The document describes Tamzin Twose's process of creating intro and outro music tracks and sound effects for her podcast. She initially tried to create tracks using beepbox.co but found it too difficult. She then sourced music from Bensound.com that she edited down and used for her intro and outro. She recorded her voiceovers and added sound effects between sections. After multiple iterations of editing and mixing the audio clips, she assembled the final podcast product in Adobe Premiere Pro.

1. Production Reflection
Tamzin Twose

2. Process
For my podcast, I wanted to create my own intro
and outro tracks using beepbox.co. I found the
idea of creating my own tracks intriguing,
however, after having a go at using the website to
create my own track, I feel that this is beyond my
skillset as I have very little knowledge of music
creation.
I found the website very confusing with little
instructions on how to use it.
I did manage to create a very small track after a
lot of trial and error, which I could have used for
the intro, but then I wanted a similar sounding
track for the outro track. When I tried to
duplicate and alter it to make a similar track, I just
couldn’t get the outro version to sound right.
Also, after listening to the track I’m not sure that
the sound effects in beepbox.co really suit the
style of podcast that I want to create. I think I
would prefer real instrument sounds, like a piano
and drums. The drums in beepbox.co were very
poor quality, so I didn’t even entertain using
them.
Intro track

3. Process
With creating a track on beepbox.co not going as well as I would have liked, I decided to
try to source some music that I could use for my intro and outro tracks.
I decided to have a look at Bensound.com, where I found several tracks that I could
potentially use.

4. Process
I listened to the songs that I had
downloaded from bensound.com and
picked one called Dance, that I felt would
work well for my intro and outro.
I inserted the file into Adobe Premiere Pro
by dragging it in to the project box and
then dragged it to the timeline.
To get the intro I listened to the beginning
of the song and tried to find a suitable
point where my intro could end and fade
out. I then used the razor tool to split the
song, then selected and removed the rest.
This then gave me a short intro clip; I then
added a 2 second exponential fade, audio
transition, so that I could overlap and fade
the track into my voiceover when I put
them together.

5. Process
For the outro track, I took the
same song, Dance, and this
time listened to the end of the
song to find a suitable clip for
my outro.
This turned out really well as
the end of the song faded out
perfectly. All that was left to do
was to separate the clip from
the song and fade in the outro
by adding a constant power,
audio transition, remove the
rest of the song that I didn’t
want, reposition the outro clip
to the beginning of the track
and export the file as an mp3.

6. Process
I decided to make multiple intros and outros so
that I would have a choice as to what would work
best with my podcast.
I repeated the same process as I had done with my
first intro, but this time I used a song called Smile
from Bensound.com.
After finding a suitable clip to use, I used the razor
tool and separated the clip from the rest of the
song, dragged the rest to the next track and muted
that track so that I could listen to the clip clearly.
After listening to it, several times, I realised the
clip felt too long. I found a suitable point where I
could cut off the beginning of the clip and then
used the razor tool to separate the two.
I added in the exponential gain crossfade but this
time I set it to 5 seconds, as I felt that it would
work better for overlapping with my voiceover if
the fade out was longer and more gradual.
After listening to this clip, I feel that given that my
primary audience is females, that this track has
more feminine sounds, whereas the first track I
used called Dance, sounds more masculine and
deep.

7. Process
I recorded the opener to my podcast using a program called Wondershare Filmora
as this is a program I have access to at home and feel confident using. I selected
the option to record audio and clicked the microphone button to start.
For the opener I feel it went really well. Placing the script alongside the audio
recorder program, I was able to read and record the opener within a few takes. I
was pleased that I had managed to speak clearly and that I had managed to
convey some enthusiasm when I spoke.

8. Process
After recording my opener, I moved on to recording the main topic. I had planned to
record this ad lib, but when it came to recording this I found it really difficult to know
what to say. I have experience talking about game updates from creating YouTube
videos, but without a visual aid to inspire conversation, I found it hard to remember
what I needed to talk about. So in the end, I had to write a script to follow. This worked
perfectly and I was then able to record the voiceover for the podcast.

9. Process
I downloaded a Foley sound for a crowd making an excited Oooh sound from freesound.org.
The sound had several different Oooh and Aaah sounds within the same file, but I only
wanted to use the first one.
In order to isolate the sound that I wanted, I opened up Adobe Audition and imported the
sound file. I then listened to it and selected the point where the sound effect ended and
selected the rest of the track. I then deleted the part that I didn’t want by pressing the delete
key. This left me with the isolated sound effect, which I then exported as an mp3.
I decided to use Adobe Audition for this task as I feel it is much easier to use than Premiere
Pro. For one, when you select a part of the track you want to listen to, it stops at the end of
the selection, making it extremely useful to work out if what you’ve selected sounds right,
before you split the track.

10. Process
Now that I had the majority of my sound
effects, voiceover and music, I imported
them all into a new project in Adobe
Premiere Pro.
I then dragged them to the timeline and
placed them where I wanted them.
Using the razor tool, I split my voiceover into
suitable sections, so that I could add sound
effects in-between. I placed the sound effects
in the top audio track and the voiceover in
the one below so that I could overlap them,
where needed.
After listening to it back, I realised I didn’t
want to use the Bensound.com outros that I
had created, instead I decided to use a clip of
music from the Kingdom Hearts 3 game as
this linked to the final part of my product,
which introduces the next topic.
Also, just before I introduced the topics, I
decided that would be a good place to play a
transitional intro track, to make the product
sound more appealing.

11. Process
For a bit of comedy value, I wanted to add
in one of the humorous radio broadcasts
that randomly plays in the game.
Unfortunately, the one that worked the
best turned out to be too long, as I can
not use something that is more than 30
seconds due to it being a copyright
infringement. I tried to speed the track
up, but in order to get it under 30 seconds
I had to speed it up to 125% and this
caused the broadcaster to sound very
high pitched, which didn’t work at all.
I tried clicking to maintain the audio pitch,
which kept the voice the same pitch as
the original and it actually didn’t sound
too bad, just maybe slightly rushed. I’m
going to see if it’s possible to source a
shorter clip, though, before, I decided
whether to use it.

12. Process
I struggled with the Two
Point Hospital radio advert
to find one that was less
than thirty seconds long. In
the end I found a different
clip to use, that was just
over 30 seconds and sped it
up to 103.1% which put it at
just over 29 seconds.
When I listened to the real
podcasts for my research, I
remember an advert just
randomly playing and that’s
when I got the idea to use
one of the game adverts
from the radio station. So
I’m glad I’ve found one that
will work.

13. Process
After to listening to my
complete podcast, I realised
that despite altering the
volume level of the comedy
radio advert, compared to
the rest of the audio it still
seemed too quiet.
In order to correct this, I
right clicked on the sound
clip in the timeline and
selected Audio Gain. I then
raised this by different
amounts until finally at 11db
the volume sounded similar
to the other sounds.
I also checked the volume
meter at the side, to check it
was hitting similar levels to
the rest of the audio and it
was.