I am placing my links and some screen caps and some handy tips here for you at Camp VJ to use when gathering audio to tell your stories.
The main reason to gather audio is to provide emotional credibility to your print stories (brings a sense of presence to a story). Think of the reporter covering the crash of the Hindenburgh.” Oh the humanity”
…
There are hundreds of AM and FM radio stations still operating in Canada, and radio is still pulling in millions of listeners, in both real time, and on demand.
CBC Radio has an App for the Iphone to listen wherever you are. So do a lot of radio stations, like 680 news. (see screen cap above)
It needs flash to play. If it doesn’t play, you can read the handout here: in text version.
I like to use the Marantz PMD field recorder, and a Dynamic microphone by Shure or Senneheiser for interviews.
You also need a good shotgun mic for ambient sound, crowds, and general outdoor work.
ALWAYS wear headphones. Always test batteries and bring spares.
Record in WAV format if you wish, although it will take up a lot of memory on the SD cards. You can also record in MP3 format.
SOFTWARE for EDITING:
Professional radio stations use professional digital audio editing software. The CBC uses Dalet Plus, a multitrack editing platform.
680 News and many other private stations use BURLI.
Some like the BBC use Cool Edit, Jazz FM uses News Boss. There’s also Audacity, which is free.
Reporters who travel alot and file from foreign assignments like Adobe Audition, costs about $400.
You can get a 30 day free trial at home.
Mac based editing use Protools and …non professionals also use GARAGEBAND, which is easy and friendly.
Apple has a tutorial on GARAGEBAND.
Best reason to get decent mics and recording material is: so you can make great podcasts like the Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack…in honour of tonight’s episode (second to last) of LOST.
—–
Here are my lecture notes with handy links ; enjoyCOLLECTING AUDIO: by ellin bessner ebessner@centennialcollege.ca
Lots of ways to collect audio when covering a story: from your cellphone, (poor quality) from you Ipod or Iphones, from a dslr, from a videcamera, from a dedicated portable audio recorder and microphone. also on the phone. (poor quality)
depends what you want to do with the audio.
POWER POINT
I am going to approach this first from the traditional standpoint of radio stations and there are some
600-900 or so at least out there on AM and FM, as well as tons of online radio internet radio stations. The Canadian Press audio feed serves about 500 customers in Canada..who use their audio clips and news interviews —
We still have millions of people listening to radio –in real time, on line, on mobile platforms like the CBC app on iphones, and on demand…
If its an interview, and you want to post a good chunk of interview, or of a speech or a press conference, where its mostly the newsmaker talking, not you—say one or two minutes, then you don’t need to mic yourself..just record the audio close to the mouth of the guest. this is the easier and takes very little editing.
its fast too. you have to transcribe your taped iinterview anyway to write an online print story, so you will remember the most dramatic clip or clips, and post those online.
If you want to record a bunch of short “streeters’ where you interview a bunch of protestors or a bunch of witnesses to an explosion like we did at the Propane explosion in Toronto 2 summers ago…and then you edit these together one after another after another, without any narration by you, then again, you need to mic only them.
If you want to do a more production heavy voicer—like we do at CBC RADIO NEWS, where you have to not only record sound of the scene, but also your narration and mix it all with the short excerpts from the mayor and the dalai llama visiting him, then that takes time to write and produce. I admit personally I don’t listen to many short voice reports on my computer or my ipods. I would listen to a long interview or Q from Jian Ghomesi’s feature interview, and I would download a panel discussion from some longer show. And podcasts, of course of my favourite tv show LOST.
http://www.jayandjack.com/
these are done in studio quality studios, with good microphones, not out in the field.
National Post does a lot of podcasts where reporters talk about what they are covering or debate issues current like the city mayoralty race etc.
http://www.nationalpost.com/podcasts/index.html
I think audio – to be honest – is less attractive to many people unless its longer form – because why would readers or consumers want to listen to a 1:30 news report (unless they are my mom and dad who have to listen to my newscasts?) when they can watch the event on You tube on their mobile devices? while they are commuting in traffic. My commute takes 1 hour each way so a 1.30 minute story goes by too fast. but a longer piece of tape –like WHAT WAS SAID on As it happens, is great, because you hear the newsmaker giving the speech – you hear Tiger Woods press conference…in case you missed it during the day when you were at work or out of the office with no access or no time to watch the live event.
No matter what you decide or your editor decides you need to do with the story, collecting good quality audio is easy –and you can use a bunch of different accessibly kinds of equipment to do it. MAIN thing: what kinds of mics to use for what situations, how to hold the mic, how to handle a mic, how to listen while you are recording. (text version: http://www.bbctraining.com/modules/2857/text-version2.html)
show my own powerpoint about mic handling if BBC doesn’t work:
(BBC TRAINING funny videoJ)
http://www.bbctraining.com/onlineCourse.asp?tID=2508&cat=2772
Some newsrooms use EDIROLS, http://www.edirol.com/
others use MARANTZ
http://www.d-mpro.com/users/folder.asp?FolderID=1823
like the cbc and we at Centennial College and UTSC journalism. We also use several kinds of mics—cardiod for interviews, shotgun mics for outdoor work and crowd noise or street sounds…omni directional mic if you need to do both.
shure and sennheiser and excellent choices
http://www.sennheiser.ca/live/senn/produit/en/131/20
http://www.shure.com/americas/products/microphones/sm/sm89-shotgun-microphone
My students use a combination of our MARANTZES and their own cheaper consumer type dictating digital recorders like Radio Shack, Panasonics etc which you can buy at The Source or SONY stores. Video IPODS have lovely quality 44,100 kh cd quality audio. Its not good enough for CBC’s transmitters, but it is for internet radio.
How to edit depends on what software you want to use:
At CBC they use Dalet Plus which is a multi track editing system – its exclusive and expensive.
Some of the other more popular ones are Adobe Audition, also multitrack editing, much like its predecessor SOUNDFORGE. It comes with a 30 day free download trial. http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/
The BBC uses COOL EDIT.
Audacity is free to download
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
there is also Burli, used by 680 News, and NewsBoss at Jazz Fm among others.
On the MAC side, there are a ton associated with Pro Tools and even Final Cut Pro has a way to export only the audio after you are done with the video.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2854 (how to export audio from FINAL CUT PRO)
There is Garage band, which comes with every mac, easy to use –my kids can use it.
you need I tunes of course for playing back.
http://movies.apple.com/findouthow/music/garageband08.html#podcast
Once you gather the sound, and edit it
you will have an incue, and out cue, a file that runs several minutes long, and you will need a place to host it so folks can download it.
You should save it as an MP3 file, which is smaller and takes up less space then WAV files to download.
If your news organization has its own server and protocols how to save stuff and post, then you can do that. If you are posting it to your own website, you need to either make sure your website like wordpress has enough power /upgraded version where you pay a fee each year to allow audio and video to be posted — or, you can create free hosts on websites like BOXNET.com, post the mp3 file there, and it gives you a url link that you then post to your own website or blog. Easy and free.
We do this on the Centennial College wordpress journalism news site:
this story by Amanda Kwan I posted the written version, and added her mp3 interview with the man who raises water buffaloes –first to boxnet, then added the link here.
no cost to me.
Water buffaloes help Ontario shrink global warming footprint
and we also do it on the Toronto Observer website, the online news site of the school of journalisms course work: the students post online stories, photgalleries, video, and audio.
I have handouts:
1) how to edit with Garageband
2) how to do Podcasts with garageband
3) how to edit with Adobe Audition