Thing 18 - getting back on the horse

Having failed earlier this year in my attempt to make a podcast of an author talk, I am glad Thing 18 is here to help me back up on the horse!

Thanks to travelinlibrarian's six steps to podcasting I've been able to find a solution to one of my podcasting woes. Full disclosure requires that I share all the pits I fell into, in hopes of sparing someone else.

• lack of background in A/V and failure to consult experts (such as the Communications team at my organization)
• not enough time set aside to research and test recording and editing process with the actual equipment
• wrong microphone set up: tried to use a standard microphone set on a table near the author
• hadn't heard about Levelator, which travelinlibrarian uses prior to editing recording in Audacity. Because my audio levels were so up and down it was impossible to filter out the bad noise from the recording when I went to Audacity.

Luckily when I asked the author for written permission to record and distribute the recording of the event, I warned her that it was a trial run. Back up I go and hopefully will make a satisfactory podcast in November...Audacity is a great program.

Love Jing as well! Did a quick test and again there are microphone issues to be aware of. I am going to make a screencast for PC users who have trouble setting up the scanner software...