9th September 2007

Improvements in Garageband ‘08 for podcast publishing

posted in apple, digitalstorytelling, podcasting |

I created my most recent enhanced podcast and audio-only podcast using Garageband ‘08, part of the iLife 2008 software package available from Apple. One my complaints about past versions of Garageband was the LACK of an “export to file” and “export to mp3″ function. With those past versions, users had to “SEND TO iTUNES” via the SHARE menu, and then use the ADVANCED menu of iTunes to convert the AAC formatted podcast into mp3 format. Then, users had to “drag” the file from iTunes to a folder on their hard drive in order to upload it to the web.

With the latest 2008 version of Garageband, this functionality is now included. From the SHARE menu, users can directly choose to save a podcast to disk:

Garageband 08 - Export to disk!

Enhanced podcasts can be exported directly as mono podcasts with 32 kbps quality. That is my preferred bitrate for spoken podcasts, since it is a good balance of quality and smaller file size.

GarageBand Export to Enhanced Podcast File

Wonderfully, a direct export to mp3 format is also available!

GarageBand direct export to mp3

I have consistently found that less than fifty percent of the subscribers to my podcast (currently just 23%) access it via iTunes. Since enhanced podcasts, saved as QuickTime files with the “m4a” extension, can only be played within iTunes or QuickTime player, I’ve always felt it is important to publish an alternative audio-only, mp3 version of each podcast I make. This provides greater accessibility for the podcast and the ideas contained within it, since virtually all media players will play mp3 audio files.

I understood Apple’s desire in the past to encourage podcasters to support the m4a file format and AAC encoding format, and I think that is why they did NOT previously support a direct export to MP3 format option in Garageband. I am VERY glad to see they’ve included this option and functionality in the latest version of Garageband, however. I also like how Garageband (by default) normalizes the audio in an exported podcast to balance audio levels. In all, I am VERY pleased with the new version of Garageband for podcasting. It’s going to be fun to continue to work with this teacher-team in Mid-Del Schools just west of Oklahoma City this fall as they learn how to use Garageband for digital storytelling projects as well! :-)

On this day..

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 9th, 2007 at 12:24 am and is filed under apple, digitalstorytelling, podcasting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

There are currently 3 responses to “Improvements in Garageband ‘08 for podcast publishing”

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  1. 1 On September 9th, 2007, John Pederson said:

    Thanks Wes! I haven’t been inside Garageband ‘08 yet. Installed, but no play time. Last year I lost about 3 hours of my life trying to figure out a work-around to Garageband’s lack of “export to something that works for me” options.

  2. 2 On September 9th, 2007, Bonnie K said:

    Hi Wesley,
    So good to hear about pocasting with Garageband 08. I used it recently for the voice over for a very long digital story I’m creating for my summer institute renewal in October. I create an digital anthology, reading a piece of each participant and then showcase their words with photos, video and music. I created the whole voiceover first in Garageband (40 minutes and saved it in one track, leaving breaks between each story, but when it compressed and was ready to move to Imovie for the other parts, it saved as a whole piece without enough room between pieces and somehow they don’t have a way to split clips or tracks in the new Imovie as far as I can see and I don’t see how to really control the volume of soundtracks for background music at different spots like you could with earlier versions. I hope I’m wrong or they are, will update this.
    Bonnie
    PS Have you experimented with this yet?

  3. 3 On September 10th, 2007, Educational Technology and Life said:

    [...] Improvements in Garageband ‘08 for podcast publishing Wes Freyer points out some cool (simple) new exporting features in Garageband ‘08, which I’ve yet to play with even though it’s installed. (tags: ilife08 garageband) [...]