W200 Using Computers in Education

Creating a Voice-Only Podcast Using GarageBand

1. Launch GarageBand.
Locate the “guitar” icon in the dock and click it.

Note: If that icon is not available, locate and double-click the

MacHardDrive icon on the desktop, click once on
Applications to the right side of the dialogue box, then
locate and double-click on GarageBand.

2. Select the type of project you wish to create.

GarageBand presents you with 4 options. In this tutorial, you’ll
choose New Podcast Episode. It’s the purple icon with a
microphone. You might take note of the other options in case
you want to come back and play with GarageBand in the
future.

3. Save the podcast project.

Before GarageBand can create the workspace, you
must indicate where you’d like to save your Podcast
Project file (the project file is not the final product;
rather, it’s the working file). You’ll save yourself some
head-scratching if you develop a convention for
naming your podcasts sooner rather than later. Type
the name of the file in the Save As: box and navigate
to your preferred storage spot. Click Create.

Notes:

File Under: Project 5: Garageband Podcast

 The Garage Band Workspace

A
B
C

D
A. Tracks
B. Media Browser
C. Record and Playback controls
D. Advanced Controls

For this introductory tutorial, we’ll be working with the Tracks (A.) and the Record and
Playback Controls (C.).

You might also note that GarageBand provides you by default a Podcast track, a Male
Voice track, a Female Voice track, a Jingles track, and a Radio Sounds track. We’ll be
working with the gender track appropriate for you.

A note about extraneous tracks: if the extra tracks are in your way, you can delete them by
clicking on the track name, choosing the Track pull-down menu and choose Delete Track.
4. Check the volume of your microphone. Click on “Male Voice” or “Female Voice” as
appropriate. This activates the track (notice how it’s highlighted?). Speak into the
microphone (don’t blow . . . your breath is high in humidity and
causes rust on the interior metal parts of the microphone) in a
normal tone of voice at a normal volume. As you do this, keep
an eye on the meters. If they are bouncing into the red zone,
move the white sliding button below the meters to the left to
lower the volume. If the meters appear to be low, move the
white sliding button below the meters to the right to raise the volume.

With experience, you’ll find the perfect spot for your microphone setting. Somewhere at
about 2/3 full is a good place to start.

5. Record your podcast! Get yourself set and

ready to begin. Then locate and click the red
RECORD button in the Record and Playback
Controls area.
Record Rewind Play Ahead 1 sec
Back 1 sec

Momentarily, the play head will begin to move and a

purple audio track will begin to fill as you speak.

Hint: wait a second or two after the recording begins before speaking so opening words aren’t clipped off.

Continue speaking until you are finished with your podcast, and then click the PLAY button
to stop the recording process.

You can rewind to the beginning by clicking the Rewind button in the Playback controls.
Then click the Play button hear what you’ve recorded.

6. Save!
Click File > Save so GarageBand can save what you have created so far.

Notes:
 7. Edit your spoken track to delete unwanted portions.
OK, we all goof occasionally in our recording . . . fear not! You don’t have to start
over. Rather, if you goof, just pause a second or two to allow for dead space, and
then back up in your script to a logical restart point and continue recording. It is
really easy to cut out unwanted portions once recording is complete.

A. Locate the unwanted portion and set the play head at

the beginning of the section to be deleted. Be sure too
that the voice track is selected, that is, that it is dark
Unwanted portion
purple.

B. Click the Edit pull-down menu and choose Split. This

will split the audio into two sections. GarageBand will
automatically name the left section .1 and the right
section .2

C. Now move the play head to the end of the unwanted

section and repeat the split procedure (Edit > Split).
Your audio is now divided into three sections:
good/bad/good. GarageBand discards the .2 label because .2 is
now divided into .3 and .4

D. Select only the bad section (you may need to click in

one of the unused tracks to de-select all, then select the
bad section).

E. Hit the Delete key (use the one below the F13 key on a
standard Mac keyboard). Your bad audio will disappear.

F. The two good tracks remain separated by the amount of

space taken up by the bad audio. No fear! Just grab the
section on the right and drag it to join to the other section.
Caution: you can overlap them.

File > Save Project! (Think of saving as protecting your investment.)

 8. Share your podcast in .m4a
format.
Assuming you’re pleased with your
recording from step 5, or have
edited using step 8, click the
Share > Export Podcast to Disk.
GarageBand will ask where to
save the file; for ease of location
when uploading to Oncourse CL,
the Desktop is a good place to
store the podcast.

To quickly locate the desktop, click

the desktop icon in the left-side
navigation bar.

Save yourself headaches! Give the podcast a meaningful file name; GarageBand
gives the exported file the same name as the project file name by default. Change it
in the Save As: box if necessary.

