For people curious about how we put together our Strangers and Aliens podcast, here’s a quick peek behind the curtain. Steve, Ben, and Dr. Jayce all live in the same time zone, but that’s about as close as they get. So, to have their conversations they use Strangers and Aliens using Skype (free to download and free to use) and record with a plug-in called Call Recorder (you can download a free trial, but if you are serious about producing a Podcast Ben highly recommends purchasing it — it’s only $20, and once you install it recording Skype conversations becomes smooth and easy). The file of the recorded conversation is then opened in GarageBand (sorry, Windows users, I don’t know what’s out there for you, but if you’re a Mac user and you don’t already have GarageBand, it’s well worth the $15), where the music and voice overs are put in, some editing is done, the podcast artwork is added, and it is saved as a single podcast file. The Strangers and Aliens website is a WordPress site (we used the Cover WP Theme), and we installed the Podpress plug-in, which helps us format each episode for iTunes and makes it appear on our website within the episode blog entries.
Another recommendation: if you are interested in podcasting at all, you need to be listening to Daniel J. Lewis’ podcast The Audacity to Podcast. His podcast focuses on how to podcast, and the program he talks about is Audacity, BUT whether you use Audacity or not, he also has a lot of information about podcasting, WordPress, web sites, and blogging. His advice is invaluable. As I say above, I use Garageband, not Audacity, but I have gotten so much valuable information about how to do this. Definitely check his podcast out.
~ Ben
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