Podcasting with GarageBand 3 training
Reviewed by Wayne LeFevre
Lynda.com P.O. Box 789 Ojai, CA 93024 888-33-LYNDA Released: July 2006 $50 USD for CD, $25 per month for online. System Requirements: QuickTime 6 or better. 1024x768 or higher screen resolution; Mac OS X or higher; broadband Internet connection if using the online training library. Strengths: A great way to introduce yourself to podcasting with GarageBand 3. Weaknesses: Weak on podcasting basics. |
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From Lynda.com
In Podcasting with
GarageBand 3,
Scott Bourne takes you step by step through optimizing GarageBand 3 for
podcasting, working with track settings for professional-sounding audio, and
choosing the best hardware for recording music or vocals. He also covers
techniques for recording voice versus music, how to add background loops to the
recording's timeline, the best ways to publish your podcast, and more. Exercise
files accompany the training videos, allowing you to follow along and learn at
your own pace.
From Me
If there is anyone I
admire in podcasting, it is Scott Bourne, the digital media expert who writes
and teaches about digital imaging for the O'Reilly Digital Media Network and on
his own blogs, at www.podcastingtricks.com and www.myphototricks.com.
Not only a photographic expert, he runs several helpful podcasting sites and a
photography podcast called Photofocus. He also does several of Lynda.com's
instructional videos including Podcasting with GarageBand 3.
I also love Lynda.com. For the most part, training is first rate on all their videos. Some of them are starting to show their age, but all are informative. Podcasting with GarageBand 3 is a relatively new title, within a year old, and is still very relevant. Anyone wishing to get into podcasting with their new Apple computer and iLife ‘06 would benefit from watching this training video.
Scott takes you from optimizing GarageBand, understanding the tracks and the timeline, planning your podcast, recording, editing and creating enhanced podcasts. He briefly dips into headsets and mics. He gets very detailed on editing your podcast. Very, very detailed. In fact, it’s one of the only faults I can see with the video.
Scott basically takes you through creating one of his podcasts that he produces called Photofocus. He walks you through setting up GarageBand, but unfortunately, doesn’t dive into too much detail when working with settings such as EQ, reverb, compression, or anything but the basic Male Voice that comes standard with GarageBand. I would have liked to have seen a little more detail in using different settings and mic setups. He does a good job explaining how to drop in loops for music and stingers.
After recording a 12 minute track of voice, he explains how to edit it. Unfortunately, you are along for the entire ride. It takes almost 2 hours of the 4.75 hours of video to record and edit this 12 minute podcast. Literally every single pause, um, and and is taken out, and you get to see it. That is a whole lot of listening, stopping, rewinding, splitting, cutting, joining, and doing it all over again. And again. I would have liked to have seen it done two or three times, I would have gotten it by then. But as Scott even admits, by the end of the Putting it All Together section, you can literally do it in your sleep.
Conclusion
Even after spending so
much time editing every single mistake and pause over a split second, I would
still recommend this training session. It’s a great introduction to using GarageBand
to podcast with, and Scott really does have a good handle on not only the
application, but his familiarity with podcasting and voice presence goes a long
way in his teaching ability.
