This is great! Couple of notes to help out others (because I've spent my holiday break putting together my serialized fiction as a podcast). There is great music available for free or relatively little licensing costs at Incompetech, Pixabay, Musopen, and Free Stock Music. Also, consider what your cover art is going to look like and don't be afraid to use something like Canva to create it. Really useful!
You don't even need the $100 microphone. I used to have one of those, but I switched to a crappy £15 mic and everything works the same. I have about 40 regular listeners (and counting) to me reading my fantasy serial which is actually way more than I imagined!
Sounds like our process is very similar; we even use the same editing filters on audacity. Funny seeing this post because I have an obscenely detailed technical post on audio editing with Audacity coming out Thursday. I wrote the post for a Wordpress blog a while ago after I produced my own audiobook and I decided why not post it on Substack (now that the ad gremlins have taken over my old blog). I put a ton of work into it because I know I would have liked having it when I was learning about recording.
I definitely avoided going into detail on this, so an obscenely detailed technical post sounds like it'll be really useful for anyone whose interest has been piqued!
I hope so! I have a feeling it will be overwhelming, but we'll see. Maybe you can add your audio expertise to it. I'm just giving my non-expert advice on techniques that I figured out in a slap dash manner while I was producing my audiobook. I'm sure there are mistakes I'm not even aware of!
I was so thrilled by the responses from you and the others. Can't wait to misinterpret them and turn them into fiction that makes you all roll your eyes at me.
I use Audacity for editing as well, but my brain can't grasp what you mean about using the 10 seconds of nothing to de-noise the whole recording. Could you explain that part in more detail? Thank you!!
Aha! Yes. In the Effects menu, under ‘Noise removal and repair’, you’ll find the ‘Noise reduction’ effect.
The way this works is that you first feed it a sample of the stuff you want to remove, and then it uses that to remove that noise from everything else.
First you select the 10 second portion of ‘silence’ (which actually contains the noise pattern for your microphone/room), then you go to the Noise reduction effect and click ‘Get noise profile’.
This appears to do absolutely nothing, but it’s actually captured the noise pattern within those 10 seconds of not-quite-silence.
Now change your selection to the entire recording (or the section you want to denoise, at least). Then go back into the Noise reduction effect, and this time hit ‘OK’. It will use the previously captured noise profile to denoise the new selection.
You can fiddle with the settings, but I tend to find the defaults work nicely.
Thank you for this podcast advice. I've already done more video podcasts (never used that term, but it applies) and I have the mechanics of that down. Audie podcasts seem great for general musings where a visual component isn't necessary, helpful or enticing--and with gardening that is often the case. But there I times I just want to send a message of my thoughts on gardening and seed saving, or even tell a story, which this direction could lend itself. Again, thank you!
This is super helpful! I've thought about narrating some of my stories before (weird accent & all) so I'll definitely bookmark this for whenever I get around to it. That limiter filter is something I feel more podcasters should know about...
As ever, wonderful advice Simon! I was actually thinking of creating self-reading, audio book versions of my writings and this podcast advice probably will apply perfectly well to that too. So, thank you for the valuable advice. I'm on it! :)
Hi Simon, thanks so much for sharing this! I have been considering adding voiceovers for paid subscribers but for some reason doing that prevents free subscribers from commenting, which I didn't like. So I made a recording, not realising it would publish as a podcast, so now I have 2 identical posts, one with a podcast added. 😂 But I'm thinking that adding a podcast for one of my categories instead of written posts, might be quite nice to do, but was put off by all the equipment and new skills etc I would need to make it feel a bit professional. Now you've got me interested again. Question though... I don't have a youtube or apple account or anything like that, only Insta, which is not linked to my Substack... does that mean it will only be available on Substack? I was a bit confused when you wrote it was automatically uploaded elsewhere when published.
Yeah, and paid content within a post automatically locks comments to paid-only. I've always found that very annoying! It's weird that they haven't made it an option.
You will need to create a YouTube channel and sign up to Apple podcasts and Spotify. It's fairly simple, as I recall, and you only have to do it once. Then you link Substack to those accounts and everything else is automatic.
Thank you for your well thought out and informative post. I’m just in the process of starting a podcast to go along with my Substack publication and have been researching all of the details. I have been doing voiceovers for my written “newsletters” on here but haven’t checked off the podcast box. Do you think I should wait to add them after I actually launch my podcast?
Good question Ali. I’m also not clear, when you choose to make an Audio post, whether you can also add full text. In other words, is this an Audio post or a regular one?
This particular post is a regular post, to which I've added a voiceover. In settings there's then an option to add the voiceover to the podcast RSS.
If you create an audio post that's more explicitly A PODCAST EPISODE. It's presented differently, highlighting the audio, and has a transcript (whereas a voiceover doesn't have a transcript, because it's assumed to be a reading of the main post). You can still add additional text.
You can even paywall a podcast episode or part of an episode, without needing to faff about with separate streams. Paid subscribers automatically get access to an exclusive personal feed. It's very neat!
This is great! Couple of notes to help out others (because I've spent my holiday break putting together my serialized fiction as a podcast). There is great music available for free or relatively little licensing costs at Incompetech, Pixabay, Musopen, and Free Stock Music. Also, consider what your cover art is going to look like and don't be afraid to use something like Canva to create it. Really useful!
