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Hello, and welcome to our talk, software, freedom podcast, how to do a podcast with free software.
I'm the host and editor of the software, freedom podcast, this podcast has been around since 2019,
and we got into the publishing of regular episodes very recently.
You point them on our xfb.oxvash podcast page, and the focus of this podcast is pre software, obviously, and a UN policy.
It's an interview style podcast, so this is where I have the most experience, and I will also introduce some other things there.
And today I'm here with Ivan.
Hi, I'm Ivan. I'm librarian and podcast, sometimes I help out with the editing of the software, freedom podcast.
And my area is more in the, when I do stuff for myself, it's more like the montage, you know, big production things.
So it's two different styles we represent today.
Yes.
All right.
I'm doing this as a pre timer, it can be a bit of a relative.
So if some of you have already some experience, you might do things differently than we do.
This does not mean that you are doing it wrong or we are doing it wrong.
It's just that we have a different style.
So this always depends on how you do things and how you look at things.
There's some universal things that we can agree on, but yeah, everybody has a bit of a different approach.
So please keep this in mind for all of the slides.
You can also do things differently if you want to.
Yeah.
Like the free software.
Yes.
With this I'm handing over to.
Yeah.
And that's actually why I wanted to use the handheld mic because.
Of course, when you start out in general, I would also say that all the advice we give you is also usable on proprietary software.
I would advise against it, it's better to use something that respects you as a user.
But the point is that actually you can do, you have the full tool chain already and it will sound as good as if you did it with anything else.
But when you're starting, of course it's a nice thing to choose some hardware that will work out.
And with microphones, we have many different types.
We've just taken the two main types that you will run into and that's the dynamic mic and the contents of mic.
And the difference between those two is that there are a lot of technical differences and you probably know a lot about them that I don't.
But the general rule is that if you're in a very quiet room where you are sure that you don't have any disturbing noises around you, then it can be very nice to use a condenser mic because you can get a very full audio picture of your voice or the full range of your voice.
And that can sound very nice and be easy to edit afterwards.
And if you are in a room with background noise, if you're recording at home, maybe treat the room and use a dynamic mic because that will reject a lot of the noise.
But you don't have so much issues.
And if you do interview styles, it can be a good idea to use an omnidirectional mic that will have a pick up person.
So if you forget to move the mic between you and the interviewee, you can still have them on your recording on your tape, so to speak, even though it's not tape now.
And otherwise, when you're recording at home and maybe your children are arguing in the next room or whatever, it can be nice to have a unit direction or mic.
So you don't pick up all of that and need to be doing the whole thing.
Oh yeah. And whenever you record use headphones, because otherwise it's like taking pictures with your eyes closed.
That's just a general good rule. And probably if you use a, if you use a condenser mic, it's nice to use headphones that are closed back, so you don't have bleed from those because it will pick up everything.
And yeah, now, oh, we are in the next slide. The recording devices. No, yeah, let's stay in this one because I haven't said anything about recording devices.
Most, I think of the general use recording devices will be compatible with Linux or with free software in general.
And yeah, it can be nice to just use your recording device to record directly into without having to look at the screen, because that takes a little bit of the pressure of, oh, I'm being recorded right now.
Oh, wait. And that can maybe help you be more natural on the mic.
So that's another thing to, to consider when you're, you know, gathering your sounds to put in your podcast.
No matter the style.
There's this back to me.
Some tips and tricks before we get into the desk of the podcast thing.
Take part seconds of silence at the beginning of each recording.
They're very important. You will need them later for editing and you also need them for printing out the noise.
No matter if the mic is very good there, it might be some background noise and in those five seconds of silence, you can pick it up and run the tool that we will introduce later on as well.
Over the full audio and filter out background noise.
Do not bring copy or T before I talk.
In general, this is a good advice for every presenting thing because it will make this sound.
And I will make it only once so you can get used it.
And then you will hear it every time somebody does it and any other time.
