Episode 6 Joan and the Savvy Podcaster: Technical

Series 2 of The Arc of Joan takes a non-fiction detour. I am "playing" a dry witted narrator for an audio tour guide into creating podcast fiction in this 10 part series. This series gives independent producers a step by step guide and a few important hacks to help develop and create their own audio drama series. Episode 6 gives an overview of the Technical needs of a show.

Below you will find the transcript to this podcast. There will be a test afterward. Jay Kay. This tour is a basic overview of the steps involved with creating an Audio Drama Series, whether it be a comedy or drama or horror show. It is not an opus or the be all and end all of how to create an Audio Drama. But, hopefully it will help give someone a general idea of what they are getting into before they start creating and producing.

This podcast was created on Audacity software, using the helpful resources from freesound.org and freemusicarchive.org and John Bartmann did the music from JohnBartmann.com

 

EPISODE 6:  TECHNICAL
Hey y'all, welcome back to: Joan and the savvy podcaster. Episode 6: The technical. My name is Saylor Billings and I created the Audio Sitcom, The Arc of Joan. But this next 10-part series is dedicated to creating and producing Audio Drama Podcasts without breaking the bank. The blog associated with this podcast is located at: https://thearcofjoan.blogspot.com/
In this episode I’m going to talk about the technical aspects of creating the Podcast including the hardware, software and the sound effects elements.

All artists have their tools and their space where they create the work, and they also have their methods or their own individual process. So be flexible when your putting together your studio. I come from a theater background, so I’m very used to having technical rehearsals. Which is where the cast walks through the show line for line to build the sound and light cues.  So consider this part kind of like your audio department pre-technical rehearsal. Everyone has their scripts and their marching orders on how they’re going to record their scenes. Before you sit down for the arduous task of editing/creating this show make sure you’ve got everything you’re going to need and you’ve got your mind right for it.
In episode 2, I was talking about the background research you need to do for preproduction planning. In episode 4 I listed the BBC writer’s room website to help you format the script. But here in episode 6 I want to get more into listing the technical aspects of the tools you will need to put together our example 12-part series, “Betty’s day out” that is recorded remotely. I can’t very well put in links to the podcast but in the blog, I’ve put in links for some of the various hardware and software I use. Some of those links are affiliate links, and only one place out of the many places you can purchase the specific tools. I haven’t linked random microphone sites and reviews for kickbacks, just the items I use or have used and worked for me in the remote recording production. 

My workstation includes my computer, printer, an external hard-drive, several thumb drives, and a couple SD cards. Some people may use a “cloud” for backing up their work. There’s a saying I’ll add here, ‘if it’s not saved in 3 separate places, it’s not saved.’
Once upon a time I would have put in the hardware list to have a sound mixer but unless you are using a live recording format for your Audio Drama, I don’t know why you’d have one. I add it here only so you know they exist. And if we were doing a live show they would be, obviously, a must have.
I use over the ear headphones, because I get the best sound editing values out of them instead of the in-ear headphones.
Also, I have a Zoom H-2 Handy Recorder. It is both a field recorder and my sometimes microphone. A Shure 58 with a signal adaptor (I already had the 58 but I just bought a signal adaptor for it) and an Audio-Technica mic. The Zoom Handy tool is invaluable to me because I do a lot of my own Foley work. Room tones, doors opening and closing, footsteps, cars passing by/ outdoor/ inside a moving car ambiance sounds, washing dishes, putting dishes away, dropping things, shuffling paper, phone sounds, keyboard typing sounds, all that and more. I don’t have to because as I’ll go over later there are sound effects downloads you can use as well, I just really like doing it. I wanted to capture the sound of a car door shutting on a 1972 rust bucket of a car so I asked a neighbor who has a rust bucket if I could record a few of the opening and closing doors. I record the sound effects on SD memory cards in the Zoom, download the effect into my editing suite and clean it up then upload it on my sound effects thumb-drive, and the external memory drive in a sound effects file. 3 places, safe and sound. You can also use the Zoom as a microphone for yourself when and if you record your own Show intro’s and out-tro’s and credits. I think doing some of my own SFX foley work helps get me in the right mindset for building a show. I also have a mic stand that holds my pop filter as well. And that’s it for the hardware. Before you get into the production phase just make sure everything works together as it should, like if you have to but an analogue to digital converter make sure the bit and sample rate match the audio software bit and sample rate.
In order to send the audio files back and forth with the actors you might need a file sharing app. Google drive, dropbox, one drive, icloud; there are plenty of free zip and file sharing apps. Coordinate with your cast members on which file sharing apps they use and accommodate their knowledge base. If the actor/s have a wide range of technical ability on this then by all means ask them to use whatever app you use. You could also just set up a gmail account and drive that your actors have access to as well. So they can load up there sides, and then you can download them on your end. Just be aware of the megabyte limits to any app software. It might be easier to have the actors compress their sides into an mp3 and when you upload it into your editing software convert it into a WAV.
Just a quick tip for the Actors when recording I will probably mention again in the editing episode:
When they record themselves ask them to identify themselves and their character and what scene and which pages they are recording. And in the first take ask them to give you about 5 seconds of silent recording. You’re doing that so you can record their room tone which will come in handy later when you are editing.

