Podcasting With Soundtrack Pro
Part 2: Recording Yourself
19 December 2005 Justin Williams Skip to comments
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In part 2 of our ongoing series on creating a podcast with Apple's Soundtrack Pro, Justin Williams shows you how to create a one man show. This article covers setting up your recording environment, recording youself, editing audio, adding music and tons more.
In the first part of our tutorial on podcasting using Soundtrack Pro, I gave a brief introduction to each of the applications we will be using for the duration of this series. Hopefully, you downloaded each of the applications and became somewhat familiar with each of the applications. If you haven’t yet read part 1, you might want to go back and read it before beginning this.
In this portion of our journey, I am going to walk you through creating a single-person audio podcast. We’ll start with configuring your Mac for audio recording and setting a few options in Soundtrack Pro. We’ll follow that up with recording the actual audio and adding intro and exit music. Finally, I will give you a few tips on how to make your audio sound better using some built-in Soundtrack Pro functionality. This is a rather exhaustive and long tutorial, so grab a cup of coffee because this may take a while.
Setting Up Your Environment
Before we even launch Soundtrack Pro, we need to set up a few things in the Mac OS X System Preferences. We need to ensure that there is no audio coming from the your Mac’s speakers. Instead, we want them to come out of a pair of headphones. Any pair will do, so if you have your iPod handy, just grab those headphones. Launch System Preferences and open the Sound preference pane. Under “Sound Effects” change the output to be your headphones. Next, switch to the “Output” tab and set your sound output to your headphones as well. Tweak your output volume so that it is at a level comfortable to you. Finally, make sure that under the Input tab your microphone is set as the default input.
Next, launch Soundtrack Pro. It should create a new project for you at startup, which is a good thing. What isn’t so good is that the project window is most likely set up for editing a video soundtrack. We can easily change this under the Window menu. Select “Layouts -> Project Window Only”. Alternatively, just press the F3 key. This will set our window to just show our project’s window.
Again, under the Window menu, click on “Recording” to open the recording panel. This is where we can fine tune our microphone’s gain and make sure we aren’t going to blow out anyone’s eardrums. The input device should be set to your microphone. If it isn’t, change that now. Under Monitor, you should set the device to “Built-in Audio.” This is your headphones and will allow you to hear the exact audio that is being recorded.
Now, try saying something into the microphone. If you see the levels on the left-hand side move, you are in good shape. You want to try and keep those in the green/yellow area. If you are approaching red, or hitting it, you need to lower your gain. There isn’t really an exact science to this, so just manipulate the gain slider until you find a level you are comfortable with.
Now that we have our environment set up, let’s take a tour of the Soundtrack Pro interface.
If Looks Could Kill
Soundtrack Pro has the “Pro” look Apple uses in its professional applications like Final Cut Pro and Aperture. The Pro look is hidden behind the private ProKit framework, so only Apple has access to its interface controls. Along the left side of the interface are nine default tracks. Each track lets you manipulate the output, balance and volume. You can also manually adjust the waveform for each channel. Below the channels is the master output where you can adjust the overall volume of your track.
The bottom of the Soundtrack Pro window has recording and playback controls similar to that of Quicktime Player. If you click the Mixer button in the toolbar, you are presented with a panel that resembles a hardware mixer. This is useful if you are more comfortable working with that type of interface.
With respect to the toolbar, it also contains several useful default buttons that let you fade your audio in, out or cross-fade it. You can also customize the toolbar to have quick access to resampling, normalizing and noise reduction tools. For a podcast, you will probably want to add the Adjust Amplitude, Normalize and Convert To Mono buttons to your toolbar.
Soundtrack Pro, and all Apple Pro applications for that matter, come with excellent print and PDF manuals that can give you an even more in-depth understanding of the intricacies of the Soundtrack Pro interface. Please consult those if you need more help than this tutorial offers. This information is just to get you recording. With that said, let’s record a podcast.
Recording Yourself
There are several different schools of thought when it comes to putting together your podcast. One method is to record everything in one take, running your music in along with your speech all at once. The other method is to record each bit piece-by-piece and then string everything together in your audio editor. I take the latter method because it is what I am most comfortable with since I have no hardware to work with. I find it too tedious and difficult to manipulate audio levels from multiple sources on the fly using just a mouse.
That being said, recording in Soundtrack Pro is pretty easy. To record on an audio track, we need to prep it for recording. To do that, just click the red dog on the track you want to record on. Any track will do; I tend to just use Track 1. After clicking the red dot, your track will be highlighted red. Next, hit the larger record button down by the playback controls and start talking.
As you are recording, the track will increase along the timeline just like when you create loops using GarageBand. When you are recording, try not to fidget or move too much, because the microphone will pick it up. Also, try to stay the same distance away from the microphone so that your audio doesn’t trail. I tend to have the microphone at mouth level and about 12 inches from my face. Again, it’s an issue of personal choice, so find a location and distance you are comfortable with.
