By Marshal Sandler

With radio stations and record companies downsizing over the past few years, professional audio producers faced job cuts and challenges finding freelance projects. However, the surge of businesses and creative professionals requiring full service audio post production has created a new niche for audio professionals. When your podcast audience demands a high quality project, or you simply want your podcast to sound as good as it possibly can, you can easily find the support you need.

When looking for a full service audio post production company to help you with your podcast, consider the following features that various companies might offer:

Price. Regardless of your budget, you can find a full service audio post production company to meet your needs. Taking advantage of the internet, you can often find skilled audio producers that can provide affordable rates because their studios are located outside of major urban centers. For example, full service audio production companies in music-oriented towns like Austin and Chapel Hill will usually cost much less than their competitors in New York or Los Angeles.

Location. Whether you need to work with a local full service audio post production company depends on how much of the raw podcast recording you can do on your own. If you want the very best sounding recording, you will either have to invest in a professional quality microphone or travel to a recording studio. Many online audio producers can walk you through the process of recording your own voice without spending much money. However, if you want the benefit of an experienced recording engineer, you should find a full service audio post production facility close to your home or office.

Production Elements. To make your podcast sound like a professional radio broadcast, request some professional production elements from your full service post production facility. A slick opening sequence, featuring a voice-over from a professional radio air talent, can cost you as little as fifty dollars. Polished promotional messages can help you grow an audience for your podcast, especially if you swap promo segments with other podcast producers. Because these elements do not require your voice, you can shop online to find the best quality at the most competitive price.

Distribution. Depending on your level of technical expertise, you may need a full service audio post production company to post your completed podcasts to a web server. Most companies can provide this service for you at no additional charge, since many audio producers prefer to distribute finished products using file servers anyway.

Marshal Sandler 2006 for all podcast secrets by eContnentCafe

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marshal_Sandler

By Louise Anderson

Most of us may have the idea of disguising our voice once in a while for some purpose, especially small kids. Today, a wide range of voice changing tools are developed, both for kids and business purposes. Simple ones are masks for kids that can change voice to some other voices, and a small box used for mobile phones which can switch among 4-6 voices or so.

Digital voice changers make a great step further. Any voice or sound that goes through a computer can be changed dramatically thanks to the voice changing software, i.e. voice chat, IP phoning, computer recording, music playing, internet streaming,… There are more great possibilities you might want to discover:

Change voice freely by adjusting voice values. Some voice changing software can change voice by adjusting voice pitch rather than choosing among a limited number of voices. Voice Changer Software (www.audio4fun.com) provides more adjusting possibilities: voice pitch, voice timbre, and voice frequency.

Change voice in real time. Perhaps the coolest function of voice changer software is that it can change voice right a way. Speak to the microphone and you may laugh the first time hearing your strange voice. Chat addicts now can have tons of fun: they can disguise themselves in voice chat.

Change any audio that goes through the computer. If you want to change voice or audio that is played or recorded from an audio device, say, a CD/DVD/karaoke machine, then all you need to do is to get it lined in to your computer and voice changer software will do its part.

Fake identity? So far Avnex, the author company of Voice Changer Software, claims this possibility as an advanced achievement in voice manipulation, although there are still many different opinions on the morality of its applications. So if you can fake someone’s voice, what do you think you would do with it?

Louise Anderson is the Marketing Associate of http://www.Audio4fun.com She works on customer-based market research, product development, and relationship management. Contact her at media@audio4fun.comArticle Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Louise_Anderson

By Bradley James

There are just a few audio compression formats out there, just like there are only a few image compression formats (you may have heard of them: JPG, GIF, BMP). Two of the most popular audio formats are WMA, or Windows Media Audio, and MP3 (Short for MPEG, Moving Pictures Experts Group, Audio Layer 3). WMA is the older audio format, produced by Microsoft, to work with Microsoft’s Windows media player. The WMA compression format was designed specifically for this format, and thus can not be converted to other audio formats.

The audio quality of WMA and MP3 audio formats tends to be noticeably different. WMA is a decent quality audio format when streaming at phoneline speeds (maybe 30kbps or so). At such speed WMA almost reaches an FM level of audio quality, although not quite. At 128kbps, Microsoft claims the WMA is nearly CD-quality, although many would deny this. WMA, however, is not to be completely looked over. The compression provides relatively small audio files and they require less processing power to execute. It thus retains a deminishing niche as MP3 has become more popular and widely used.

The MP3 audio compression was developed in Germany in 1991 by the Fraunhofer Institute. MP3 typically provides higher quality sound than WMA because it uses perceptual audio coding to compress CD-quality sound by a factor of 12. As a result, MP3 has become almost the universal standard among audio usage and broadcasting. It provides CD-quality sound at reasonable compression sizes and high streaming speeds. Watch out, however, at low bitrates, as MP3 quality will likely suffer.

Bradley James is a senior editor at SciNet.cc, a website containing many helpful consumer electronics review articles. For more information on MP3 and WMA audio formats, please visit our MP3 vs. WMA webpage.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bradley_James