For a bit of fun I decided to try and record a podcast just to see how it’s done.  As it turns out, it’s not too hard at all.

For my little experiment I wanted to try and do one of those interview style podcasts, not just one where it’s me talking by myself but one with another real live human being at the other end of the line.  Here’s what I did.

  1. Watched a “how to use Skype for Interviews” presentation on slideshare.  Thank you Doug Kaye and Paul Figgiani!
  2. Found a human guinea pig for my little experiment.  Thank you “Subject A”.
  3. Grabbed a utility for recording Skype conversations.  Thank you Call Graph!
  4. Grabbed another utility for post-editing audio files.  Thank you Audacity!
  5. Made a Skype call with Subject A, did the interview and recorded it.  Kind of important.
  6. Did some post editing with Audacity to remove as much microphone bumping and kids screaming in the background as I could.
  7. Exported the edited audio as an MP3 file and done!

I think the end result was reasonably good, though listening to it a few times I realise I need to improve my vocal skills, but hey, it’s a first time go at interviewing and playing with the technology as well so I’ll give myself some latitude for improvement.  I also had a play around with making Subject A sound like they were on a telephone using a VST plugin for Audacity which helped create a nice “calling in to the show” feel.

All up I found it pretty easy to put together, the hard part was finding some useful tips on how to do it.  If you’re thinking of creating a podcast of your own then hopefully this will give you a starting point.