Editing Suites, Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), Audio Editing Software, whatever you want to call it, they all should basically do the same thing. Recently I’ve seen some podcasting hosts offer editing services. Which would be great if you were recording yourself reading or talking with another person and you could splice it up and add some intro music, but the editing capabilities you need to make an Audio Drama are greater than that. There’s high end to low end and easy to use to difficult to use and everything in between now for Audio Editing Software. Guess which one I use? Audacity is a free open source software. Audacity does have some glitches. However, they are quick to help out and because it’s open sourced there are 100’s maybe by now 1000’s of users who have tips and tricks. Have you heard that Audacity crashes? It has on me, but because I back up and stay organized it’s not a problem. But I have used Adobe before and it crashed as well, that’s where I learned to stay organized and backing up my work. I’ve only used Avid many years ago to edit film so I can’t speak to it’s sound software. Audacity also has 3 different help/learning tools; The quick help guide, the online manual, and the forum. There are also countless You Tube tutorial videos to help level out that steep learning curve associated with any audio engineering program.

All podcasts hosts ask for CoverArt when you upload your website. These are invariably in jpg or png format. Dimension and Specs have to be on point so before you design and/or pay for software to design the CoverArt, click on over to the 3 main podcast distributors: Apple, Google, and Spotify and look at the requirements. 1400x1400 under 500k or whatever and make sure your design is going to look good in the size requirements.

Other elements of the Audio Drama include the sound effects, music, and ambiance or tones. There are plenty of places to find free sound effects. The sound effects bible and freesound.org, among many more. Just type into a browser for free sound effects. Or if you’ve got a field recorder like a Zoom Handy you can make some quality effects on your own. It can also help break up the tedium of searching for just the right effect. For several scenes in Arc of Joan I did the outdoor atmospherics and the footfalls through grass among other things with the field recorder. You have to be careful with downloading free sound effects there are a lot of corrupted ones or they could be carrying a software virus, so do be careful when downloading free stuff.

MUSIC:
But music for your scene changes or intro or background is a whole other beast. You must not use copyrighted music in your podcast unless you pay for it. If you don’t know whether it is copyrighted, or not, then don’t use it. There are plenty of places to find free music. So there’s no sense in pinching off someone’s hard work for free. One resource that I think gets overlooked is the library of congress. Go to LOC.gov and click on audio recordings in their drop-down menu. 

This is from their webpage:
“This page features items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use. Each set of content is based on a theme and is first featured on the Library’s home page”
But again, credit your source.

Also you can go to Creative Commons.org. Like Audacity, Creative Commons is a sharing platform and I full on support their mission. Go to their website and click on the What We Do and then on the About CC licenses and then follow the license permissions.

The main thing is that you credit the place or people where you’ve gotten your free download. Credit them in your closing or opening credit’s, credit them in your meta-data, or show notes, on your website, on your blog, where-ever it’s appropriate. They gave you their work for free, give them credit.
I imagine if you’re a super organized person, which I am not, you could create a spread-sheet that lists files of the sound effect and/or music, the source credit, where you keep it, and other organizy-file-y information. And keep it with your editing script. That way you’d have a super-fast way to not lose any information or be like me with a wall filled with yellow sticky notes and enter into the cyclical world of losing stuff and finding stuff and losing it again and finding it stuck to the bottom of your shoe. Yeah, I’ve done that.
That’s the technical hardware and software and effects you’ll need for the show. I will go over the podcasting host websites in episode 9.

Before you get into the editing I hope you will heed these words: Every hour you edit, get up and stretch your legs. Walk around, go get something to drink, roll your head around, shrug your shoulders, focus your eye’s on a point in the distance. Personally, I find the act of sitting and focusing on these little wav lines to be physically exhausting so every time I get up from my work editing station, I stretch it out or something. Your body thanks you.

That’s it for now. Next weeks episode will go through the first part of editing the podcast together.
And if you haven’t been told yet, I hope you have a great rest of your day!