Welcome! Nobody's Listening is a clean comedy podcast and blog. You can subscribe (free) to this site and receive updates automatically. Thanks for visiting!

I haven’t actually found an answer to this question anywhere on the internet. I’ve seen the question asked… but no answers.

How can I forward my dynamically generated feed (http://mysite.com/?feed=podcast) to Feedburner using .htaccess?

I’m no code genius, and if someone finds a better way, please let me know… but here’s what worked for me.

# Add the part of your url that is after the quesion mark between the ^ and the $
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^feed=podcast$
# This line stays untouched. It keeps FeedBurner from doing an infinite loop
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !FeedBurner
# This line sends the match from the Query String to the new feed. The ? at the end drops the feed=podcast part
RewriteRule ^$ http://feedproxy.google.com/yoursite? [R,L]

Hope it works for you! I have no help for you if it doesn’t. Sorry.

Last year I wrote an article about How I Podcast using Skype. I even updated it once. I have some new equipment and my co-host is in the studio (read: basement) with me. I do things a little differently now. This is how someone might do podcasting when both hosts are in the same space. (more…)

Though I think the title says it all, I’d like to dedicate this list to everyone who is interested in starting their own podcast. I had a lot of help when I started my first… and I’ve come a long way since then. I hope these resources help cut your learning curve down a bit! God bless your efforts! (more…)

“Should I keep my podcast files on my website?”

“How can I upload my podcast to iTunes?”

These are questions I get asked a lot in both the NLCast Forums and via email. I thought I’d write an article that I can direct people to later. This article assumes you’ve already got a nice little mp3 file complete with id3 tags, album art and all. If you need pointers on recording your show, read How I Podcast.

So you’ve gone and recorded yourself a podcast. Good for you! Really! Now you know how much work they are. But how do you get this mp3 online for folks to start downloading? How do you generate a feed? How can you get this sucker on iTunes? Well, this may not be THE way to do it. But this is how I did.
(more…)

As Nobody’s Listening Podcast creeps up on its one year anniversary (woot!) I can’t help but look back at my podlife in 2007. I’ve gotten acquainted with a lot of great people. Many of which have been inspired to experiment with starting their own show. It’s been one of the most gratifying parts of podcasting being able to inspire others the way Scott and Micheal did me.

I’ve compiled a five tips I find myself giving (or wishing I had given) folks who are looking to start a podcast as a hobby. Hope they help you!

6 Tips For Starting A Hobby Podcast

1. Keep it simple. Especially if you’re pressed for time in real life. Prepping for a podcast can take more time than doing the podcast. Simplicity should also be the rule of every other aspect of your show. The website should be clean and simple. Don’t bog it down with ads, forums, etc. Forums are embarrassing until you have a following.

2. Educate yourself. To podcast you need to know computers, the internet, recording, compression, encoding, uploading, creating rss feeds, blogging and networking. (How To Podcast, Podcasting Step-by-Step, How I Podcast)

3. Do it for free. You can always upgrade everything to do with your show later. But you’ll never get your money back if you can’t keep your show going. The only think you may want to spend money on is a URL. Make sure the one you want is available for the name you have chosen and reserve it. Even if you don’t use it or only use it for a while, it’s only $8 a year. (Hosting/Blog - Switchpod, URL - GoDaddy, Recording - Audacity)

4. Use feedburner. It has great stats and let you know when people are listening even when they don’t talk to you (via email and vmail). As a podfriend once said, “Podcasting can be lonely” and he’s right. Feedburner will help you know they’re out there listening. Plus if you ever have to move your hosting, change your ‘real’ feed in anyway, you can just update what feedburner is pointing to and your subscribers will never know the difference. (Feedburner)

5. Start strong. When you release your first episode, don’t spend the whole show talking about what your show will be about. Make your first show what the show will be. When that show is ready to release, post that feed everywhere! Post it to iTunes, Podcast Pickle and every other list you can get on (but don’t ever pay to do so). Also, have a good name and a logo to begin with on a 300×300 graphic for iTunes. (iTunes, Podcast Pickle, Other places)

6. Be consistent. Monthly, bi-weekly, weekly, three times a week… whatever it is release regularly on the same day about the same time. That will mean reserving a recording time ahead of time. If you don’t put it on your calender, and get permission from family to spend the time, you will not release a consistent show. It’s okay for a hobby podcast to miss a week here and there… just let people know the week before.

