My podcast project.

This podcast tells a brief history of the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps' past 15 years.

To build this project I used Windows Movie Maker and Nero Wave Studio.
Starting off with the wave studio I loaded my ripped CD audio files of each championship year used in my project. Since I only needed a few seconds from each 10 min file I looked for my favorite musical section and cut it out so I can past that segment into my project wave file which Nero Wave Studio produces by default. After cutting and pasting all 10 segments into my project wave file I added some effects such as; fade in, fade out, and reduced volume. I had to reduce the volume because later I need to add my voice commentary and the music was very loud at times.

After saving my new wave file I started a new project in Windows Movie Maker. The program allowed me to import all my pictures and my music file so that I can arrange them all together. After entering my audio file into my new project it was easy to add pictures into the specific time slots I wanted. Also for each picture added to the project, I could enter how long the picture would stay up in sync with the music.

Ok now with my pictures and music together I had to export the project into a single video file because I was only able to add 1 video source, 1 picture source and 1 audio source at a given time. Therefore it was necessary to start another new project and import the new video file so I can then add the next audio source; my voice over.

To record my voice I found an old mini disc recorder and condenser mic I had from years ago. I recorded the commentary I wrote down onto the mini disc recorder and transferred the each of the 8 sound files to my computer via the SPDIF fiber optic cable interface my computer so happen to have =) Totally unnecessary but useful non-the-less.

Ok with the voice over recorded and then imported into the second project file, had to arrange each commentary file to fit the music and picture changes of the video file previously created. This presented a new problem. My voice files were longer than my video file segments I previously produced. This was a bummer because that meant I had to reproduce my first video. This took some time because in some cases I had to use completely different music sections because the previous ones used were not useful in the new time slots demanded of my voice over segments.

Well, several audio files later I was able to reproduce my first video file and compile the production you see above. This project gave me an unexpected lesson. I had experience with both software’s but I had no experience using the two together like this. I enjoyed learning the pair will likely use them in the future, or at least know not to use them better. Who knows =)