When you’ve navigated to the proper spot and given your podcast a meaningful file
name, click Save.

GarageBand will process the file. Depending on the length of your podcast this may
take a few minutes.

There you have it! You’ve created a voice-only podcast ready to upload to Oncourse CL.
And a voice-only podcast is not a bad thing! To quote Jack Herrington, the author of
Podcast Hacks,

“Sure, the Nixon tapes sounded like garbage, but everyone listened to them
because the content was compelling.”

As long as your content is compelling, a voice-only podcast can serve your listeners well!
 Adding a Musical Intro and Outro to a Podcast using
GarageBand v.3
This tutorial takes a basic voice-only podcast and adds a music track introduction and
closing.

The tutorial presumes a basic knowledge of GarageBand v.3 and the existence of a voice-
only podcast project.

1. Open your existing .band podcast project in

GarageBand v.3.
Simply locate the project file (its extension is .band and
should not be confused with the .m4a file) and double- click to
launch GarageBand and open the project.

2. Access the music files in the Media Browser.

If the Media Browser is not visible at the right side of
the GB3 workspace, click the Control pull-down menu
and choose Show Media Browser.

Once the Media Browser is visible, click the Audio tab

to view the audio choices on your computer. This will
display both GB3’s demo songs and give you access to your own music in iTunes.
(Note: lab computer will likely have no iTunes music available.)

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the copyright-free/royalty-free music in GB3’s demo
songs folder.

Note, too, the dark triangles to the left of some folders. This indicates the presence
of sub-folders: click the triangle to display the subfolders.

3. Test and choose a music file.

GarageBand 3 has 5 demo songs installed. To listen to one, click
the title, then click the play button at the bottom of the Media
Browser.

I like Half Dome and will be using it for the tutorial; feel free to select a
different title for your podcast. In addition, if you’re doing
this at home, you can also do the same steps using music
from your iTunes library (please note: there may be copyright
implications for using music from your iTunes library!)

4. Drag-and-drop a song into the podcast.

Simply click on the song title, and while holding down the
mouse button, drag the song into the “unclaimed” gray area
 below the existing tracks.

Depending on how you maneuver the mouse while dragging, you can drop the song
anywhere in the track; however, it will begin where you drop. No fear! You can
always drag the song back to the beginning of your podcast.

GB3 will import the song, create a new track with the song’s title, and display the
song within a yellow track.

5. Move the voice track to create a music-only introduction.

In this step, you’ll move the voice track to the right so
that the podcast begins with a 7-12 second music-only
introduction. It’s really easy: simply drag-and-drop the
purple voice track to move it to the right. Note the
timeline at the top of the workspace . . . .And, if it helps,
you can drag-and-drop the entire music track just below
your voice track by clicking and dragging the track title.

The sample picture shows a 5-second music introduction before the voice track
begins.

6. “Duck” the music track behind the audio.

GarageBand uses the term “duck” to describe the software’s ability to automatically
drop the volume of a music track when a voice track start speaking.

In order to check ducking or turn it on if it’s not already on,

you’ll need to be able to see the Mixer for each track.
Locate and click the triangle at the top of the Tracks
column to reveal the Mixer.

In this image, the music track is “ducked” behind the voice. The
voice track’s ducking is set to “up” (a yellow up-pointing triangle),
which means it will cause other tracks to duck behind, while the
music track’s ducking is set to “down” (a blue down-pointing triangle)
meaning it will be ducked by other tracks. If ducking is not set, click
the up and down triangles to set ducking so the music is ducked
down and the voice is up.

7. B ring in a
music
track for
the closing
 of your podcast.
Once you’ve finished speaking, it’s nice to have a music track take the listener “out”
of the podcast.

Essentially, you’ll follow the steps from 4, 5, and 6 above, only instead of having
music for some time before the voice starts, you’ll set so that music plays after the
voice ends.

In addition, using ducking will cause the music to get louder when your voice track is
complete.

A completed ending might look something like this:

You can decide to include a music track throughout your podcast or split it so that it
ends sometime in the opening portion and picks up again near the end.

Because podcasting is so new . . . there are no rules!

How about a File > Save Project . . . . .

8. Check everything: rewind and listen to the podcast in its entirety.

This is the moment of truth! Does your podcast sound the way you want it to sound?
If not, make adjustments and listen again. Of course, remember what Jim
Herrington said about the Nixon tapes . . .

9. Share the podcast to disk.

Using the same procedure as in the basic tutorial, share your podcast to your
computer hard drive, then upload it.

CONGRATULATIONS! You’re now a podcaster!