How to Create a Podcast for Your Church

I recently started doing a weekly podcast of sermons for my church (see www.meadowlarkchurch.org).

Example of a Podcast in iTunes

For several years I had been publishing RealAudio files of the sermons on our website, but people were frustrated because they couldn’t figure out how to burn them to a CD for listening in their car. I then switched to generating MP3’s (since many people now have iPods or other MP3 players, and since anyone with a CD burner can easily convert MP3’s to CD audio format). The extra steps needed to produce a podcast from a set of MP3’s were trivial. A couple of people have emailed me and asked how I did it. This tutorial is to tell you how I did it, and also to show you how you can create a podcast for your own church’s audio content.

Step 1: Record the content

The first step is to record the audio content in a way that can be made into an MP3 file. There are several ways to do this:

  • Record the audio of the event using a tape recorder with a microphone or connected to your PA (Public Address) system mixer, and later transfer the recording to a computer as a WAV file (Windows) or AIFF file (Mac) through the sound card’s LINE-IN input using a free cross-platform program such as Audacity.

    Audacity running on Mac OS X
     
  • Record the audio directly into a computer from the PA system’s mixer while the event is happening, skipping the tape recorder step.
  • Record the audio from the PA system into a digital audio recorder instead of a computer. The format used by the digital audio recorder may be WAV, AIFF, MP3, or some other proprietary format. Then transfer this audio file to a computer.

At one point or another I have used some combination of all of these methods. For quite a while I recorded from the PA system using a PC running Linux and the sox command-line recording program (to create a WAV file). I had the PC set up to automatically record a set time period every Sunday using cron, so that I didn’t have to manually start or stop the recording. Then during the week I used Audacity to edit the recorded WAV file down to just the section I wanted to keep (the sermon or class material). I used the lame encoder to encode the file into an MP3 format.

Note that iTunes has a built-in MP3 encoder. To encode an audio file, first record it with Audacity or Garageband, and then export it as AIFF for use in iTunes. Then in iTunes Preferences, set the Advanced -> Importing -> Import Using: to MP3 Encoder. Then when you import your audio file into iTunes, you can choose to “Convert to MP3.”
iTunes Import Settings
 

The second way I have recorded is to allow the sound booth worker to record just the sermon to an audio tape. I then took the tape and recorded it into the computer using an RCA audio cable from the LINE-OUT of the tape recorder to the LINE-IN of the computer (and sox, audacity and lame).

MP3 Player with Encoding Capability
The third way I have recorded (and the most recent) is to use an MP3 player with encoding capability. This seems to be the most elegant solution, since you simply upload the MP3 file from the player to your computer (there’s no conversion step). Below is a photo of the MP3 recorder I am currently using (the iOPS V@mp F325 Digital Audio Player).
You can pick up an MP3 player with the ability to record from a LINE-IN connection for $100-250, depending on what other features you need. I got mine (a refurbished one for $43.95, normally $179 new) from www.geeks.com. You can check Google, eBay, and Amazon to find a player that will work for you. If you decide to go the MP3 player route, the important thing is to find one that encodes in MP3 format at a fairly high quality, and additionally has a LINE-IN jack for connection to a line level audio source.

There are also digital voice recorders (which have now taken the place of the micro-cassette recorder) that have MP3 encoding capability. These seem to be in the $200-$300 price range. Be careful to choose one that has the ability to transfer the audio file from the unit to a computer.

There are more expensive digital audio recorders priced in the $500-$1000 range if your budget allows. Some of these professional units record to a CompactFlash card and to a CD-R at the same time, which is pretty nice if you want to do a podcast and have CDs physically available at your church building for members. Some professional models to check out are the Roland CD-2 Recorder and the Masterlink ML-9600 High-Resolution Master Disk Recorder.

Step 2: Create the podcast XML file

You need to create a special file that describes your podcast. There are several tools available for doing this. Currently I am using a Mac-only program from Reinvented Software called Feeder. Feeder is free for the first 15 days, and then it only costs $30 to register it. The folks at Reinvented Software have even put up a nice podcasting tutorial using Feeder.

Feeder for Mac OS X
 

There are several Windows shareware programs and free websites that do the same thing — allow you to fill out a form to create/update your podcast XML file instead of having to learn the details of writing RSS and XML code. Just do a search for create podcast rss on Google. The form fields you’ll want to fill out include such things as the type of file (”audio/mpeg”), the length in time (”mm:ss” or “hh:mm:ss”), the MP3 file size (in bytes), a title, a subtitle, and a brief description of the lesson/content (maybe a paragraph or two). Once you have created your podcast XML file, you upload it and the corresponding MP3 file(s) to your webhosting server. This makes your podcast available, but we haven’t yet published it in any of the online podcast directories. You can put a hyperlink to the XML file on your website, which more tech-savvy people can copy and paste into their favorite podcast downloading (a.k.a. “podcatching”) software to subscribe to your podcast. However, for the most visibility, it is best to list it with some of the major podcast directories.

Step 3: Publish your podcast

Starting with version 4.9, iTunes (a free download for both Windows and Mac) has the ability to subscribe to existing podcasts and to publish new podcasts. This is a great way for people to find and subscribe to your podcast. You can add your new podcast to a specific Genre, such as “Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity”. Once you’ve downloaded and installed iTunes, just click on Podcasts on the lefthand side, click on Podcast Directory at the bottom, and then Submit a Podcast to add yours.
Another directory you might want to add your podcast to is called Podcast Alley. You simply add the title of your podcast, the URL of your church’s website, and some descriptive sentences and/or keywords.

Once you’ve added your podcast to a couple of directories, look out! (You might want to make sure you understand how your webhosting service charges for “total transfer bandwidth per month” so you don’t get blindsided by a huge bill because of the popularity of your podcast.)

Happy podcasting, and God bless!