You don't even need the $100 microphone. I used to have one of those, but I switched to a crappy £15 mic and everything works the same. I have about 40 regular listeners (and counting) to me reading my fantasy serial which is actually way more than I imagined!
Thank you! 😊 I’m gearing up to give this a try!
Sounds like our process is very similar; we even use the same editing filters on audacity. Funny seeing this post because I have an obscenely detailed technical post on audio editing with Audacity coming out Thursday. I wrote the post for a Wordpress blog a while ago after I produced my own audiobook and I decided why not post it on Substack (now that the ad gremlins have taken over my old blog). I put a ton of work into it because I know I would have liked having it when I was learning about recording.
I definitely avoided going into detail on this, so an obscenely detailed technical post sounds like it'll be really useful for anyone whose interest has been piqued!
I hope so! I have a feeling it will be overwhelming, but we'll see. Maybe you can add your audio expertise to it. I'm just giving my non-expert advice on techniques that I figured out in a slap dash manner while I was producing my audiobook. I'm sure there are mistakes I'm not even aware of!
Thank you for the shoutout! It was great fun to speculate on some fantasy sci-fi physics!
I was so thrilled by the responses from you and the others. Can't wait to misinterpret them and turn them into fiction that makes you all roll your eyes at me.
Excellent! I can feel like a science advisor on a Star Trek movie!! 🖖
Thank you for this advice. It might help me to develop one.
I use Audacity for editing as well, but my brain can't grasp what you mean about using the 10 seconds of nothing to de-noise the whole recording. Could you explain that part in more detail? Thank you!!
Aha! Yes. In the Effects menu, under ‘Noise removal and repair’, you’ll find the ‘Noise reduction’ effect.
The way this works is that you first feed it a sample of the stuff you want to remove, and then it uses that to remove that noise from everything else.
First you select the 10 second portion of ‘silence’ (which actually contains the noise pattern for your microphone/room), then you go to the Noise reduction effect and click ‘Get noise profile’.
This appears to do absolutely nothing, but it’s actually captured the noise pattern within those 10 seconds of not-quite-silence.
Now change your selection to the entire recording (or the section you want to denoise, at least). Then go back into the Noise reduction effect, and this time hit ‘OK’. It will use the previously captured noise profile to denoise the new selection.
You can fiddle with the settings, but I tend to find the defaults work nicely.
Thank you for this podcast advice. I've already done more video podcasts (never used that term, but it applies) and I have the mechanics of that down. Audie podcasts seem great for general musings where a visual component isn't necessary, helpful or enticing--and with gardening that is often the case. But there I times I just want to send a message of my thoughts on gardening and seed saving, or even tell a story, which this direction could lend itself. Again, thank you!
Very helpful, thanks Simon. I may even have a go.
Great post, Simon. Thanks for taking the time.
Note to self...
This is super helpful! I've thought about narrating some of my stories before (weird accent & all) so I'll definitely bookmark this for whenever I get around to it. That limiter filter is something I feel more podcasters should know about...
As ever, wonderful advice Simon! I was actually thinking of creating self-reading, audio book versions of my writings and this podcast advice probably will apply perfectly well to that too. So, thank you for the valuable advice. I'm on it! :)
Hi Simon, thanks so much for sharing this! I have been considering adding voiceovers for paid subscribers but for some reason doing that prevents free subscribers from commenting, which I didn't like. So I made a recording, not realising it would publish as a podcast, so now I have 2 identical posts, one with a podcast added. 😂 But I'm thinking that adding a podcast for one of my categories instead of written posts, might be quite nice to do, but was put off by all the equipment and new skills etc I would need to make it feel a bit professional. Now you've got me interested again. Question though... I don't have a youtube or apple account or anything like that, only Insta, which is not linked to my Substack... does that mean it will only be available on Substack? I was a bit confused when you wrote it was automatically uploaded elsewhere when published.
Yeah, and paid content within a post automatically locks comments to paid-only. I've always found that very annoying! It's weird that they haven't made it an option.
You will need to create a YouTube channel and sign up to Apple podcasts and Spotify. It's fairly simple, as I recall, and you only have to do it once. Then you link Substack to those accounts and everything else is automatic.
Thank you for your well thought out and informative post. I’m just in the process of starting a podcast to go along with my Substack publication and have been researching all of the details. I have been doing voiceovers for my written “newsletters” on here but haven’t checked off the podcast box. Do you think I should wait to add them after I actually launch my podcast?
Good question Ali. I’m also not clear, when you choose to make an Audio post, whether you can also add full text. In other words, is this an Audio post or a regular one?
This particular post is a regular post, to which I've added a voiceover. In settings there's then an option to add the voiceover to the podcast RSS.
If you create an audio post that's more explicitly A PODCAST EPISODE. It's presented differently, highlighting the audio, and has a transcript (whereas a voiceover doesn't have a transcript, because it's assumed to be a reading of the main post). You can still add additional text.
You can see the difference if you look at this, which is an audio-specific post of mine: https://simonkjones.substack.com/p/storytelling-in-dungeons-and-dragons?utm_source=publication-search
You can even paywall a podcast episode or part of an episode, without needing to faff about with separate streams. Paid subscribers automatically get access to an exclusive personal feed. It's very neat!
Thanks, that clarifies it.