When you are done recording your track, click the record button again to stop your recording. You may want to listen back to make sure there aren’t any abnormalities in the audio. If you didn’t hear it in your headphones, though, you should be fairly safe.
Let’s edit!
If you’re like me, you probably have a lot of “ums,” awkward silences or mutterings you don’t want your audience to hear. Luckily, we can easily cut those pieces of audio out of our track without anyone noticing. You may also need to cut out some dead air at the beginning or end of your track.
To accomplish this, we can open our newly created track in the audio editor built in to Soundtrack Pro. The audio editor shows the entire waveform of your track. You can choose to work with the entire track, or just highlight a specific portion and work with it. If you have ever worked with Adobe Photoshop, it is similar to using the selection tool to highlight only the portion of the photo you want to manipulate.
The first step in removing unwanted parts of your audio is to highlight the portion you no longer want. To do this, you will most likely want to zoom in so that you can see a more stretched out waveform. This makes it easier to get an exact selection. To zoom in, press Command-+. Find a zoom level you are comfortable with, and then find a piece of audio you want to extract. Highlight that portion of the audio and hit the delete key.
Notice that when you delete a portion of the audio, a new row appears in the Actions menu. Soundtrack Pro uses a nondestructive editing method so that you can easily trace your steps back and undo any changes you make to your audio. To go back to a previous state in your audio, simply drag the purple marker on the far left up or down. Any actions below that purple marker will not be audible.
It’s a good idea to leave bits of silence and pauses in your audio, because that is part of a natural speech pattern. If you cut out every bit of silence in your audio, it would sound like you are speaking a run-on sentence. Also, if you are deleting “ums” and “uhs” you will want to leave short bits of silence before the word so that it segways naturally. Your ear will be able to tell you what sounds natural and what doesn’t.
When are are done editing your voice track, save your work and jump back into your project. It should have your saved work. Now, let’s add some music to introduce and conclude your show.
Music To My Ears
While folks like Dave Winer may prefer a straight audio podcast, most people prefer to start and end their show with a bit of melody. When finding music for your podcast, you want to find something that both fits with your musical tastes and is legal. When it comes to musical tastes, everyone has a different one, so recognize that you won’t please everyone with your musical selection. Try and find something that won’t make your listener’s ears bleed. Even if you like screeching death metal, if the song is so obnoxious that your listener skips your show, you have wasted your time.
In terms of legality, the basic synopsis is that if you heard it on the radio, you most likely can’t play it in your podcast without chancing being sued. Like the situation with Napster and other nontraditional music services, the Recording Industry Association of America frowns upon playing copyrighted music. While no podcast has been sued as of yet, I imagine it will be coming in the near future.
The best way around this is to either create your own music or find a legal song to play on a service like GarageBand.com or The Podsafe Music Network. These sites permit you to play music from their network on your podcast so long as you give credit to the artist.
Once you find a song that you like for your show, we need to trim it down to about 15 to 20 seconds and apply a fade to it. Take the mp3 you downloaded and drag it onto the Soundtrack Pro icon in the Dock. This will import your file into a new waveform editor. Select the part of your song you want to keep and then go to “Edit -> Trim.” This will remove all other bits of the audio surrounding your selection.
Next, we want to create a nice fade for the end of your intro. To do this, simply select a portion of the tail end of your track and then go to the Process menu and select “Fade Out.” This will create a gradual fade that you can easily talk over as you begin your show. Once you are happy with your track, save it to your desktop as an AIFF file and close that waveform editor.
If you want a different song for your exit music, repeat this same process.
Back in your main podcast project, we need to import that new intro music we created. To do that, just drag the AIFF file from your desktop onto an unused track. Once the track is imported, position it at the beginning of your audio timeline so that it is the first thing that is played on your show. Repeat this process with your exit music, but put it at the tail end of your podcast.
Save your podcast as an Audio File Project. The Audio File Project is in case we need to do any edits in the actual audio. We also want to save it as an AIFF file. The AIFF file is what we will do post-processing on. To do this, go to the File menu and select “Export -> Compressor.” Compressor is a tool that was originally bundled with Final Cut Pro to allow for batch encoding, but it also works great for converting audio and video formats. In the sheet that drops down, select the “Encode Video” pop-up menu and select “Audio Formats -> AIFF 48:24.”
At this point, you should now have a complete one-man podcast. Congratulations! There is still a bit of work to do before we can call it a day. We need to do some post-processing on your audio to make it sound great.
Snap, Crackle, Pop
One of the reasons I chose Soundtrack Pro was because it makes it incredibly simple to apply advanced audio editing techniques to our audio. One of those main features is its ability to remove background noise.
