Web in Focus

down­load the mp3

Sum­mary:

An über-​​techie step-​​by-​​step guide to pod­cast­ing. After hear­ing this, if you decide you want to pod­cast, but you don’t want to mess with the headache described, we out­line a turn-​​key solu­tion by KINGdesk.

Episode Top­ics:

Below, we link to sev­eral prod­ucts on Ama­zon. Pric­ing on indi­vid­ual items will likely change by the time you are ready to buy. Please use the listed pric­ing as an esti­mate of the actual pricing.

1. Get good equipment
   • Apple Mac­Book, comes with Garage­band and iTunes pre­in­stalled, ($1,259.30 each)
   • BUDGET: (total: $177.78)
     • Sennheiser PC 166 USB Head­set ( $88.89 x 2)
     • Fol­low the maclife​.com direc­tions to get 2 USB mics work­ing with Garage­band.
   • RECOMMENDED: (total: $395.18) — outputs 2 mics in stereo, one panned to the left, the other to the right, allow­ing Garage­band to han­dle the chan­nels individually.
     • Behringer 802 Mixer ($59.95 x 1)
     • Sennheiser HD201 Head­phones ($20.36 x 2)
     • AKG Per­cep­tion 120 Con­denser Micro­phone ($95.02 x 2)
     • Pro­Line Desk Boom Micro­phone Stand ($29.99 x 2)
     • Cable: dual male 1/​4 inch to male stereo 3.5 mm ($8.99 x 2)
     • Cable: XLR Mic Cable ($8.99 x 2)
     • Cable: male stereo 3.5 mm to male stereo 1/​4 inch ($4.99 x 1)
     • Cable: Head­phone Split­ter ($3.54 x 1)
   • BETTER (total: $1182.96)
     • Behringer 802 Mixer ($59.95 x 1)
     • Sennheiser HD201 Head­phones ($20.36 x 2)
     • Heil PR40 Con­denser Micro­phone ($324.95 x 2)
     • Heil SM2 Shock Mount ($84.95 x 2)
     • Heil PL-​​2T Micro­phone Stand ($109.00 x 2)
     • Cable: dual male 1/​4 inch to stereo male 3.5 mm ($8.99 x 2)
     • Cable: XLR Mic Cable ($8.99 x 2)
     • Cable: male stereo 3.5 mm to male stereo 1/​4 inch ($4.99 x 1)
     • Cable: Head­phone Split­ter ($3.54 x 1)
   • Super Cheap Head­set Mic to mail to peo­ple you want to inter­view over Skype: Cyber Acoustics AC-​​201 Head­set ($13.85 each)
2. Cre­ate or license intro music and segues as needed
3. Cre­ate your album art
4. Set up your room
   • arrange mic positions
   • sound­proof /​ dead­en­ing
     • carpeting/​rugs
     • wall sound­proof­ing
     • eggcrate cush­ions
5. Cre­ate a web­site with an RSS feed with attachments
   • Con­sider the Word­Press open-​​source con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem and the Pod­cast­ing plugin
   • Men­tioned RSS Read­ers Feed Demon for Win­dows and Net News Wire for Mac
6. Cre­ate an account with Feed­burner to track pod­cast­ing sta­tis­tics and Google Ana­lyt­ics to track web­site statistics
7. Sub­mit your pod­cast to iTunes
8. Record your Podcast
9. Pro­duc­tion
   • Edit as necessary
   • Com­press to mp3 (64kbps, Mono)
   • make sure meta data is cor­rect (open in iTunes, right click and select “get info”)
     • info tab
       • name = episode name
       • artist = pod­cast­ers’ names
       • album = pod­cast name
       • genre = podcast
     • art­work tab: include album art
10. Upload mp3 to your web server using FTP (we rec­om­mend Trans­mit)
11. Pub­lish the mp3 to your RSS feed via your Con­tent Man­age­ment System

KINGdesk turnkey ser­vice includes:

• rec­om­mended equip­ment package:
  • Behringer 802 Mixer
  • Sennheiser HD201 Head­phones (x2)
  • AKG Per­cep­tion 120 Con­denser Micro­phone (x2)
  • Pro­Line Desk Boom Micro­phone Stand (x2)
  • Cable: dual male 1/​4 inch to stereo male 3.5 mm (x2)
  • Cable: XLR Mic Cable (x2)
  • Cable: male 3.5 mm to male stereo 1/​4 inch
  • Cable: Head­phone Splitter
  • new Mac­Book with Garage­band & iTunes installed and configured
• Cus­tom Album Art
• Cus­tom intro music
• Cus­tom intro content
• Cus­tom Word­Press web­site for pod­cast home­page and RSS feed generation
• Con­fig­ure Feedburner/​Google Ana­lyt­ics Accounts
• One day of on-​​site con­sul­ta­tion and setup

all for $7,500 plus travel expenses and Mac­Book — if required (pric­ing good through Sep­tem­ber 2009)

We can cus­tomize our ser­vices to your needs. Email us at info@​kingdesk.​com