Internet radio and individual podcasts are gaining in popularity. Many people like listening to “how-to” info and experts talking about “this or that” for three to five minutes at a time.
Which brings us to your next project: Creating a 2-3 minute audio podcast, with an accompanying script, on a topic related to your topical blog. It should include a brief musical intro that “fades” into your vocal/audio.
To prepare for this project, you will complete a couple of short lab exercises using Audacity. In the first one, you’ll edit out all the “dead spaces” and umms” from this sample wav file (to download the file, right-click or control-click).
For the second exercise, you’ll combine some royalty-free music (see the Resources page for links) or some “found sound” (download the “peepers” audio clip) and a short vocal recording (you can record yourself using Audacity or download my “peepers” voiceover and use that). You’ll split and trim audio clips, shift audio clips segments, and “duck” the background sound behind the vocal. When you’re done, you’ll save it as an Audacity project (which preserves all components for future editing) and then export it as an mp3. This is the kind of piece you should be doing for your podcast project.
Your podcast project is due March 21/22 — we will preview them in class. After spring break we’ll discuss options for uploading your mp3/podcast to your blog, and/or putting it on the web so you can link to it on your blog.
This assignment is worth 10 points (10 percent of your final grade).
