How-To: Step by Step Guide to recording Podcasts on the Mac using Quicktime Broadcaster.
This week[base ']s How-To is from Lenn Pryor who shares his experiences in the podcasting world with QuickTime
Broadcaster.
Hugo Schotman has been a pioneer in sharing
his early sound engineering setups for recording podcasts on the Mac. His initial diagram showing how we was
able to combine GarageBand, Soundtrack, iChat, and Soundflower to record a podcast with another person remote over
iChat enabled Phil and I to record our first Engadget Podcast. Phil and I modified his original set up slightly
and cut Soundtrack out of the mix to save money and enable others to get in at a low barrier to entry and posted it on
Engadget. We combined Line-In from Rogue Amoeba to route the mic, iChat for remote audio, Quicktime for music and
clips, and recorded the whole shebang in Garageband routed through the Soundflower driver.
Recently, Hugo posted another way to
record a high quality Podcast, using his original set up with Line-In in place of GarageBand, and Apple[base ']s Quicktime
Broadcaster (free) in place of Soundtrack. Since Hugo is on vacation he quickly jotted up a post to share his
discovery. If you have never gotten his original set up to work it is hard to figure out how to add the new
components in and get it all working. I spent some time and got it all working with a little help from Hugo and I
agree [sigma] this is the best low cost Podcast studio set up I have seen. Once you get it all going the quality is
great and it easy to use. If you are a Mac user looking to start podcasting without spending a thing follow these
step by step instructions below.
Get a good mic and headset. No one wants to listen to a radio show with bad audio. There are tons of low
cost solutions for this. I use a
VOIP ready USB headset
from Plantronics to give me both decent sound for monitoring the recording and a good quality noise-canceling
microphone. Other solutions running any external mic through the microphone port or
Griffin[base ']s iMic for pro quality mics combined with a pair
of headphones.
You will want to make sure you have all the software ready to test your studio set up and make sure it is
working. Download and install the following free applications at the links below:
Open [base "]System Preferences[per thou] and choose the [base "]Sound[per thou] control panel. You will need to set the audio in and output
to route to the right source for system and mic audio to be recorded.
First set the [base "]Output[per thou] setting to [base "]Soundflower (2ch)[per thou] this will allow sound that comes from your system such as music
to route to the audio driver that will combine multiple sources and allow you to record multiple voices, music, movie
clips, etc.
Set the Sound [base "]Input[per thou] value to match your microphone source so that sound from your mic is mixed into the stream and
recorded. In my case I have selected my USB headset with a built in mic. Mics connected via the mic jack on the
Mac should select [base "]Audio line-in port[per thou]
Make sure to check your mic levels in the [base "]Input volume[per thou] slider below to make sure you are not clipping (maxing the
meter) when you speak in a fairly normal tone and pace. This will result in bad quality in the recording if you
have your mic set too loud.
Open Line-In and check the [base "]Enabled[per thou] box. Set [base "]Input[per thou] to your headphones or headset that you plan to monitor the
recording with. Set the [base "]Output[per thou] to [base "]Soundflower (2ch)[per thou]. If you do not enable this correctly you will not be able
to hear everything in your headphones. Once you enable Line-In you may notice a half second delay when you speak
in the microphone from latency to the driver. We are researching solutions to eliminate this slight
annoyance.
Launch Soundflowerbed. It will place a little flower icon in the menu bar that looks like a daisy. Set
Soundflowerbed to route the audio from Soundflower to your headset so that you can monitor the entire mix that will be
recorded through Soundflower to Quicktime Broadcaster.
Set up iChat to be able to add a remote co-host or guest from iChat or AIM 5.5 on Windows and record it. Open the
[base "]preferences[per thou] for iChat and select the [base "]video[per thou] tab. Under [base "]microphone[per thou] and [base "]sound output[per thou] select [base "]Soundflower
(2ch)[per thou]. Check the levels of you and your guest and adjust as needed when connected.
Set up Quicktime Broadcaster to record your Podcast.
- Launch Quicktime Broadcaster
- Enable GUI Scripting using the instructions found
here.
- Download and run this AppleScript
to automatically configure all of the settings outlined below for you. If you run the script make sure you go
to the [base "]Network[per thou] tab and add your Meta data so that your file will display the key information in a player.
OR [sigma] set it up manually using the following settings.
Manual Settings
- Click the [base "]Show Details[per thou] button to access the advanced settings for Quicktime Broadcaster
- Click the [base "]Record to Disk[per thou] check box next to the [base "]broadcast[per thou] button to enable recording.
- In the [base "]Audio[per thou] tab set your settings as shown in this picture
You can select other compression if you desire. It has been my experience that recording in Apple Lossless has
resulted in the fewest drops in quality and compresses nicely in iTunes after completion.
- Click the [base "]Video[per thou] tab and uncheck [base "]enable video stream[per thou] this should gray out the settings for video recording as
you do not need them.
- Click the [base "]Network[per thou] tab and set the parameters according to the image below. Make sure you set the address
and port values as I have below.
Now you are ready to test your set up. At this point you should be able to hear any sound source in the
podcast including yourself, music, sounds, movie clips, and your iChat partner. Your iChat partner should be able
to hear everything happening on your machine as well.
Test your levels and make sure your various sound sources are not overwhelming each other or drowning out your
podcasters. Adjust your iTunes, Sound Input, and other volumes to get it even.
- Have your music and clips queued and ready to play in iTunes, Quicktime, or other players.
- Test your iChat partner vs. you. Who is louder? Adjust as needed.
- Click [base "]Broadcast[per thou] when you are ready to make a sample recording and get a feel for your studio and how everything
sounds.
- When you stop broadcasting your clip will be deposited in your [base "]Movies[per thou] directory where it will be named
[base "]MyMovie.mov[per thou]
Compress your output from Quicktime Broadcaster to MP3 using iTunes.
- Open iTunes
- Open iTunes Preferences
- Select [base "]Importing[per thou] in the preferences pane
- Under [base "]Import Using[per thou] change the drop down to MP3 or your format of choice
- Chose a predefined bit rate or select custom to fine tune the variables for the smallest possible file size with
best possible quality for your podcast. On the Engadget Podcast we tend to go for smaller file size for quick
downloads at the expense of a little quality.
Assuming your test worked out fine and you are happy with the outcome, you are ready to start podcasting. Make
sure to return your settings to your prior configuration after you are done recording. Rock on and happy
podcasting.
Lenn Pryor is a serial technologist who spends far too much of his time and money trying to find gadget nirvana for
the frequent traveler. Lenn has spent the last 7 years working for Microsoft including a gloriously fun stint on
the Pocket PC team. Today Lenn spends his days with the 5 guys from Redmond running Microsoft[base ']s Channel 9 video
blog for developers.
[Engadget]
10:20:58 AM 
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