Soundtrack Pro for Podcasts
Posted November 10th, 2005 @ 02:25pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I'm not an audio technician. I can get around an audio application, I know what waveforms represent, and so forth, but when it comes to editing audio my skills are limited.
I've begun using Soundtrack pro to produce my weekly podcast and I have a few questions. Perhaps some people out there can answer them for me.
- Why, when I "collect" my audio samples, aren't they included in the bundle? Is that even an option? Bundles are great - iMovie keeps all of its files inside the bundle so that they can't (easily) be deleted. Soundtrack Pro just gathers them into the same directory… which very well could be a mess. And then you rename a file and Soundtrack can't find it. What's up with that?
- Why can't I export my final creation as an MP3? Why must I save it as a high-quality AIFF file, drag it into iTunes, and have it create the MP3. Am I missing something?
- Can I somehow tell iTunes to work in mono all the time? There's a button near the volume slider that turns mono playback on: can I permanently turn it on?
- What's the best way to adjust audio levels (volume) across the whole track, remove any fuzz or sound (pops, etc.), and produce a clean, crisp podcast? The first two episodes (and I could be wrong) seem a bit quiet.
I have other questions and I may add to the bottom of this list as I remember them. Right now, the second and third bug me most. The first I can deal with and the fourth I've managed to handle at least moderately well so far.
Donate Life
Posted 10 Nov 2005 at 3:00pm #
Assuming you're working with an audio file, not a multitrack project. Otherwise everything below is useless and you probably already know it.
The Normalize function (under Process) can be used to bring the level up across the whole track.
The Analysis tab will pick out pops, but I find it that it doesn't really do that good of a job.
You can remove fuzz or noise by finding a section of audio where there's nothing else but the noise, selecting it and choosing "Set Noise Print" under the Process menu. Then select the entire track and choose "Reduce Noise". This actually works well.
As far as saving an MP3, as far as I can tell, you can't. Very annoying.
Posted 10 Nov 2005 at 4:47pm #
Get a pop screen to put over your mic to reduce pops. Get rid of them at the source and never let them enter the recording.
Posted 10 Nov 2005 at 5:56pm #
I have a pop filter Jeff. I'm specifically asking about Soundtrack Pro in this post.
Posted 11 Nov 2005 at 12:57pm #
#3 (assuming you're still talking about Soundtrack Pro and not iTunes 🙂
Option-click the button to lock it on. However, that only affects playback. If you want to end up with mono files, you can either start out with a new mono file (New->Audio File, and select Mono) or choose "Convert to Mono" on an existing file.
Posted 11 Nov 2005 at 1:17pm #
Thanks Corey, that works.