Production Times - how long does it take you to produce an episode?

[Podcastmatters]

The tartanpodcast usually lasts between 12 and 20 minutes and I can have it recorded, edit and online in about the same amount of time. It's very, very lo-fi. When I produced the Connected Live podcast at the Scottish Learning Festival last year I was putting out a podcast every 30 minutes based on interviews with delegates. I like a very quick turn around when I'm producing.

What about you, though? I know some of you here have very involved podcasts featuring great, in-depth interviews. What sort of production time are you working with?

[Jack Cumming]

The music show I used to do for the late, lamented Collaboration Central website was recorded in one take, music / links / bumpers / ramblings. They lasted on average 30 mins. However, it took me weeks to find the time to record the thing so in 2 years I managed to do about 10 episodes LOL.

[Paul Hutchinson]

Two days to record.
Two days to edit, stitch and post.
So about four days in total.
Editing days are pretty much whole days.
Recording days are an hour or two per day.
We edit the heck out of our stuff.
I felt that was a good use of the medium.
You can't do that as easily with other medium.
And that's for a 30-40 minute show that's supposed to be bi-weekly.

[Alan Carr]

the same amount of time? I wish!
this is what takes my time
* initial research - including all web links - bios etc. Sourcing the music is always ongoing - can't put a time to that - but it's considerable. My problem is that I won't play anything I don't like. I stick my setlist in an iTunes playlist and listen to it on my iPod for a few days. Usually there's something that I need to change because I don't think it works or I don't think a song is good enough. I'm really ruthless about that! For my latest show - DHR#77 - the final 7 tracks were completely different from the original playlist!
* recording (and editing) my audio intros
* editing the final file with the music
* producing the show notes (complete with album / web details)
* creating tags & email notification
* uploading to Podomatic
* checking that it plays OK (never assume anything with PodOmatic)
* notify the musicians that they are in the show
* MySpace comments / bulletins / blog etc

not including sourcing the music and deciding upon the final selection, that lot takes me a few hours for a 30 min show - usually a complete evening - sometimes a fair chunk of the next morning.
I hope the preparation and effort show through - but ultimately it's about the music and the artists. They deserve looking after since they trust us with their music.
Alan
www.DarkhorseRadio.com
www.myspace.com/alancarr

[Gabor Kovacs]

Hear Hear to that last paragraph. Well said Alan.

[Skinny White Boy]

* Pick the music -- That can take forever, Don't count it as part of the production process since I am always looking for new music.
* Load up my playlist -- 5 minutes
* Run a quick test recording -- Usually less than 5 minutes, unless I find a problem (which hardly ever happens)
* Record -- However long my show is gonna take
* Upload
* Update web site

All in all I can do it in under an hour. Usually I take longer, only because I don't do all of it in one sitting. Typically I also listen to my recordings before uploading. I do some very "seat of the pants" kinda stuff, and occasionally I have been known to not release a show because of it.

[Tim from Radio Clash]

Yes I listen back to shows, usually spot errors or have been known to totally trash a show and re-record or leave it - happened at least 5 times now, for a 1 1/2 hour show that's a lot of show!

(partly I trash them if they get too long - over 2 hours - and I can't work out how to split it, although I now spot an over show and record two shows in one and edit the 2nd later, saving time) - I prefer shows to be 60-70 mins tbh, or shorter, and cutting long shows in 2 parts has helped that.

[Tim from Radio Clash]

Hmm not as fast as Mark, although I do a long show so unless I somehow talk double/triple speed it's not going to be 30 mins!

Prep time is during the week with my iPod, listening for new tunes, I rate them and use that to choose which tracks later - if iTunes doesn't screw up the synch! I tend to remember certain tracks anyway which I'll drag into a folder a few days before recording - this track selection can be 1 hour or an evening or longer, depending on mix/tracks.

Recording - all in one take live including the live mixing...I didn't say I couldn't retake though did I? So usually some editing due to fluffed mixing/speech, if I'm on a umm-err blitz if that's annoying me (usually not) and editing down to make the show smaller although I have a feel now for how many tracks make a muckle, err show. Usually 2 hours record, sometimes 1-2 hours tracks selection and mix practice before that, to see if they mix well

Editing - used to take me anything upto 5-7 hours but got it down to usually 30mins-1 hour due to using templates and getting very used to Audition, I can edit surprisingly fast now, although sometimes I miss a fluffed bit and swear a lot then go back and fix it

MP3ing, tagging, VBRfix, upload etc - this all takes ages - esp the blogging/tagging and upload - at least an hour.

So usually 1-2 nights per show. Which is why I usually do them every 2 weeks, although actually since I hit show #152 and been doing this since November 2004 it works out as something like a show every 7-8 days, surprisingly...

[Gary Dring]

Clever Little Pod takes quite a while to put together. The ideas for the sketches will either come very quickly or take a couple of tortuous weeks to think up and script. Then it depends how involved the sketch is as to how long the recording takes: sometimes I'll ask people to voice a character, in which case there's up to a week's waiting while the other person records and emails the file back to me.

If I'm voicing several characters in one sketch, I'll record all of the lines for each character together, then edit them in sequence afterwards which can take up to 2 hours or more depending on the length of the script. It would be impossible to record in sequence as I would need to keep changing voices and it would sound forced. If a guest voice is being included, I might also have to alter the sound quality or add a distort so it doesn't sound out of place. As it's comedy, the timing is really important, so there's a lot of listening back to edited material to work out where longer pauses are needed, and when dialogue needs to overlap.

I only feature 2-3 music tracks a show, but spend a couple of hours a week wading through stuff on the PMN to find the really good stuff.

So I can't really give you a definite start-to-finish time-scale. It's ready when it's ready. And not before!

[jamesH]

For what it's worth, it takes about 3 months to put each The North South Divide podcast together. Work, family life, and Important Tinkerings On The Internet take precedence until we've got a running order sorted out and some sketches written... probably spending about 10 hours writing and editing.

We record it over a couple of evenings, using Gizmo Project, though recording locally. Then Trev sends me the rushes from his end.. so about 3 hours in total.
Next come the sound effects. A couple of evenings combining Hot Freesound Action and making 'realistic' recordings with my Zoom H4. 4 hours-ish
Finally, comes the bit where I spend about three evenings till some ridiculous hour of the morning piecing every phrase together to cut out the lag, noise-gate the rumble and hum, then recreate some *proper* ambience. Say, 10 hours; more if I can't string a sentence together during the banters :D
Oh, and then two hours rendering it to an MP3/4, adding graphics, album art and uploading it to blogger with some *hilarious* shownotes (or yer actual funny ones if Trev does it).
Say, 29 hours for a 30 minute podcast. We don't really do it very often, but it's nice to see how we've become slightly less crap over the time. We're currently scripting our eighth episode.. it may be out in the next month or so!

[Frank Petrie]

I soend about three hours a day four - five days a week. The biggest problem that I'm facing is keeping the visuals interesting.