2. Open Audacity from your computer. Make sure your microphone is plugged in (pink).

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1 1. Gather your supplies: Script Computer with suggested installed programs (These are all free downloads!) o Audacity **with Lame file! at o Levelator at org/levelator o itunes at www. Microphone Music or other sound effects 2. Open Audacity from your computer. Make sure your microphone is plugged in (pink). Test the mic by clicking on the microphone icon on the screen. You should see the meter moving as you talk. 3. The controls are typical to any recording device. To record click the round red button. As you record the audio files will appear as a single track on your screen. Notice the time shows up along the top band. You can delete your track by clicking on the X in the left corner of the track. To play you must first rewind, and then play to hear your track from the beginning. 1 P age

2 4. You can rename your track by clicking on the drop down arrow to the track name (this is important once you have several tracks!) 5. There are six main editing tools and you will probably need to use 4 of them. 6. The first tool that is automatically selected is the Selection Tool. Use this to grab a section of your track to delete parts of your tracks. You can also separate your track with this tool. You can select the starting point to play from with this tool by clicking on the track where you want to start listening so you don t always have to go back to the beginning. 7. This tool will magnify your track so you can stretch out your track to highlight and delete dead air or mistakes in your recording. You can shrink your track down also. To do this look to the upper right hand corner of the screen for the extra magnifying toolbar. 8. This is the Envelope tool. This is used to select points on your track to minimize or maximize. You would use this when you want to have background music. Go to Project then Import Audio. Search for your music on your computer. Usually music will be stored in My Music in your My Documents folder. If you find music at a free website such as: the song must be downloaded to your computer first. 2 P age

3 9. If you are using itunes, when you select Import Audio, find My Documents click on itunes, then itunes Music. Each album should appear. Click on a song, then Select. 10. When you add a music track it comes in stereo (two tracks) Your first recorded track should be on the top. Your first track appears small but only the magnification changed (use the magnify tool to get it where you want it) If you play what you have so far, you will notice the music is too loud over your speaking track. This is where the Envelope tool becomes necessary. 11. Select the Envelope Tool. Each time you click on a track little white dots appear. These are markers. If you now drag either up (louder) or down (softer) on those dots, you are adjusting the sound level of a track. Do this to create background music behind your first audio track. You can add multiple dots; the more you add the more places you can adjust the volume of that track. 3 P age

4 Need more help? Go to Atomic Learning at g.com, log in and search for Audacity. 12. I would like just music before my speaking track starts, but they both start at the same time. To solve this problem we need the Time Shift Tool. Click on a track and location that you would like to move. Notice the first track has been dragged over near the 15 seconds mark. (Music will play first, then as it lowers the speaking part will start with the music softer in the background) 13. The last two tools you probably won t need. The first is the Draw Tool. To use this you must magnify your track so high that you can see the individual data points. Then you can lift or lower each point as you would need to. The last tool is the Multiple Tool. This will allow you to access all tools at the same time. You might use this once you get comfortable with each tool. 14. To Save your project (it isn t finished yet) Select Save Project. This will only open as an Audacity project. You can t listen to it in any other program this way. Do this if you are still working on the project. Make sure to note the location of where you save. It will save the project as two separate files. They must remain together to work properly. 4 P age

5 15. When your project is finished, select File, Export as WAV. Name your file and choose a location. 16. Open up the Levelator Software. Drag your file onto the Levelator. It will take a few seconds or minutes to work depending on the size of your file. When it is finished it will produce a copy with the same name but with.output in the name. This is a WAV file that has improved sound quality. Close out your old Audacity file and open a new one by finding your newly named WAV file. **Note: WAV files are still too large to work with. You should go on to the next step before you are finished. 17. Notice the.output name in the file. Also notice now instead of several tracks you have two. This is one single stereo track. The speaking file was combined with the music into one stereo track. We are now ready to covert this to an MP3 (the size you need for your podcasts). 5 P age

6 18. Go to File, then Export as MP3 19. The first time you use this feature you will be given an error. You need to find the lame file. Click Yes then browse to find your lame_enc.dll file. 20. Next an ID window pops up. This is where you will fill in all of the info that you want to appear on your ipod or itunes library. The more details you fill in the easier it will be to identify and sort later. Click OK. You are done. You just completed your first podcast! 21. To listen to your mp3 podcast, find it in your files, click and it should automatically open in your default media player such as itunes. 6 P age