My selection of free tools I use for the making, automation and marketing of podcasts
#1 Audacity - Free, open source, cross-platform audio software Audacity is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.Developed by a group of volunteers as open source
#2 Levelator – Free software that will level your sound for when you have more than one speaker and they have sound levels higher or lower. So what is The Levelator®? It's not a compressor, normalizer or limiter, although it contains all three. It's much more than those tools, and it's much simpler to use. The UI is dirt-simple: Drag-and-drop any WAV or AIFF file onto The Leveler's application window, and a few moments later you'll find a new version that just sounds better.Have you ever recorded an interview in which you and your guest ended up at different volumes? How about a panel discussion where some people were close to microphones and others were not?
#3 Zoom – Here you can record the video and sound if you are interviewing someone remotely. Because why wouldn’t you want to have extra content to make a video. This is also a free tool
#4 WordPress – Yes, you can get a WordPress blog to post your show notes that will generate SEO and Google ranking, so eventually you start getting visitors to your site that you can capture emails, or even monetize with ads.
#5 Zappier - Zapier is an American for-profit corporation and a web-based service that allows end users to integrate the web applications they use. Connect the apps you use every day to automate your work and be more productive. 1000+ apps and easy integrations
Today, as you read on the title I'm gonna give you the top 5 free tools for podcasters.
So if you are a podcaster or if you are planning on starting a podcast or even if you’re none of those, but you are just somebody that is curious about podcasting and you want to know how podcasting is done, you're gonna hear the 5 top free tools that you can use while podcasting.
So starting by number one is going to be Audacity. Audacity. Like, how do you have the audacity not to use Audacity? This is a 100% tool in case you wanted to know, I am using it right now to record this. So if you are listening to me, this is being recorded with Audacity.
Audacity, like I said is free and you can use it to record. So you’re gonna download it. It’s going to be installed in your computer. And now you're gonna select your microphone in here. Of course, you can use the built-in microphone if you have in your computer.
That's not going to give you the top quality but you can use anything you have at your disposition right now. All right. And you play around with it even if you don't have a podcast and you plan on starting one.
You can allow you can download this right now and do tests with your built-in microphone. And test it and just see what is up with Audacity.
With Audacity, not only can you record but you can edit your sound. So if you have a bunch of uhm, ahs, ooh, that kind of sounds, you can go back, select these sounds, delete them and make you sound a lot smarter than in reality you are.
You can put effects in there, you can increase the volume, decrease the volume just to make sure that people are going to hear you. And there's a lot you can do. So check out Audacity.
Of course there is no affiliate links for this because it is 100% free. Everything in there is free. There is no upgrades or anything that you need to do.
Okay, let's jump over to tool number two. Tool number two is somewhat of an unknown tool for, I don't know what reason, but even me, I only found out about this probably a month ago.
Now this tool is something that is very needed and appreciated and again 100% free. They have the option that you can buy them a coffee if you want. If you use the tool and you really love it, you can buy them coffee, send them a couple of bucks or not. But like I said, this is a free software that will level your sound. So your sound can always be leveled in case you have guests.
I heard a lot of podcasts and I heard a lot of people podcasting that do not level their sound.
So when they have a guest on their show and let's say the host asks a question, their volume, because they have a special mic or maybe the person being interviewed has a better mic or louder mic, the volume of one is a lot higher than the other one. So you can hear the question and you don't hear the answer. And you've got to keep cranking up the volume and decreasing the volume. That means that the podcaster did not level their sound.
Now there are a lot of paid tools to do this. There are a lot of people who pay VAs, virtual assistants, virtual admins, to do this editing for them when in reality, you can select tool number two, that is Levelator. Levelator, what else would it be called, right? Levelator, just like it sounds again is a tool that can do this for you. All you have to do is have your sound on WAV format. So if you have Audacity example and you’re recording, at the end you can export this file and turn it into a WAV file. I call it a WAV file, W-A-V file. And I call it the WAV file. Then you can upload it to Levelator and nothing else needs to be done. You just upload it. As soon as it's uploaded, Levelator is going to level it and export it back to your computer without you needing to click anything else.That is it. And now everybody in that conversation will have the same volume. Because sometimes you know when somebody's talking to the microphone and that's what you're supposed to do, let's say when you see a live event or a sports host they have to speak directly into the microphone at all times. Because the sound is live and it is not gonna be edited, so they have to be facing the microphone. Because if you face away from the microphone, the sound that the microphone is going to capture now is the reflection of your sound. It’s not the direct sound. And of course, it is not going to be as high as volume. So, same as if you're interviewing somebody and they bend over to tie their shoe while they're talking to you, their sound is going to go a lot down.
Levelator is going to take care of that for you for free. So check them out.
And in case you don't know where to find them because they do not own the site Levelator.com, do not go to Levelator.com. I will put it on the show notes for you to click and for it to be easy for you to access this tool. Of course, there is no affiliate links to any free tools. I'll just make sure to repeat that. Now, about my show notes. I'm gonna put this on the show notes and often, if you are a listener of the show you probably think, “He keeps mentioning the show notes and I have never visited his site.” QASellingOnline.com.
Now, today you may be a different mood and you may think, “Well let's go check his site. Let's go check QASellingOnline.com and see what all the fuss is about.” And just so you go there so you can say bad things about it. Have a look and say, “Wow this site sucks. I thought it was gonna be better” or “this is actually better than I expected.” Just go there and have a look. Check out the show notes for this episode and check out the link to Levelator. We’re going to jump over to tool number three. Again, tool number three is absolutely free.
This one it is free but it has an option to upgrade. To be completely honest, I only need the free tool, and I have two podcasts. I have one that consists of lots and lots of interviews. Every single one is an interview, and I have this tool called Zoom. Zoom can be found at zoom.us.
And Zoom is absolutely free. It is a video recording software. So it's going to record, it is like a web conference software but it's free.
It's amazing and it does something super cool. When you're interviewing somebody, if you have not used Zoom yet, what it does is it's going to capture to see who is speaking at that moment and the camera is going to focus on that person's face. So when one speaks, the other person, of course, shuts up, right? That's the way I was trained, when actually back in Portugal, my parents used to say when one donkey speaks, the other one lowers its ears or bends its ears. I don't know. Something like that. Anyway, as a host, if you ask a question, it's going to focus on your face.
Then, when the person that you are interviewing starts answering, it's going to focus on their face. And of course, you may be thinking, “But I'm just a podcaster, I don't do video.” Well, it's free content. You're doing a podcast because you want exposure and you want to be heard. You have a message to be heard or the person that you are interviewing has a message to be heard.
Now, what better way than to get a free platform out there where you can get video and post this video now on LinkedIn, post this video on YouTube, and post it on Facebook.
And if you get 1 or 2 or 3 extra people to watch this video, your 3 extra listens that you didn't have before when you're starting out. Let me tell you, 3 extra listens, that could turn into 3,000 or 30,000, right? You never know with Facebook and YouTube. You can get 30, 40, 50 thousand views to a video if it is worth it. So that is again Zoom. A lot of people may say, “Well I have better software than that,” well your software may be better than that because I'm not saying Zoom is the best. It is super cool.
It is very good and is super free. So that is what I'm bringing up on today's episode. This is not the top 5 tools in the world for podcasting; these are my top 5 free tools.
Okay now that brings me to number four. Number four is WordPress. Now I told this to one person once and they say, “Well, WordPress is not a tool.” What is it then? If it's not a tool, what is it? “It’s a blog.” Well, that is kinda right but kind of incorrect. A blog itself is a tool.
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