It will hate you.
That's true.
Or any talk.
It's, and this is very annoying.
And it's hard to cut out everything of that.
So do not bring copy or T best pressure T is before you do the podcast recording because
You all of you in this room will now hear the sound in every talk where it is and in every podcast if you pick it up.
It's like with amps.
If you want to hear an amp, you won't stop hearing them.
Yeah.
That's also bringing me to the next thing that I want to say.
Think about what you want to say before you do it.
Take a break.
If you are unsure about how to face the sentence because breaks can be edited out very easily.
And am innocent.
It's like I did with to think about what you want to say.
If this amp is like very much included in the phrase and in the sound level, it can be really hard to cut this out.
So always remember that we want to think about what you want to say before you do because in a podcast.
If it's not a live podcast, breaks can be edited out very, very easily.
Outline, I'm sorry, telling.
Before you do anything in the podcast, think about what you want to tell the podcast, how this podcast
would look like where you want to end up so that you have a brief outline of the full conversation that you want.
On the other hand, also go with the flow because if you stick too much to the script,
it will be very hard to listen to.
And if you are asking a question, this person is answering the question, but also already answering the next question.
It is sometimes hard to follow the conversation.
Then if you do ask the question that you have written down because you have written down the question.
So go with the flow of the conversation.
Just have an outline and an understanding of what you generally want to achieve with this podcast episode or with the story you want to tell.
And also set yourself between minus 12 to minus 60B.
This is the past, sound level you can achieve.
And then you stay in between the very lowest and the red red red area, which is not very good.
Just a little bit.
There are of course more tips and tricks to test.
Those are the most important ones that I consider important.
If you have others, come to me and talk to me about that later.
The topic should be interesting.
Obviously, if you are not interested in topic, you'll listen to what the either, either.
They will notice that you are either very bored, that you are not happy or something like that.
So if you have a passion for what you like and talk about, then the others will pick up.
So for example, yesterday somebody came to me and was like, I know your voice from the podcast and you always sound really happy.
Because I really, really care about free software.
This is something that is a core value for me that I really, truly believe in.
And I do have a passion for this.
So that's why I'm doing this podcast because I want others to experience this passion as well.
And to know about free software and to learn about free software.
So if you have a topic that you are not interested in, for example, I don't know.
Gardening.
Then it will be hard for others to listen to this podcast.
And yeah, it's just very boring, most of them.
Podcasts are also not a style or type, but rather this is the medium, how you transfer your message.
There are various types of podcasts.
You can do an interview one like I'm doing with this after a freedom podcast where you have a host and a guest.
You can have a conversation where you have more of a talk or discussion.
You can do a monologue as a one person show for this.
You need to be cut out.
So you need to be a person who is able to talk constantly on your own.
You can do storytelling, investigative podcasts.
So there are various options.
You can do art, theatre, sound experience.
For example, you could do an theatre with other languages.
The kids books that we have over at the free software for days.
New York's booth as well.
And yeah, you can do various things of podcasts.
There are no limits.
Podcasts are just a medium-portrait.
There are also obviously if you have picked your type of podcast various categories.
So think about this beforehand so that you, for example, if you want to do an interview,
it can still be a comedy lifestyle technology or educational type of category.
So think about this before you do the podcast.
Because otherwise you will be in this podcast recording and it won't fit.
And yes, very important part to think about beforehand.
Then you do your intro.
So welcome back to, or welcome to the software feed and podcast.
This is the podcast project.
You buy the free software foundation.
You're a charity.
That's the part of the freedom.
And think about an outro.
And then you basically set for everything.
You have the intro.
You have the podcast hype.
The category.
Provide a guest.
And yeah.
One for three.
First record.
Yes.
And once you have done that, think about like a lot of things.
But not, well, better to do than before.
I would talk a little bit now about the editing and the mixing of the product.
Because there are certain things to consider.
It's nice.
