One of the great rewards of networking at an event like PodCampUK was the chance to meet seasoned podcasters like Andy White and co-founder of Podcast User Magazine, Paul 'Parky' Parkinson and to pick their brains for gems of knowledge and quick fixes to difficult questions.
During Paul's Audio 101 presentation for example, he explained that for Audacity fans, he thinks to achieve a better sound, it is better to export files as wav and then convert them into mp3 using the encoder in iTunes rather than the recommended lame encoder in Audacity.
To do this, follow these instructions:
- In Audacity make a recording and press Ctrl+A to highlight the track
- Click File/Export as WAV... Choose where you are going to save your file and click Save
- Open iTunes and click Edit/Preferences
- Click the Advanced tab and in the dropdown menu next to Import Using, select MP3 Encoder
- In the dropdown menu next to Setting select Good Quality (128kbps)
- Click OK
- Click File/Import
- Find the file on your computer, select it and click Open. It should now appear highlighted in your iTunes library
- Right click the file and select Convert Selection to MP3. You should hear a sound indicating your conversion is complete and the new mp3 version of you file should have appeared in the directory. To check this is the case, right click the file and select Show Song File, this will take you to the folder containing the file. Right click it again and select Properties. Next to Type of File it should say MP3 Format Sound.
For more of Paul's tips, you can download his PowerPoint presentation from here.
During the session, I took the opportunity to ask about a problem I was having when recording Skype conversations using Pretty May, namely that the resulting mp3 file played each voice as a separate channel instead of mixing them together. The clip above recorded on my Olympus 700 is a demonstration by Andy White who kindly showed me how to resolve this issue with the following steps:
- Click on the black downwards arrow to the right of the track title and select Split Stereo Track which splits the track into two channels
- Click on the black downwards arrow of each channel and select Mono
- Move the second L ... R slider slightly to the left on the first channel and slightly to the right on the second channel
- Highlight both channels by selecting them in turn (or by clicking Ctrl+A)
- Click Project/Quick Mix
- Export and encode the mixed track by following the steps mentioned by Paul above
I can testify that this tutorial does the business as I tried it out when mixing the recent interview with Kathleen Holton and it worked a treat. Thanks to Paul and Andy for sharing your sound ideas. It is much appreciated.
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