As Professor Bell recommended, I’ll be recording and editing
my podcast using Audacity. Everyone I’ve asked has agreed that Audacity is
incredibly user-friendly and accessible to those without prior experience with
audio production – and on top of that, it’s free!
Audacity’s website has a link to a detailed user-updated
wiki page, complete with manuals, tutorials, and explanations about how to work
the various features found under the EFFECTS tab. I think this resource will
become very important to me once I begin the recording process, but since I’m
completely new to the program, I turned to a series of Youtube videos posted by
a user named Justin Walberg. These three short videos serve as a brief
introduction to the basics of Audacity, such as how to record, amplify sections
of a track, minimize white noise, alter the pitch and tempo of the audio file,
and delete sections of the track. However, these videos do not explain how to
mix audio tracks, which I believe will be crucial knowledge for incorporating
background music, or even for pasting multiple tracks together so that I don’t
have to record my entire speech in one sitting. Luckily, the Audacity wiki has
a complete and comprehensive page on mixing audio tracks.
I downloaded Audacity a few weeks ago, and even before I
consulted any tutorials I was pleased to find how easy the program is to
operate. I was importing and editing existing audio files within minutes of
initially opening the page, and though there were (and are) several features
that I don’t yet understand, I’m confident that this is the program to get me
through this project. I tested out the recording feature using the microphone
built into my laptop, and luckily my microphone is of such high quality that it
picks up almost no white noise. Because of this, my recordings sound relatively
professional without any tampering whatsoever, and the use of the added
features only enhances the quality of the audio. That being said, I’m not sure
I like the way my voice sounds on the recording, but if I become especially
self-conscious I could easily alter the pitch or tempo of my speech using the
EFFECTS tab and create a new voice for myself. Overall, I’m very pleased with
the program, and I’m eager to keep moving the project forward.
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