entire books dedicated to that topic (and music marketing, in general), but a strategy must be developed regarding how you're going to let people know that your podcasts exist.
For a first small step, clearly post RSS link buttons on the front page (and any other relevant pages) of your own personal sites so that visitors can't miss them. Next, submit your RSS feed URL to as many podcast search engine/directory sites as you can, including favorites such as PodcastAlley.com, Idiotvox.com, Podcast.net, iTunes, Yahoo, CastRegister.com and Odeo.com. While being listed in those popular directories is a must, don't forget the power of good-old-fashioned search engines such as Google; make sure to include lots of great keywords in the headers and body of your podcast's Web page.
Since we're trying to promote music with our podcasts, using the tried-and-true, grassroots word-of-mouth method is always a safe bet. Setting up account pages on music community Websites like MySpace.com, PureVolume.com, AcidPlanet.com, Discogs.com and GarageBand.com — where you can post links back to your official site or directly to your RSS feeds — creates fantastic exposure opportunities among like-minded music fans.
A backdoor way of getting involved in the game is to have your music placed in other people's podcasts, just like in movies and television. Organizations such as the Association of Music Podcasting (www.musicpodcasting.org) unite podcasters who play awesome, legally available independent music with content producers; be sure to check out the forums because they're a hotbed for discussion between podcasters and artists/DJs/producers/labels looking for exposure. Finally, Magnatune (www.magnatune.com) is a hot new online record label whose music podcasters can legally use in their shows without paying for a licensing agreement. Check out the label's online agreement and submission guidelines, and your tunes could end up in iPods around the world in no time.
FOUR 'CASTING SUGGESTIONS
Palm-size digitals such as the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 and Sony MZ-M100 are great for capturing remote interviews and live events. Or, pack your favorite laptop DAW, but leave your bulky audio interface at home by hooking up the new Samson C01U (pictured) or the Blue Microphones Snowball USB condenser mics.
HISTORICAL RECORD
The completely redesigned Edits history in the Contents Drawer of Peak Pro 5 allows unlimited undo/redo and the ability to navigate back and forth in time to individual edit steps. Compare crossfades, level changes, plug-in settings and segment placements without permanently changing the file until you save it.
AUDIO PUREE
Use the Blending Envelope Editor to create the exact envelope that you want by dragging the breakpoints. You can apply that to every edit with Blending toggled on and save custom envelopes as presets.
SON OF A BATCH
From the Batch File Processor, Peak applies sequences of processing steps and output file settings to a batch of audio files.
MATCHMAKER
When dealing with multiple files recorded in different environments or with different microphones, using the Repli-Q plug-in (included with BIAS Pro XT 5) can match the EQ characteristics of one file with others.
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