We will also in the next talk.
Which we're looking forward to.
Here about a podcast focused door.
But in general, it's nice to choose one.
A digital audio workstation is the abbreviation.
It's nice to choose one that has non-destructive editing.
So you don't maybe make a cuts and then continue your edit.
And then discover all.
It should have been nice to have like a millisecond more where I made that cut.
And then you don't have to, I don't know, control, see your whole way back.
And undo all the steps to redo that.
And then redo all your work.
It's nice if you have non-destructive editing.
So you can just go and pull the end of what you've cut, for instance.
Also when adding EQ and other plugins to your tracks.
Most doors do this.
But it used to be that some of the more popular ones didn't.
And then when I had it, I learned this from an editor from NPR that always said that this was the way to go.
So now I'm following that advice and I find it works out very nice.
This is a screenshot from Adora of two things.
The one over here is the evening out of the levels.
Where I go in and I run through the track.
So if the bunny is too excited or something, then I maybe take it down a little bit.
So that I work like the whole general I have on the master track.
I run LUFS, loudness units full scale.
I think on the whole thing.
And then I go through each track and make sure that we are around minus 23.
A little bit more little bit less.
But that gives some headroom for the final export.
While still having some loudness to work with.
And the other thing is the loudness meter that I put on that track.
And I really love this loudness meter.
So I just wanted to show you because it's the GUI is really easily understandable.
It's like a radar and you see whenever you are outside of the realm.
It's not like work by work but more like sentence by sentence to have sort of equal levels.
So that's the target for that to leave some space.
And then maybe if needed run some noise reduction.
But that depends if you do your recording right.
That means mic placement.
If you have your mic here at the sound table.
If you have it here sounds a little bit better.
And then you can risk that you have some noise.
And then you will need to do some noise reduction.
But I generally try to do as little of that as possible because it will effect the audio.
So I try to work out if it's needed or if it's all right that there's a little hum.
Maybe not as much as in here today.
But it can be nice also just because it brings what you call it.
Very truthfulness to the audio which is also a natural sounding.
So that's always my goal.
And then when you cut out an arm or a piece really those are the worst.
You cut those out.
Move the playhead back a little bit and listen across it without looking at the screen.
And that's a general advice I want to give you.
Trust your ears.
There are tons of it.
We are talking about different plugins you can use.
Compressors etc etc.
So it's just generally good to trust your ears and listen to the thing.
Not look because then you end up editing with your eyes more than your ears.
And generally also bad audio will never be good but it can sometimes be okay.
I'll just leave that point there because we've been across that already.
And then you decide whether you want a needs compression and or EQ.
Again if your recording is still out then maybe you don't.
But if you think I could pop a little bit better if I use some compression on this voice.
You put that plugin on but don't do it just to do it.
And if you have music and if you do a good you know like a big production where you have voice over and something like
I don't know cereal or whatever that's one of the ones that everybody knows.
The rock and roll mixing trick is one of the stable tips I got and I love it because you can always you know the distance between the speaking voice and the music.
When you're editing and you have your headphones or your studio speakers it can be you know your show up this is nice.
But when you turn it down you are more similar to the situation where somebody listens in a car or in a bus where there's a lot of background noise.
And so the trick is to turn your sound card your monitoring all the way down to it's almost not audible and then if you still can hear both the voice and the music then you're sure that the levels between them.
So that it will be still useful otherwise why use the music if you can't hear it you know.
And then on export with the software freedom podcast we normalize to minus 16 LUFS because then it will you don't have to sit and tweak the volume all the time.
This leads me with the export for software freedom podcast we do turbo experts the most common one is MP3 in the podcasting vote.
So yeah this is also what is for example antenna spot or your preferred podcasting app and we also have to open which is available on.
So if you want to listen to a free file this is your chance.
Now you're done and it's off to find a fast distribution to podcast by your near your listener.