I hope you find these tips helpful. If I can ever answer any questions for you, don’t hesitate to contact me. If you’d like to know how I do my show, read How I Podcast.

A lot has changed in the way I record the show from when I first started. I wish I could say it was a gradual process, but a lot of my learning has taken place in just the last couple of months. My process of mixing the show down has shortened from several hours to right around 45 minutes. I thought an update on an earlier post was in order.

The How I Podcast post from August 23rd has been rewritten to reflect my new methods. This article has been a great resource for me to refer folks who are interested in starting their podcast. With these updates, I hope to help even more folks shave a few months off their own learning curve and not have to struggle through it as I did.

How I Podcast

Many of our listeners have requested banners that they can use to link to Nobody’s Listening! Here they are! Just cut and paste the code you want from this site… into yours!

You can get direct links, forum and email codes for these graphics here.

450 pixel wide banner:

<a href="http://nlcast.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z271/nlcast/NLCast/banner450.jpg" border="0" alt="Nobody's Listening Podcast"></a>

300 pixel wide banner:

<a href="http://nlcast.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z271/nlcast/NLCast/banner-300.jpg" border="0" alt="Nobody's Listening Podcast"></a>

Small button banner:

<a href="http://nlcast.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z271/nlcast/NLCast/tag.jpg" border="0" alt="Nobody's Listening Podcast"></a>

144 pixel square banner:

<a href="http://nlcast.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z271/nlcast/NLCast/itunes_logo2_small.jpg" border="0" alt="Nobody's Listening Podcast"></a>

Text link:
Listen to Nobody’s Listening Podcast

<a href=”http://nlcast.com” title=”Visit Nobody’s Listening”>Listen to Nobody’s Listening Podcast</a>

I just placed an order with overnightprints.com for some business cards for Nobody’s Listening. There have been so many times I’ve shared the podcast with someone I’ve met in real life and wished I had something like this to give them. Now I will. Plus, the guys at my Kansas City Podcast Meetup told me that if you didn’t have business cards for your show, you’re a loser. I must give in to the peer pressure!

If you or someone you know would like a business card or pretty much anything else designed, drop me a line at nobodyslisteningtous@gmail.com via drawyouapicture.com. I’ll do just about anything for just $65 bucks!

So what do you think about the card? See those cool rounded corners?

Updated 12-07-2007

Some of our listeners, and even a few of our guest-hosts, have asked how we do what we do. I finally figured out that I needed to create a post that I can refer them to rather than giving very short email responses that don’t really help anyone.

First, the mandatory disclaimer. This is not THE way to do it… it’s just how I do it. It works for me. If you have a better way, please let me know.

Second, thanks to Michael Murloc (formerly of The Weekly Murloc) and Scott Johnson (of ExtraLife Radio) for all their help. Michael shaved three months off my learning curve and Scott’s emails helped me tremendously when we had to shift to being a Skype-cast. Also thanks to my bud Vance who turned me on to the whole iPod, iTunes, podcasting thing to begin with.

What I Use

Recording & Mixing Software
Adobe Audition 2.0 (to record, mix podcasts)
SoundByte (computerized cart system to play segments and stingers in realtime)
WinLame (to encode wav to mp3)
iTunes (to write id3 tags)
Skype (when co-host is not in the same room)

Graphics Software
Corel Draw & PhotoPaint (to create weekly custom graphics)

Hardware
Dell Inspiron 1720 Laptop
2nd Dell Laptop (just enough power to get on the Internet and run Skype)
M-Audio Mobile Pre USB (external sound card & mixer)
$50 Condenser Mic
Headphones
Plosive Filter
Cheap $17 headset w/mic (in case I’m not in my office studio)

Web Hosting & Software
Libsyn (to host my podcasts) Literally the best & cheapest place to host your media files. Basic service costs $5 a month. Unlimited bandwidth.
GoDaddy (url registration, hosting) $8 per year for your url (or less with promo codes). $3.99 a month hosting. Can’t beat it.
WordPress (awesome blogging software) If you host with GoDaddy, they have a free service that installs it automatically.
PodPress (plugin for WordPress that generates feeds and puts a player on your website)

How I Do It

Solo Recording
I just plug in the m-audio box and using my mic and record using Audition. In emergences I’ll use my cheap headset mic plugged directly into the mic input on the laptop.