To start, drag the AIFF file of your show onto the Soundtrack Pro icon so that it opens in the waveform editor. If you notice that you have annoying hissing or other types of background noise in your podcast, we can try and remove it using Soundtrack Pro. If you are happy with your audio, you can skip this portion of the tutorial.
Under the “Process” menu select “Reduce Noise.” This will open a new panel with several controls on it. Noise Threshold is the level at which the noise is isolated. You should drag it to a point where you only hear the background noise and nothing else. Reduction is how forceful you want the application to be in removing the noise. The higher the percentage, the more liberal Soundtrack Pro will be in trying to remove the noise. Tone Control helps with keeping your audio quality pristine. If you are too liberal with removing background noise your audio can lose some of its bass or treble. Adjust this slider to try and prevent that.
The first thing I do to remove noise is make sure that “Noise Only” is checked. This helps me isolate the sound I want to remove. Next, click the play button on the Reduce Noise panel so that your audio begins to play. Manipulate the Noise Threshold slider to a level you are comfortable with. As I said, you should only hear the background hissing noises that you are trying to remove. If you hear your voice, you have set your threshold too high.
Once you are finally satisfied with your noise isolation, click “Apply” to see how your audio sounds. If you aren’t satisfied, undo your work and try again.
The next step in making our audio sound better is to use the Analyze utilities. These magically remove some other abnormalities that we don’t want in our audio. The ones we want to concern ourselves with is “Clicks and Pops” and “Power Line Hum.” To work with these, simply click the check boxes next to them and click the “Analyze” button. Soundtrack Pro will scrub your audio and try and find any instances that it can remove. You can check each one before it applies the fix or you can just apply them all using “Fix All.” I tend to trust Soundtrack with its analysis. For amateur audio like this, it works just fine.
Next, we need to normalize our audio. Normalization is the process of adjusting the gain of the audio file to a certain decibel level. The highest peak decibel level in your file is raised or lowered to this level after you normalize the audio. We need to do this because all audio levels are not created equal. In other words, some parts of our audio may have a higher decibel level than others. By normalizing our audio, we can ensure that the highest level is not going to hurt our listeners’ ears. Normalization is easy. From the “Process” menu select “Normalize.” Play your audio, and adjust the slider to a level you are satisfied with. Click “Apply,” and let Soundtrack Pro work its magic.
Finally, as our last step, we need to convert our audio project to mono. While you could leave your project as stereo, I prefer to keep a straight audio talk show as mono because it’s easier to work with and everything sounds the same in the listeners’ headphones. To convert your podcast to mono, go to the “Process” menu once more and select “Convert To Mono.” A sheet will appear asking you how you want to do the conversion. Keep the default “Combine left and right channels” and click “OK.”
Testing, Testing
Now, we need to test our audio to make sure everything sounds right. To do this, just open your AIFF file in Quicktime Player and play it through your headphones. If you can listen to it without having to adjust your volume too much, you are good to go. If not, we need to adjust the amplitude.
To do that, hop back into Soundtrack Pro and go to the “Process” menu and select “Adjust Amplitude.” Raise your amplitude level to something you are comfortable with and apply the changes. The goal is to ensure that the user can go from one podcast to the next without having to manipulate their volume controls. Listen to another podcast and check to see if your audio levels are similar. I would highly advise you against using Adam Curry’s show as a gauge because he has one of the louder shows. Check out CocoaRadio for a good example of an audio level to attain.
We just covered a lot of ground in this tutorial, but hopefully you have enough information to go forward with creating your own one-man show. One thing we didn’t cover in this part of the tutorial is converting your AIFF file to an mp3 or AAC file. We will cover that in-depth in a later installment. If you want to put your one-man show online, just drag it into iTunes and convert it to an AAC file. Then you can share it with the world.
In our next installment, I will cover how to record an interview and add it to your podcast, so be sure to save the files we created today. We will be using them again in the future.
If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.
Justin Williams is founder and chief author for MacZealots. He switched to the Mac almost five years ago hasn't looked back since. When not blogging or coding, you can find him watching copious amounts of TV. Justin can be reached at
Reader Comments (3)
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#1) On January 28, 2006 3:57 PM
Looking forward to the next installment of this series. I’d like to hear your thoughts on the AAC vs. mp3 formats and also the most logical way of converting to one of those formats out of Soundtrack Pro. Thanks for the great articles!
#2) On January 30, 2006 8:11 AM
Is there any appreicable difference between Soundtrack and Soundtrack Pro? These tutorials (and steps) apply to both, don’t they?
#3) On February 7, 2006 12:36 AM
I just started using this program (I produce a hiphop and electronica podcast), I’m really looking forward to more of these. When’s the next one coming out?