Equipment

Zoom H2 £150

sound equivalent of digital camera
records broadcast quality WAV onto SD card
built-in mike

Other sound recorders (£250-£350):
Marantz PMD-660
Marantz PMD620
Edirol R-09

Mikes (£80-120):
Beyerdynamic M58
Shure SM58
AKGD230
Soundman OKM II (binaural, look like earphones, 'secret')

Headphones (£20-£120)

Software

Audacity

download Mac or PC version free from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
you'll need the LAME encoder too

Other software:
Adobe Audition (£50-£250);
royalty-free music (Google search, free)

iTunes
download free from apple.com. For subscribing to podcasts, adding your own to iTunes directory, and changing tags on MP3 files

Formats

• Interviews (easy if good subject)
• Monologue (easy but boring: opinion pieces)
• Presenter-led (scripted, linked bits of audio, like Radio 4 documentary)
• Actuality (no script or presenter, people introduce themselves: special events, case studies, slice-of-life)
idents: 'This is a podcast from Fred's blog at www.fredblog.com'

Recording tips

• set recording level so it's just touching red
• watch out for extraneous noises! aircon, talking, traffic, TV, music...
• record some background sound without talking
• record speech in dead acoustic: studio, room full of books, or under duvet
• ideal speaking distance about six inches from mike

Rules of thumb

• scriptwriting: reckon on 3 words per second
• 1 minute of podcast needs up to 1 hour of recording
• record and edit in WAV
• convert to MP3 after editing; use bitrate 80kbps or 96kbps
• 2-4 minutes ideal final length
• 1MB of MP3 is about 1–2 minutes of podcast

Creating RSS feed

• http://library.creativecow.net/articles/mcmahon_frank/pod2.php
very important if you're only producing a podcast, less so if the podcast is an occasional addition to your regular blog