Skype Recording
This is a bit more complicated. I use two laptops. One just runs Skype. The other runs and records with Audition. Skype-top’s output (headphone jack) is plugged into the M-Audio box as Input 2. My Condenser mic is plugged into the M-Audio box as Input 1. In Audition I recored using the Multi-track View. Track one is set to record the left channel from the M-Audio box (my vocals). Track two is set to record the right channel (skype). Track three is set to recored off the laptop’s soundcard. I can then set seperate volume levels for each track. The guest-host(s) hear me through a regular old computer mic attached to the skype computer. Since SoundByte plays through the recording laptop’s soundcard, whatever I play is recorded to track three, and also plays through the laptop’s speakers and can be heard to my guest-hosts as well.

Mixing
First step is to remove any background noise. Of course it’s best not to have any… but no matter how quiet it is where you’re recording, and especially if you’re using Skype, there’s going to be at least some soundcard noise on your track. The trick is to select just a bit of ’silence’ off your track. I find a spot where both tracks are quiet, then use Auditions Noise Reduction filter to take out that noise. Be careful with this. If you have a lot of background noise, your voice will begin to sound like a robot. I do this for each of the vocal tracks.

I then adjust the volume of each track in Multi-Track view. Using the volume bar on each waveform I can tweak the levels even further. I typically pull down the volume of the vocal tracks when I play stingers and bumpers. If I have any voicemails I didn’t have time for or promos to play, I’ll drop them in at this point and adjust their volume individually.

The important thing to note before we mix down our session is to make sure all of your various wavforms (voicemails, your voice track, music, sound effects, etc.) sound (in your ears) the same volume. In the past I used to look at the peaks of the wav files or the levels of the volume sliders but none of that matters if your ear is telling you something is louder than it should be.

After I’ve got everything right, I mix down all the wav files to a stereo wavform. If you’re not using a lot of music, you might want to mix to mono. You’ll just be doubling the size of your mp3 for no reason. I look at my wavform. Are the peaks of the wavform about the same all across? Are there any obvious parts that look to loud or to quiet. I check them in my ear to make sure. If they’re wrong, go back and fix the levels and mix it down again. Early on I would repeat this step several times before I got it right.

Now it’s time to squeeze as much volume out of our audio as possible. Normalize the wavform to -1 db. Then you need to run Dynamics Processing on your wavform. What this does is limit the distance between your quietest points and loudest points in your wavform. I use one of Adobe’s presets (-12 db). The end result is you have a wavform that folks aren’t turning up on the quiet times and turning down when your voice is loud. Then I use I use Hard Limiting to bring the total overall volume to -.5 db. I add 10 seconds of silence to the end if the file and save it as a new wav.

Encoding
I then launch WinLame and encode the wav file into an mp3. I use the default WinLame encoder. I use the Portable preset. I have it set to save the mp3 in the same directory I had my wav file in. Easy to find that way.

After it encodes, I find the new mp3 file in Explorer, right click and select Open in iTunes. I right click on the file in iTunes and select Info. This is where I fill out the Episode, Podcast Title, Author, Year, Notes, and the individual graphics I do for each show (you can just use one if you’d like). When you click OK, iTunes writes id3 tags to your mp3.

Uploading
Right click on your mp3 in iTunes and select ‘Show in Windows Explorer’. That way you’re sure to upload the file you just modified. I then launch Filezilla and upload my mp3 to Libsyn.

Libsyn has a built in blog that you can use to publish your shows. It will also generate your feed that you can submit to iTunes. I chose to host my website and feed under my own url. I suggest you do the same. That way no matter how many times you switch hosting servers, your feed will always be the same (ie: www.yourdomain.com/feed=podcast).

In Libsyn under the Media Files tab I select my new episode, right click on the ‘direct download’ link in the left sidebar, and copy the link. Then in WordPress write a new post and add that link to the PodPress portion of your post. There are several other settings like Title, file size and the length of your podcast. Check the PodPress website for more info. When you’re done, post that sucker!

I then go back to iTunes and refresh my podcasts to make sure my latest show downloads from the feed. I listen to a bit, check the artwork, titles, spelling, etc. If every thing’s good… I’m all done!

Conclusion
I know for a fact that I haven’t answered every question. But this article will definitely shave some time off your learning curve. If you have any questions not answered here, post a comment or email me and I’ll add it in.

I know there are a lot of our listeners who are interested in starting their own podcast. I found this link to over 70 tools interesteing.

Podcasting Toolbox: 70+ Podcasting Tools and Resources - via Lifehacker