Podcasting Nearly Complete

So while I'm not quite ready to post my podcast (more on why later), I can provide an overview of what it's looking like. I decided to create a podcast that is a mini lecture for my Graphics of Communication course and covers part one of my Color Theory lecture. It includes information on appropriate use of color in design and the differences between additive and subtractive color method. Because of the lecture format, it runs slightly longer than typical podcasts and clocks in around 11 minutes. But I'm also animating it in Flash, so it's not strictly 11 minutes of audio only and with the animation, I think it's pretty easy to watch despite the longer running time.

I am having some trouble, though, with my sound. I recorded in GarageBand and was fairly pleased with my voice recording (even when listening through headphones); importing it into Flash worked well, too, until I experimented with exporting the entire Flash animation with sound. Somewhere in the final compression process, my voice took on an entirely new quality. I need to look into controlling the sibilant 's' in my audio and leveling some things out before posting it to the web. The final compression makes me sound like little Ronnie Howard lisping in the Music Man singing "Ohh, the Wellths Fargoth Wagon is a comin' down the street, oh pleaseth let it be for me..." (A contemporary version here). Not exactly the quality I was going for.

But I do have one tip for the class on accessing mixable music. If you haven't already checked out the ccmixter site, it's a great resource for music you can use in future podcasts. Most of it only requires that your use is noncommercial and you attribute the music to the author. It's pretty simple to download, although the song I ended up using did require a work-around via QuickTime and saving it into an AIFF formats. There's a ton of great music on this site.