Bethany, me, and Muriel recording in my kitchen.

This is the second installment of The Moleskine Podcast. In this podcast, I will interview two of my friends Bethany Johnson and Muriel Lovo who are also in the Cultural Studies MSc. Programme at the University of Edinburgh. Bethany graduated with a bachelor of arts in English and Humanities from the University of Louisville in Kentucky, USA and. Muriel received a bachelor's degree in Arts and Filmmaking at the University of Arts and Social Sciences in Santiago, Chile.

In this podcast, Bethany and Muriel will be talking about applications, Cultural Studies, scholarships, and life after graduation.

Resources mentioned in this podcast: The Mary Churchill Humphrey Centenary Memorial Scholarship

the process

Making this podcast was a bit easier than making the first one, but it still had its challenges. Recording can be especially difficult if you have never been on a podcast before or are with a couple of girlfriends. Muriel, Bethany, and I spent several times re-recording the introduction because we couldn't stop laughing. It was a great fun, but next time, I'll start the recorder before the interview starts and just transition naturally from casual conversation to interview.

I recorded The Moleskine Podcast #2 on my boyfriend Andrew's macbook pro and used Audacity to edit the majority of this podcast. However, I think I might try a different editing program, like Reaper or SPEAR, because Audacity isn't the most intuitive or user-friendly program. I actually ended up doing the final stage of editing through Nuendo, a digital audio workstation. Most professional sound design is made through Nuendo or Pro Tools.


This is a screen shot of Audacity


This is a screen shot of Nuendo

Through Nuendo, I was easily able to cross-fade, compress, and equalize (EQ) the sound. These processes are essential to producing high quality sound. Because of the nature of a live interview, I had to cut and paste certain sections in order to tighten the podcast. Since sound is a time-based medium, you always have to be aware of how you're moving sections around. This is why you have to cross-fade in order smoothly transition from one section to another. Finally, in order to improve the volume and quality of the podcast, you have to compress and EQ the sound.

An important lesson I learned while editing this podcast is saving incrementally as different files. I had saved incrementally, but under the same file. In other words, I selected "save" instead of "save as". This simple error cost me about 45 minutes of editing time. Not too bad in the grand scheme of things, but still annoying.

thank you

Big thank yous to Bethany and Muriel for sharing their experiences

Special thanks to Andrew, check out his blog { sound + design } for tons of geektacular sound stuff!

Thanks to warg at Soundsnap, a user-driven sound effects library, for the cheesy, but fun loop warg elizabethtown.

Enjoy!

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