I need to make a podcast but I need sound effects - Not sound effects like echo, noise reduction, reverb etc, but sound effects like sound bytes of applause, laughter, dogs barking, car horns… you know… all that funny filler stuff you hear in radio shows.
I did find one program that does this made for podcasting called Wildvoice Studio BUT it’s old… make for XP and I need something that works on windows 8.
The advantage of this type of software is that during live recording of the show, you can hit a button and simply overdub/insert these sounds effect live - no need to search the net, downloading lots of sound bytes and spending extra time manually copying and pasting the sound bytes into your edit. Wilvoice studio has about 28 pre-set sound bytes and empty slots to add your own. I like those features and hope there is a plugin that does this for Audacity. Is there?
That’s one problem, another problem is recording your voice and recording sounds playing on the computer tend to be two different control panel settings, and they don’t mix. Do you know somebody who’s doing it this way? Koz
Audacity is not designed for “live” - it is designed for “off air studio production”.
I’ve collected about 1000 sound effects that I have, categorised like a library. When I need a specific effect I just drag one into a new track.
If you are using the same few effect over and over, you could put them all onto one track, then mute that track so that it does not play. (You could also Save this project so that you can re-use it like a “template” for each show). Then when you want one of the sound effects, just copy and paste it into a track that is not muted. I like to keep Voice, Music and fx tracks as separate tracks.
No… I don’t know anyone who makes podcasts at all but i was really excited to see that WildVoice works that way… This show will be pre-recorded with a very loose script. This will give us flexibility to be spontaneous ( using sound bytes) during the recording phase. If I’d have to stick to a ridged script where I’d then have to go back and think… " do I want a sound byte at this place and if so, which one" - it would totally ruin the show and the effect. It would go from an alive dynamic thing to a dead thing - I don’t want that.
This show is going to be myself and my friend of 30 years who was born without any arms. We will cut up and discuss issues and create a lively playful atmosphere. Or at least thats what we are going for. My friend really wants to do this - my job is to make my friend happy. So I’m learning all i can about podcasting.
Steve, I hate to think I may have to do as you suggest and keep a collection of sound bytes on hand for manual insert later. I may have to try to install a copy of XP and try to make WildVoice work first before I come back to Audacity.
There are pros and cons to live recording - on the one hand you may be able to capture the excitement of spontaneity. On the other hand you can be stuck with mistakes that irritate you for years Personally, I like to work with a hybrid approach, where the recording is mostly live, but edited and overdubbed later - the down side is that you need more equipment. If, for example, you have 2 computers and a small mixing desk, you can cue up any audio tracks and sound effects that you want on one computer, and mix them in (live) with the mixing desk to your microphone feed. If the final show will be mono, then you can pan the microphones one side and the music/sound effects to the other channel, then mix/edit them later to get the levels and timing just right, take out any bits that don’t work, and add in bits that you didn’t or couldn’t do live. The second computer is basically acting as a high quality tape recorder.
It would go from an alive dynamic thing to a dead thing - I don’t want that.
If you want entertaining spontaneity, you have to carefully plan it. A friend of mine rambles spontaneously in his podcast for 90 minutes once a week. It’s pretty deadly unless you’re painting your house at the same time.
“And another thing…um…”
“Oops, I missed a spot up near the gutter.”
If it doesn’t have to be particularly entertaining, then yes, go for it. You can make this work but you need a guest that can talk. We had a graphic artist supervisor at work who was really good at story telling. Scary good. No matter how big the room was or what the subject he would always play to a packed house.
“Koz? Bill is going to talk about the properties of drying paint in Screening Two!”
“Hey, I need to call you back, Bill is going to give a talk!”
There is someone who posted here on the forum about getting a live, multi-content podcast to work and he said he would answer questions, but he’s on vacation for two weeks…!@#$%
Guys… let me fill you in on something… This friend of mine who i’m doing this with… he’s my age… early 40’s. I already mentioned he was born without arms but i didn’t mention he’s very sensitive emotionally. ( this is hard to explain) Ya know how they say some people dont reach their mental growth potential… like they grow up but dont reach a mental state over a certain age… well my friend is kinda like that. I can’t really use the word “immature” but thats what his behavior reminds me of sometimes… he’s… er… wired differently than the rest of us.
