How to Create Your Own Podcast: Editing and Adding Music and Sound Effects

Once you have recorded your podcast, you will probably need to go back and edit it. Editing will allow you to remove any lengthy pauses or flubs that you made during your recording as well as add sound effects and music. Simplicity is the best place to start and usually the best place to finish as well. Adding too many extraneous sounds can be distracting and should be avoided at all costs. Add sounds that accentuates and illustrate your message, not ones that will distract from it.

Most programs come with effects that can help improve sound quality. One such effect is called compression, which can help your levels stay consistent. Another effect is noise reduction, which will help clean up a noisy recording. Other effects can help give your sound more variety, but should be treated the same as sound effects-less is almost always better.

Once you have edited your recording to your satisfaction, the final step is to convert or save it as an MP3. MP3 is the defacto standard format for podcasts. Using anything other than an MP3 will mean that some users may not be able to use your podcast. You might also want to create artwork to include with your podcast. Artwork can be anywhere from 170x170 to 300x300 pixels square at 72 dpi.

Finding and Adding Music or Sound Effects

Finding music and sound effects for your podcast is not difficult, but not as simple as checking your CD collection. Any music or sound that you use needs to be "podcast safe" or else you are violating copyright laws. Podcast safe means that the music or sound can be used in most podcast if the user follows set guidelines, which vary depending on the source. Purchasing a song does not give you the right to redistribute it without permission.

A wide range of inexpensive and free music can be found by doing a search for "podcast safe music." Make sure you read the guidelines before you download any music from a site. The guidelines will explain how to credit the artist and the host site in your podcast. The standard credit is simply "song's name by artist's name." Do not thank an artist for their kindness in providing you with music by failing to give them the credit they deserve.

Most sites that offer these clips have an attribution-noderivs 2.0 license, which lets you copy, distribute, display, and perform the work as long as you provide an attribution and do not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Using standard DJ intros, outros, and mixing within a podcast or other Internet broadcast does not constitute creating a derivative work.

Sound effects should be treated the same as music. Do not assume simply because Microsoft or Apple placed an effect on your computer that you can use it. One of the best databases for sound effects is the Freesound Project, which is a collaborative database provided by creativecommons.org and contains creative commons licensed sounds, which is similar to the attribution-noderivs license. Again, to use any sounds located on this site, you must list the creator of the file.

When you find music and sound effects that you like, you can use a program such as Audacity to incorporate it into your program. Make sure that you listen to the finished podcast carefully to ensure that the sound effects are not much louder than your voice, which can be irritating to listeners. Once you have your finished product, your next step is to create an RSS feed file and find a host for your podcast.