Podcast 001: Fruit Fly Wars Monday, September 17, 2007

As of Sept. 17, Trillium Media Services has jumped into the world of multimedia! Our first podcast is mostly a practice run to see how things work, but I digress into an epic tale I call "Fruit Fly Wars."

As it turns out, we're having some technical issues: I want to set it up so that you can click on a button and hear the podcast here, but I can't get it to upload, so for now you'll have to find it here instead. (It's a 1.5MB MP3 file. You probably have the right player for that installed already.) The audio has some technical issues, and obviously I need some practice speaking into a microphone and/or writing a script, but I'm reasonably satisfied with the results. It is my first attempt, after all.

I'm not sure how often I'll produce an audio piece, or what the subject will be. The idea, though, is to add another dimension to my storytelling options. I expect that the audio will accompany slide shows most of the time, but who knows. I have several ideas to work on, but there is a bit of a learning curve to navigate before I commit to anything too big.

For the technical folks out there, here's a list of the equipment I'm using (see photo below):

• Marantz PMD-660 solid state audio recorder
• Beyerdynamic M58 dynamic, omnidirectional microphone
• Sony MDR-V300 headphones

I want to get a shotgun mic as well, but they're pretty expensive, relatively fragile, and maybe I won't need it. We'll see.

The cool thing about the PMD-660, apart from its small size, XLR plugs, and reasonable price, is that it saves the recordings on the same compact flash cards I use in my camera. I bought another 2GB card with the audio gear, because I'll leave one in the recorder all the time, but they're all interchangeable.

Over the past week or so, I've been reading up on audio production, basically giving myself a crash-course in radio.

Here are some of the better links I've found:

• Transom.org - the go-to resource for audio
• BBC Training & Development - free lessons!
• University of Florida - a good list of other information sources

Anyhow, that's what I have for this edition. If you have any requests for future topics, send me an email or leave a comment. And, as always, constructive feedback is appreciated. Is the volume good? Does it download fast enough? Any technical issues?