Tutorial for Podficcing on your ipad

[dr_fumbles_mcstupid]

So I do all of my recording and the majority of my editing on my iPad, I haven't seen a tutorial for this set up anywhere else so I decided to share:) 









So I use my ipad, an external mic (the samson go mic) and TwistedWave audio to record and edit.

First things first, the external mic. I started recording with the headphone mic that came with the ipad, but because it was so close to my mouth I often was way to loud while recording, I then read up and found out it was possible to use external mics with the ipad.

To hook up an external mic you need the camera connector kit for the ipad, It comes with two connectors, one for an sd card and one for usb. What you need is the USB one. 



Next up microphones, as I sad I use the Samson go mic, The sound quality is much better than the headphone mic I was using before and I am super pleased with it. I would highly recommend it. Another nifty little ting about the Samsung go mic is that it has a light on it, it changes color depending on the levels of sound it is getting so I can see if I go into the red as it is happening and re-record then instead of later.  It is important to keep in mind that not all mics will work with the ipad. Some of them draw too much power, or plain just don't work. Here is a quick list of what other people have found that work's with the ipad. 



To hook up the mic to the ipad you simply insert the usb camera connector and then plug your microphone into the camera connector and you are ready to go. I usually set the microphone on top of my ipad And it sits far away enough that I don't go into the red unless I am yelling.



So now you have to find a program to record with. There are some good free audio recording programs on the app market, but i really enjoy, TwistedWave Audio editor. It is a little costly at 9.99 But I find it worth it for two main reasons,it has more editing options than the other ones I have worked with, and it will keep recording even if you have another app open (Which means you don't need another device to read off of). So here we go, off to the tutorial part.

This is the main screen that you start with


to start a new recording file just touch the plus button at the bottom left of the screen. It will bring you to the a new page

this is where you do all of your recording and editing. okay so the basics of the setup, the bar on the right shows you if you are keeping withing acceptable levels while recording. the blue slider on the top with the dot is volume (For playback). the icons at the bottom are as follows from left to right.

opens up the audio effects toolbar


then we have the main recording controls (Skip to beginning, play, skip to back, record, and when you are recording the record button will be replaced with a stop button).

 sets the recording to loop,

 cut a selection of audio,

 copy a selection of audio,

 paste an audio selection.

fade in selection and fade out selection.

 undo and redo,

crop selected audio.

copies all audio in the file to paste into another app

the thing that really set's this program apart from the others I have used is that you can do effects inside the program. The first icon on the left that looks like spikey balls is what brings you to the editing tab.


I haven't played around much with anything at all in this tab, but it is nice to know it is there, The one thing I wish this program has that it doesn't is noise reduction, I have to export the file off of my ipad and do that in audacity separately.

so now you know all of the icons and what they do, now onto actually working with audio.

so now you have your audio all recorded and ready to edit. The top bar, shows your full audio file, while the larger bottom portion shows you the section you are currently at. you move through the audio file by flicking to the right or the left on the bigger bottom screen. You can zoom in or out on your audio file the same way you zoom in  on any other thing on the ipad, with the finger pinch. once you are zoomed in the red selection at the top tells you where you are on your audio track. you can speedily go through audio while zoomed in by sliding the red part to where you want to be in the audio on the top bar.


to select a portion of your audio simply touch the yellow ball at the top of the yellow line and drag it over what you want to select. if you need to make the selection larger than your original selection, simply pull the tabs on either side of the selected box to select more or less audio. the little x at the top right of the selection will delete the selected portion.

Once you are done editing click the arrow at the top left that says my documents and it will bring you to the library of all your audio files again. to rename your file, simply click on the audio file and type in the desired name.


Once you are done editing click the arrow at the top left that says my documents and it will bring you to the library of all your audio files again. to rename your file, simply click on the audio file and type in the desired name.

So yay, now you have your main audio all fixed up, but say you want to add some music to it, well TwistedWave has a nifty feature that allows you to import music from your iPad or your iTunes library if sharing is on. 
while on the home screen click the import button



it will bring up the options of import form ipod library or import through itunes file sharing, click whichever you are using and it will bring you to your songs sorted alphabetically. simply click the song you want and it will import it into a file that has the same name as the song
 

once you have your audio just clip the selections you want and copy and past it into your main file.

So yay, now your editing is all done, now you need to get the audio file off of the ipad there are a couple ways to do this. First (And may favorite) is on the homescreen 

Just click on sharing and turn it on, the app will give you a web adress to go to where you can download the files off of your ipad.

The second method you do from within the audio file itself

click the little square with the arrow going out of it, this is the export box, as you can see you have quite a few options, FTP, Send to itunes, send by mail, Dropbox etc, so if you want to export your audio different ways you can :)

So now your audio is all ready to be noise reduced in another program and uploaded for everyone's listening pleasure.


I hope this was helpful, if anything was unclear please let me know so I cna fix it.
 

Comments

[sophinisba]

Thank you so much for making this! I've been interested in recording with an iPad and this is super helpful and encouraging.

[dr_fumbles_mcstupid]

I am glad it was helpful :)