I am not sure if that was entirely correct terminology. What I am looking to collect are names, links, sources etc of applications that will let you record your voice to MP3 format, connect to your blog tool (Worpress support preferred), create a post with an enclosure (WordPress would just require a link, enclosures created automatically), post it via XMLRPC and upload the MP3 via FTP.
A myriad of applications to download and listen to Podcasts are available, then why has this other market not seen much action? If there were such a tool, would anyone be interested in using it (read: I would write one if there was any audience for it)? What about Applescripts? I vaguely remember seeing something about an applescript that would do some or all of the above and more.
Please leave me some suggestions. The more important ones will be added to this post as edits.
I think the barrier to adding a simple program to this market is that most people want to perform more complicated mixing on their podcasts. If it was just a simple matter of recording live audio and not doing any editing, it might be more commonplace.
For instance, if I record something for a podcast, I’ll use Vegas to record and mix the audio with bed (using limiters and reverb filters, etc.) and then downsample to a reasonably-sized MP3. Then I’ll upload it with Web Drive, and write a post with a manual link in the WP console. Most of the deployment is trivial, but what Vegas does I would be hard pressed to find in any freeware audio app, much less one that also deploys the audio to a blog with post text.
I’m surprised that Ecto and it’s kin haven’t picked up on this feature for simple podcasting.
I use GoldWave. They ley you use if for free for a long time. It was so useful, i finally purchased it. The FTP is a separate application.
Might have another solution soon
Try EasyPodcast. I think its the program you are looking for.
I’ve been using Audacity and it’s been great. I’m not much for effects on audio segments like this (maybe a limiter, but I have preamps to take care of that), but Audacity does have some effects built into it. I’ve found it very easy to use for recording and editing. It’s powerful and free.
Thus far there haven’t been any all-in-one solutions. Right now, Odeo and CastBlaster (future all-in-ones) are either in planning or in beta. I’m actually making up a “recipe sheet” that shows the “ingredients” for each stage of creating and distributing a podcast, with substitutions for the Mac, PCs, and Unix. I’ll send you a link when I’m done.
WebPod Studio, all in one podcast creation tool.. It’s been on the market for some time now.
http://www.lionhardt.ca/wps
Audacity is great. and Easypodcast is… well… easy!
Although it doesn’t handle the WordPress integration, Apple’s Garage Band in their iLife 06 package has some really nice podcast authoring features I have not seen anywhere else.
To me, the killer feature is the ability to record multiple people in an iChat audio or video chat and have each participant’s audio routed to a separate track. That gives you complete control over the audio level, filters, and effects of each person separately.
There is a ducking feature that does a great job of automatically reducing the volume of a background track when a foreground track has content. This can save a lot of time if you do much voice over music content.
If you want to do chapter markers with photos and links for iTunes, then that is all integrated nicely too. Of course, those features are only available in AAC format files.
There are some downsides. The only direct publish options are through .Mac and Apple’s iWeb application. That’s not very useful for WordPress users since iWeb creates it’s own folder structure and feed, etc. I wish they allowed plugins for publishing.
There is also no direct export to MP3 format. The best choices are to either save the file as AAC if you want the chapters and art features, or use the send it to iTunes option, which gives you an AIF file that you can encode any way you want.