I would say as we only have five minutes left we do the questions we do have some slides about the demos that with the tools we use but yeah come to us later we are more than happy to explain them and.
I'm sure that's the key or other I'm using audacity for editing and I'm using other yes thank you very much for the attention.
Thank you thank you so.
Yeah we've had a question you will have to bring the mic to you so the people online can hear and for the recording so.
Could you put your hand up if you've got any questions okay there's one in the middle and so on can you.
In the meantime as the mic is handed over we also have two books that we can recommend that we read for the podcast come and find us if you want to take a look at them.
Okay I'm just short one did you find any useful software to deal with the S.
In it I seem to have a lot of problems with that despite of having like a thing in front of it which you you know make it.
My better but my advice would be paid in paid out.
So depending on that as is that's how I try to limit those things or also if there's like a real hard clicking noise sometimes.
I heavily rely on paid and paid out and this is like a really editing thing that I love.
Yeah yeah yeah and EQ and you know.
I can in order I use an EQ that I like very much because I can see the graphic representation of the sound waves both I can choose if it's pre or post.
And then you know you can see whenever the S happens where does it you know.
What range are we know you can sweep for it and you know try to just eliminate that part or make it less annoying you can't remove.
But you can make it less annoying for the listener.
So to clarify regarding setting the levels the.
I've done some editing before and it's obvious when somebody gets really excited it takes over the entire waveform for that part so was your recommendation to like cut the peaks down to negative 22 because you said.
Level it out and normally you obviously have a graph and so it's just yeah I.
So I take each track and depend if they are silent or if they are more quiet or if they are more loud I try to make it you know that the meter gives me around you know 22 23 21.
All the way through it and if it's maybe I don't know 14 I will bring it down a notch or if or minus obviously sorry all the time and if it's I don't know.
So that it's you know more balanced yeah more balanced within itself in relation to the to the other tape.
So it's not necessarily just a matter of necessarily trying to bring everything down to that negative 22 is it just trying to this this little range.
I'm sure that you don't have to sit with your hand on the knob all the time when you think the export was that's to minus 16 was to minus 16 so negative 22 during editing and six minus 16 for export.
Yeah that would be my.
So the slides are also online and we do have documentation at the FSB documentation pages that you can access as well.
Where all this is outlined as well.
Question from the internet.
Any recommended recording devices or others on the phone and what about Bluetooth microphones.
Can you can you repeat it's very.
Yeah any recommendation for recording devices and what about Bluetooth microphones.
So recommendations for recording device I mean there are certain brands I don't know if it's appropriate to mention them but you know.
But fairly common recording device you just need something that puts out an audio file because you can always get the audio file into computer and then start working with it.
And I don't think I mean I prefer non USB or Bluetooth mics because then I can use them in other situations as well if you go out in the talk or play music or whatever you can still use the same microphone.
That's enjoyable.
But would also say that it's more important that you treat the room and where you place the mic.
I did an AP test I will tell just for the internet person asking this.
I did a test with the microphone that was you know priced around 100 euro very common microphone.
All shaped head I won't say which make and I tested it with like 400 euro mic.
That was the same type and the placement of the microphone was much more important to how I perceived the audio quality than the make of the mic.
And generally what I would like to add there as well is the quality of the mic is so important for the full recording but podcast is not the medium we have like or like very high quality audio it's not a movie.
So it's okay to have a good mic at the beginning and then you can always level up but just think about the room.
The placement make sure the room is not empty because otherwise you will have a very holy sound in it as well.
So this is the most important advice that I have for this as well.
Yeah I think this is fun.
You can of course support the FSFE and the software freedom podcast.
As we are charity and you can find us in building K level to stand 9 if you have any questions or I want to take a look at our books that we have with us for interview style and much more on how to edit.
And yeah podcasting.
Thank you very much.
We didn't write the books but we used them.
We didn't write them.
Thank you.
Fascinating.
I want to take a picture of these books.