Sherick De Baan

Routers are not very expensive.  So you can have 2 set up, one not publicly broadcasting with security for office network and the other open.  Each should have different IP range for added seperation.

 Slightly off topic, I have found Teamviewer to be very useful around the Church as it is free for non-profits.  Handy for those volunteers who want to help but can't always make it to the office during the week.

I am suprised there was no suggestions in the article as what hardware or software might be used to record the podcast with. Perhaps that is due to the many possible choices.  However I will mention some free things that work for our Church.  We use a linux PC running ubuntu (free OS) with Audacity as the software to record from the soundboard directly.  Audacity is free for both linux and windows PCs.  We record the whole service (our sound person does the recording as well so starting recording before service makes sure they don't forget)  save project then edit down to sermon only.  Now you can remove humming with audacity as well and export to mp3 for upload.   However I have found exporting to a wav file and then using a program called Foobar2000 (also free) produces the best sound quality small file and I tried ALOT of programs of all kinds.  Recently for personal work I was doing I had to get the Adobe sofware suite for video and sound editing.  I find that Soundbooth from Adobe does a great job of tweaking the audio for podcasting, but it is not free and quite expensive.  So I take the wav on USB jump drive from Church and run it through soundbooth at home and then use foobar2000 to make the mp3.  I have been thinking of using a good quality dedicated MP3 recorder instead of the computer, but I wonder how reliable they are as well as possibly needing to edit it and losing quality.  Editing a mp3 and resaving as a mp3 tends to degrade its quality.  If anyone has ideas on it I would like to hear them.  Here is a direct link to a recent sermon which is 41min long and about 13MB in size if you would like to hear.  feedproxy.google.com/~r/CrossroadsCrcSermons/~3/LgzOGkxSQ1E/9122010am.mp3

Time goes on and things change.

 

In a effort to speed the process of getting our MP3s on line as quickly as possible we have purchased a digital recorder.   I read many reviews and was disappointed to find that rack mounted units of less the $250 rated poorly.  After much debate we got a Tascam BB800 as it can be used in a variety of ways and has excellent recording abilities to a SDcard.  It allows a direct XLR connection and so we no longer use a Ubuntu computer to record with, saves space in the sound booth area which is important to us.  

So after recording (which is done in WAV format for quality) I take it and edit it in "Adobe soundbooth CS4".  I had a friend who bought Adboe CS5 and gave us the CS4 he had used before. Editing is for length, normalizing and adding web broadband setting.  Then instead of saving to mp3 I export to WAV and use Foobar2000 a free open source player/converter to convert to mp3 at 80Kbps.  It uses LAME.exe for its mp3 conversion and I still think it makes the best sounding MP3s for small size  11-14MB for a 40min sermon.    

Then use filezilla to upload to web site, and Dreamweaver CS4 to edit site and whole process from copying, editing and uploading is done in less then 40min.  Usally have audio online between 11:30am - noon

http://www.crossroadscrc.com/Sermon%20Audio/index.htm

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/crossroads-crc-sermons/id339059139

http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/crossroadscrc/WJlg?hl=en

We have found that having a podcast hosted on itune has tremendously boosted the number of people listening to our sermons.  We have increased from 30-40/month downloads last year to around 700/month now 80% which are from itunes link.

Anyway I hope this is of interest and would be glad to answer any questions.

RDB

I posted a comment on David Teitsma's excellent article about podcasting that included what we use at CrossRoads CRC for recording, but will do so here as well.  

We use a older dual core PC 1GB memory running latest Ubuntu OS (upgrade regularly as it is free) with software program Audacity to record and edit sermons.  PC is hooked directly to our Yamaha sound board with it own volume control.  Audacity (also free and available for Windows as well) has visual live output of the recording so volume control and errors are easily adjusted and fixed.

After recording we save entire project, this is precaution in 2 ways, you don't want to start editing before saving in case of a crash (found out the hard way when we had a power spike which caused PC to reboot and lost the recording.) Also it gives you unedited version to go back to if you want.   I edit down to sermon only (easy to do in Audacity) then export it to a WAV on my jump drive.   I take it home and use Soundbooth from Adobe to remove any hiss or background noise as well as tweaking it for podcasting.  I then export to WAV again (it is a common format that is compatible with many softwares and is lossless) and use a free program Foobar2000 to compress to smallest size that sounds good.  Foobar2000 and Audacity both are free and available at filehippo.com

I would like to see a possible survey listing hardware and software people use to record.  I don't believe we are doing it the most efficent way, but do like the results.

Our sermon site http://www.crossroadscrc.com/Sermon%20Audio/index.htm

As a side note I would also like to mention that our Ubuntu PC is also used for making copies of CDs and DVDs for those who request them.  We use the free sotware KB3 that comes with it and I have to say it is bullet proof.  Very rarely do we have a bad burn or complaints that it can't be read.  Not the easiest interface, but reliable.  Over 300 burns and I may finally have to replace the burner as it doesn't always eject the disk on the first try anymore.

 

Well our Church just purchased Mediashout 4.5.  Installing it on a new Windows 7 machine with a Nvidia card.  I will post back from time to time about our experience(s) with it.  We have 5 people involved with the Media presentation side of our service and will be interesting to see how easily they learn the new software.  I have run into 1 issue already with the install where it crashed after a error when starting up.   Turns out the install does not always install the correct verison of directx9c.  After finding the info and link on Mediashout  forum, I installed the update and now it works.   

Crossroads CRC CA

    Well my situation was different.  I noiticed after joining our Church that there was a lack of any tech advancement.   I kind of stuck my nose in and they ended up asking me to join the sound team.  I ended up changing lots of things, adding digital recording, video and ironing out other issues.  I spend a number of hours each week editing audio and video and making sure stuff is ready for next Sunday on the sound, video side.   So they offered me $200/month stipend and to join the staff as part timer.  Last year they offered to up the stipend, but I didn't feel comfortable with that as I had origianally intended to just be a volunteer.   I regularly get thank you notes and a few gift cards and feel very appreciated.  But even if I wasn't, I would still do the work as it needs to be done.  I expect somone more qualified will take over someday and I will find something else to do around the Church.

 

   You must be doing a great job, because as a behinds the scene person, the better you do your job, the less people notice.    Maybe cause a squelch every now and then or take a month vaction....   May God bless you for the service you provide.

RDB