The Sound Of Young America‘s Jesse Thorn explains how to create a podcast with public-radio quality, with relatively inexpensive gear, out of your bedroom:

• I use Shure SM7 microphones. These are famous for being the mics that Michael Jackson used to record his vocals for Thriller, but they’re really a great all-purpose microphone. They’re also tough and cheap – at least compared to other studio vocal microphones. They cost about three hundred bucks, and the next step up is several thousand. They work great for my purposes because their pickup pattern really emphasizes the guest and de-emphasizes the guy outside my window with the leaf blower. Very forgiving.
• My mixer is a Mackie Onyx 1620, with the optional built-in firewire audio interface. The SM7s need a lot of gain (signal boost) and Mackie has a reputation for having the cleanest microphone pre-amps.
• For phone interviews I have a Telos One. We actually don’t do phone interviews anymore, but I do do “tape syncs,” which are the poor man’s way to link up two studios – no ISDN here, so I just put a remote guest in a studio, call them up, record on both ends, and match them up later.
• My CD player is the cheapest rack-mounted CD player I could find.
• Same story with my headphones and headphone amp. I listen back on B- headphones, because I figure that’s how most people will listen anyway.
• The radio on my desk (which is also my monitor) is a Tivoli Audio Model Three, which is a wonderful machine that I recommend highly – especially if you get it for $14.99 on clearance at Target, which I did.
• I record on a PC in Adobe Audition 3. I started with Audition’s predecessor, Cool Edit, which was $19.99, and Audition is like three hundred bucks, but that’s the cost of being “professional.”
• I do my backup recording with a Zoom H4 flash recorder, and store my many huge files on a Drobo with four terabyte drives in it.
• My shows are hosted with the very good folks at Libsyn.

The bulk of the cost for Thorn’s home podcasting setup was his Shure SM7 mic, his Mackie mixer & audio interface, and Adobe Audition.

While Thorn has a mixture of low-budget and professional gear, he says that the key to getting good audio quality is not the gear, but how you use it.

” Too many people try and record with one mic shared between multiple people, or with an onboard or headset mic. That won’t fly. My friends at Never Not Funny recorded their whole first season with mics that their producer Matt bought 3-for-$10, and it sounded fine.”

via BB, Maximum Fun

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This two-part video looks at how to create a podcast.

Topics covered include:

• What a podcast is
• The benefits of podcasts
• Podcasting in education
• Podcasting microphone tips
• USB microphones
• USB audio interfaces
• Microphone pop guards
• Podcasting software
• Apple Garageband
• Adobe Soundbooth
• Audacity
• Podcast recording tips
• Saving your podcast
• Uploading and distributing your podcast

If you want to create a podcast and you’re just getting started, this video series explains what podcasting is and offers a fairly comprehensive basic podcasting tutorial in about 20 minutes.

Part 2 below.

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Apple has updated its official recommendations on for how to submit your podcast to iTunes.

Here’s what they recommend:

Test Your Podcast Feed In iTunes:

You should first verify that you can successfully subscribe to your feed using the Advanced menu in iTunes:

1. Select Advanced, Subscribe To Podcast in iTunes;
2. Paste in the URL of your podcast feed and select “OK”;
3. Select the Podcast icon in the left navigation of iTunes. Verify that your podcast shows up as you expect it.

Five tips for on-location podcast recording, via Mark Moran, news director for NPR’s public radio affiliate in Phoenix:

1. In every environment where you do an interview, just switch on your recorder and get 15-30 seconds of ambient sound at that location.
2. Ask for your subject’s name and title at the top of the interview.
3. Include your voice only if you’re asking a question or making an important clarification.
4. Think with your ears.
5. Avoid yes/no questions. It’s helpful to direct your interview subject to answer questions in sentence format and in a declarative way.

via BusinessJournalism.org; image: John Oxton

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This video tutorial, by Brent Powell, looks at how to use free software – Audacity – to record, edit and export a podcast.

Audacity is available for Mac, Windows and Linux.

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CNet’s Veronica Belmont and Tom Merrit offer their take on the basics of podcasting in Podcasting 101.

They cover:

• basic podcasting mics
• podcasting software
• podcasting mixers
• Audacity
• podcast hosting
• RSS Feeds
• OurMedia.org
• podcast subscription
• FeedBurner
• podcast promotion
• iTunes

It’s the 10,000 foot view – but it’s a good basic overview.

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This video tutorial, via gigafide, looks at how to create a podcast with Audacity.

Sites referenced in this video include:

• Audacity
• Podango
• Podpress
• MyPodcast
• Podcast411

This video covers how to create a podcast in about 4 minutes, so it doesn’t go into much depth. More information is available under these categories:

• How To Podcast
• Podcasting Hardware
• Podcasting Software

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This set of videos, via Steinar Knutsen, demonstrates how to podcast with a Mac.

In addition to covering how to podcast with Mac software, Knutsen touches on these topics:

• MacBook Pro
• Snow Leopard
• Samson CO1U USB Studio Condenser Microphone
• Logitech USB Headphone and Microphone Set
• Apple iPhone 3G
• Voice Memos iPhone App
• AudioBoo iPhone App
• Apple GarageBand
• Apple iWeb
• WordPress.org

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This episode looks at the steps of setting up an iWeb website for your podcast and using MobileMe to host your site and publish to iTunes.

Note: This is just one approach to creating a podcast on a Mac – what works best for you will depend on what type of podcast you want to make.

If you’ve got other suggestion for making a podcast on Macs, leave a comment or a link!

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Charlie Brooker does an amazing job, in two minutes, of explaining How To Report The News.

While Brooker does not delve deeply into technical details, there’s much here that would be of use to anyone creating user-generated media.

Note: The bit at 1:37 may make you blow your beverage out your nose.

via stretta

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The Pigeon: Impossible video podcast takes a look at what goes into making a 3D animated cartoon short.

The cartoon, above, has received over 3 million views on YouTube alone. It’s a comic romp on the idea of a secret agent getting sidelined by a pigeon.

The “making of” video podcast for Pigeon: Impossible is embedded below.

Click here to view the embedded video.