He can type with his toes… ( heck he even types the correct way using home keys) and he uses a computer mouse just fine - these pre-set soundbytes will mostly be for him to use… help give him some other way to contribute. I will be the one at the end of the day that does any editing to piece the final version together. I expect this podcast to be lighthearted and not serious at all… It’s more like therapy for my friend. We will use my laptop with dual headphones with mics plugged into Y splitters on both the speaker and mic jacks.
If we keep at this for any length of time and get popular ( i suspect listening to the podcast of a guy with no arms will be an attraction for many) then i will look into getting and using better equipment but for now I just wanna get the ball rolling and get something produced that will please my friend.
I found a possible solution but i still have yet to try it.
If i select StereoMix as my recording device ( not supported by all sound cards and or drivers) I should be able to play and record at the same time anything going trough my mic and speakers. This way i can record the voice from one tool, lets say Audacity, and use a playlist of sound clips say from windows media player. I cue up a clip while Audacity is recording and it should capture sound clip too. I just read about that on the net and I’m gonna try it.
I recall that the RamonNoodle (Audacity2Podcast - where Chris’ Dynamic processor is hosted) has made a comparison of such sound effect players.
If I am not mistaken, Pod Producer is one of those.
The podcast is a little bit older (~2011) and I guess that there has been some development and some new programs since.
However, it should be worth a try. Cueing up in Windows Media Player is somewhat cumbersome.
Another solution that comes to my mind is to control the sounds via a MIDI keyboard. I have a cheap Children’s organ for this task and it really works fine.
The trick is to build up a sound font with the different sounds for each midi key.
For playback and editing I use the free SyFonOne player and the associated programs Synthfont and Viena (soundfont creation/modification).
For a start, you could try a MIDI Player that takes the input from the normal keyboard (i.e. you will play melodies or in our case sound effects on alphanumeric keys).
You then have to find a sound font that has special effects instead of normal drum sounds.
Besides, we could even write a plug-in that exports sounds into a soundfont file.
Thanks Koz. I’m listening to Chase and Ben’s show now.
I tested the above idea and it works like a charm. I am using Audacity for the recording ( and later editing) I made a folder with all my sound clips. I will play these via Foobar2000. I have to leave Foobar open and keep my sound clips as wav files. I tell Foobar to open wav files by default. This way the player doesn’t try to open each time I need to play a wav file.
I used Foobar because it doesn’t try to create a playlist by default - which would get in the way… I tried a few audio players and some create a playlist. What happens is if I play a dog barking, then a car horn, they will be in the playlist in order of play. If i then play a dog barking again, from my clips folder, it will actually play from the plalist in the player - then it will automatically play the car horn too… cant have that. Using Foobar solved the problem.
If anyone else wants to try this you have to make sure you can use StereoMix as a recording device. Go to Control Panel and choose Sounds. Next go to the Recording tab. If your sound card is able to use SteroMix as a recording device you will see it in the list. Windows 7 and 8 has this option disabled or grayed out by default. You have to check the box at the bottom to use this as your default device and it will activate. Now your good to go.
So How it works. I open the Audacity, Foobar player, and my folder with the sound clips. I start the recording using Audacity. During the live recording I simply click on a sound clip to insert it live while recording.
Now it sounds good to me But i don’t know anything about using separate channels for audio or why i would really need to - or even if I can at all with this setup.
MultiPlay is THE free cue player for Windows. It’ll do a lot more than you want, but it will also do what you want very well. For example, you can assign hot keys to sound effects, play multiple sounds at the same time, play background music with a live fade-in and fade-out again on the press of a button.
To get the best out of this program you should ideally use it on a different machine (so as to avoid conflicting hot keys as so as to give both MultiPlay and Audacity full access to the computer sound system. Unfortunately it is Windows only.
By the way, I used to use Foobar2000 for playing sound cues until I found MultiPlay.
Personally, I like to work with a hybrid approach, where the recording is mostly live, but edited and overdubbed later - the down side is that you need more equipment. If, for example, you have 2 computers and a small mixing desk, you can cue up any audio tracks and sound effects that you want on one computer, and mix them in (live) with the mixing desk to your microphone feed. If the final show will be mono, then you can pan the microphones one side and the music/sound effects to the other channel, then mix/edit them later to get the levels and timing just right, take out any bits that don’t work, and add in bits that you didn’t or couldn’t do live. The second computer is basically acting as a high quality tape recorder.