This past weekend I was challenged to take on my formidable opponent, who was in the way of my goals: a finished podcast and a good grade. My opponent, formally known as Garage Band, proved easier than I’d thought to vanquish and dispose of. The simple interface of Garage Band and the Jedi-like training I received proved enough to emerge the victor.
The weapons I received included Auto-ducking, pre-recorded sound effects and music, voice affectations and the V-Room (provided by the University of Michigan). These tools in hand I spent hours instead of days in the editing studio. Thank you Apple.
Seriously though, anyone can use Garage Band if they take a miniscule amount of time and learn how. In a couple of hours I had edited my podcast within near professional quality and the only reason I was sweating was the of the lack of ventilation. With ease I faded music in and out of my presentation and importing sound effects was merely a click and drag away. The amount of training I got was little and most of it is easy to figure out yourself.
Then, with another effortless click, I was able to export my track to iTunes. How cool is that? Let me answer that for you. It’s flipping incredible.
Overall it was a good experience, I didn’t realize how easy it was to create great quality podcasts. In fact it makes me want to go and record some music. Some semi-pro tracks might just be within my reach. I might have to do it more often…
Trevor, I was right where you were at the beginning of the podcasting experience. It wasnt any easier because of the fact that i don’t have a mac. It was encouraging to find out that you were uneasy; the confident mac user/performer. Overall, the teaching was fairly easy to understand, though i am sure that there is so much more to be discovered.