GreerMUG Meeting Highlights - September 2006

Opening Moments
Mike welcomed everybody to the meeting and then described to us the difference between a pc and a Mac. Enlightening.

Member Dock
Looking for volunteers for The Mug Inspector, our newsletter. Contact Matt if you'd like to help. And recycling is working! Thanks for your help there, too.

Summer Photo Contest
Good news, the winners will be announced next month!


Core Presentation
This month's core presentation from Tim is on how to create a Podcast. This is just an overview, not a complete garageband tutorial. GarageBand is the software that allows you to do it. AND, it's already on your Mac!

What is a podcast?? It is the internet version of a radio show on demand. And yes, podcast does get its name from the iPod. A podcast can be anything: talking, music, interviews, or a recording of an event.

Tim cranked up GarageBand and chose New Podcast.
Now, where to begin? Start wit these questions: What is your subject? How long does it need to be? That goes to audience retention, and download time for your filesize.
GarageBand wants to know what to call your podcast. Tip within a core presentation: Spotlight will search inside of files.

GarageBand is a huge time sinkhole (Tim means that in a good way, Steve!). This blackhole of fun and fascination will pull you in!! It assumes that you want to have a podcast track. Every thing is a track in GarageBand. Already GarageBand has turned on the built-in microphone and is ready to record Tim. An external microphone gives you better quality. Quality costs more - hmmm - that's a decision you have to make.

Tim lets us know that ad libbing is harder than you think, it pays to have a script. It wil save you so much time. That's good because GarageBand is a huge time sinkhole. You don't actually record straight into the podcast track, add a voice track. Hit the red record button (NOT THE RED BUTTON!) when you're ready to read your script. Setting track volume will keep your audio from being over-driven and distorted.

So Tim records his script. But don't you want some music? Tim has a music clip called Red Mustang - all he has to do is drag it in to GarageBand. A music track is added, and Viola! instant music production! What if you make a mistake? GarageBand lets you edit audio tracks, split the audio, and delete the fragments you don't want. Pretty snazzy, this GarageBand program, eh?

When we played back Tim's production, the music AUTOMATICALLY dropped in volume under Tim's voice - that's called Ducking. It's also called very intelligent. If you don't like where your voice comes in, you can slide your voice track around. GarageBand gives you control in Edit mode so you can control which tracks get ducked and which ones don't.

Tim is very proud of himself at this point. But wait, there's more! Now Tim wants to add a bumper. That's like, more music. GarageBand knows what might go with your production so it limits the choices available at certain points. Tim adds a bumper track, but there's a gap of dead air in there. No worry, just drag your bumper music to where it needs to be. There.

Tim needs to record more of his script, whoops, the background music got recorded with his voice. You can either use headphones or use the solo feature to suppress the music while you record your additional voice. Hear the duck?

By the way, can you fade the music out? YES YOU CAN!! Drop the volume window for the music track, and now you graphically set the volume for your music track. In fact, you can set the volume this way for any track.

We could be finished right here and have a nice mp3 file, but there's more you can do with this. You could publish an Enhanced Podcast that will play only on iPods. Do you have any images you can add? Images??? Yes, images. (I bet Matt's firing up Spotlight right now.) You can drop images into our forgotten podcast track!! Now images and artwork can be a part of your podcast. Ahhh, now we're starting to get the "enhanced" part. Bet that shows up on our iPod's video screen. Yep.

Wow, Tim, anyone can do a podcast!! But wait, there's even more. There's an URL field where you can enter a web address that you want associated with your podcast. Take people right to the website. Chapter points in an enhanced podcast take you to points IN the podcast. Cool. All this inside GarageBand. We could be finished, but how do we get this to the web?

Oh, one more thing, you can also add a description to the podcast.

So, how does it get uploaded to the web? Point to the Share menu and choose Send Podcast to iWeb. GarageBand does a mixdown and brings up iWeb. Strangely enough, iWeb thinks I want to make a podcast. Genius. Sheer genius.

Anyhting else? Yes, we have some clean-up work to do in iWeb. Like what? Well, right now our podcast is cleverly called .... "podcast". hmmmm, that's rather non-descript. Tim calls it GreerMUG. If you want your podcast to be in iTunes, then choose your name carefully. If you change the name later, the link breaks, and your subscribers won't find it anynmore!! Choose names carefully.

So, can we get this into iTunes? Under RSS, there is a place you check to allow it onto the iTunes music store. This is also the place where you set Parental Guidance. You also need to set the Publish date - you might record it in advance!

The only step left is to publish it to, say, a .Mac account. One-click, and it publishes itself to the web. Mac, Mac, Mac. Why is it always "one-click and it does this!" Why can't it ever be "twenty clicks and it does this"?

Watch out for copyrighted music - you can't use stuff without permission. Don't forget, there's lots of beds available from freeplaymusic.com. Pictures and logos are copyrighted, too. If you don't own it, be careful.

GarageBand also has vocal effects that can enhance or alter your audio.

Thanks, Tim, for a GREAT Core Presentation! For that, you get another Shameless Plug for your blog:

SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT!
Has he no shame? Will these plug's ever stop? Check out Tim's blog at TimothyGodby.com. A cool Mac blog - it's coolness begs for your interaction. Blogging lets you give new meaning to post-it notes!

Wrap-up
As always, we appreciate the guys at iPlace for allowing us to meet there. We will return to iPlace Tuesday, October 17th, for another meeting!!