Recording Sermons Podcasts With Stuff You Already Have in Your Kitchen Cabinet February 5, 2006
Posted by churchweb in Audio / Podcasting, Uncategorized.trackback
Well, not quite…but I do want to address how to make podcasts of sermons with stuff that you probably already have. Really, if you have a computer, you can probably do all this without spending any money whatsoever.
I plan on doing a series here on ChurchWeb on how you can podcast your church’s sermons. In this installment, I want to explain how you can record your church’s sermons for $0 with equipment you probably already have. To record your sermons for podcasting, you need four things.
- A sound system with a soundboard
- A Pentium 3 or higher computer
- Audacity open source audio software (if you have a Mac, you can use GarageBand, but you can also use Audacity. I recommend Audacity. It converts WAV to MP3 and stuff like that.
- A 3.5mm male to male cable (pictured below)
You may also need an adapter to make the plug fit into your soundboard. That’s it. That’s all you need. Really.
Here is what you need to do. First, download the stable version of Audacity from sourceforge, and if necessary, download the extension to Audacity that allows it to work with mp3s (This may not be necessary in the new editions.) Run the program. It is really intuitive. Even if you’re dumber than a bag of hammers, you can figure out how to record.
Create a file on your desktop (or where ever you like) called sermons. This is where you will save your sermons.
Second, plug one end of the cable into the microphone port on your computer, and the other end into one of the line out plugs on your sound board (just ask your sound guy where he would plug it in to record on a tape deck).
Now, open Audacity and test the program with your sound system. All you have to do is hit the record button. Work with your sound guy to make sure that the files are being saved and that the sound is not popping. That’s really all there is to it. You should develop a schema for how you want to number the sermons. At my church, we save the the files as according to the year, month, and date, along with m for mornings or e for evenings (ie. 20060204m). Save the file as both .aup (Audacity’s format) and .mp3. Now all you have to do is mount the .mp3 on your server space and you are ready to go.
See, it’s cheap and effective. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. We will look at how to mount these files on a server in a later post.
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Silly me. I forgot to give the link to Audacity the first time. Sorry. It’s fixed now.
If you’re coming in from your soundboard, wouldn’t you use a line level rather than the mic port on the computer? That’s where I would look first. You might get acceptable results this way, but it will take a lot of tweaking. A sound card specifically designed for audio recording might be a better way to go, and it doesn’t cost a ton of money to get the job done. That way, you could line in directly using a 1/4″ plug or even an I/O interface (if your board supports it). I’ve always had less than stellar results when I go directly into the mini plug on the standard sound card.
Just some thoughts!
Rick,
That’s a great point. You can use line level, and it does work better. We did alot of tweaking on our system and got it right. We will probably add an audio recording sound card to the PC we are going to revamp for this task soon. Right now, we are just using a laptop and it does not have a recording soundcard.
Thanks for posting here and posting your ideas. I really hope this blog becomes a seedbed for sharing ideas like this. Please continue to share on any subject.
Thanks,
Jason
“Please continue to share on any subject.”
Dude, you don’t know what you’re asking for!
Seriously, we’re going to start podcasting our pastor’s sermons soon, and I keep going back and forth between using a computer to do that, or using my stand-alone digital multitrack recorder that I have. We will probably play with both and see what works best for us.
I do like the concept of this particular post. You’re showing churches how to make their sermons available on the internet without a(nother) huge investment in tech equipment.
Hey, just as an update, our church of 50 just launched our first podcast from last weekend’s sermon. You can check it out at http://www.pendleton-naz.org/blog
Rick,
That’s awesome. Did you see the special on sermoncasting on the CBS Early Show yesterday? They talked about the GodCast Network.
It was a great segment until Hannah Storm insinuated that churches and pastors are only in ministry for the money. Go figure.
I just recently made my church’s website and set it up for podcasting. I knew nothing about podcasting and i ended up figuring it out; it was alot simpler and easier than i had thought it would be. i record the sermons with my laptop, but it’s been a little bit of a challenge to get a good, consistent recording. i do 1/8 out of the headphones out on our soundboard into my mic input. after reading this, im gonna look for a way to do RCA out to my mic input. thanks for this article!
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We only have one computer and it’s being used for the PowerPoint presentation for the sermon. Won’t that be a bit difficult to manage both at the same time? I have heard that some actually use an MP3 player that has a line input, but because they are small and popular I’m afraid that they might get walked off with. Does anyone make a unit in a big box that records mp3 to either flash or hard drive and then have it connected to the pc for downloading from it later? That would be ideal.
I’m looking to record live sermons onto the hard drive to be then downloaded onto a CD. Is this possible
wasn’t that the purpose of this page? to tell you how to do that exactly… We’re running Mediashout 3 with audacity and using video backgrounds on a laptop with a gig of ram. So I’d say yes to the powerpoint issue and yes to recording to the ol’ harddrive for CD burning at a later time as well as the podcast.
When I hook the line out from our mixer to the computer it feedbacks thru the speakers. I am using the recording software you recommended. DO I need a better sound card?
I am using a cheap no name that was in the computer.
Hi,
We are looking to improve our sermon recrding and website posting. Curently we are recording to a casette. After the sermon is recorded the tape is played into the computer. Then it is converted into an MP3 file. I then e-mail the file to the webmaster and he uploads it to the website. I want to eliminate all of that. I want my “volunteer” to see two buttons. He pushes a record button. Then he pushes upload to website.
Currently it takes a seperat person an extra day to do this. I know all of that time can be eliminated by some clever computer software. Where can I find this software?
Thanks
When recording through Audacity what sample rates and formats are you using?
Eh.. Do you feel a vested interest in my red query Do you want a fresh joke from net? Where did the vegetables go to get drunk? The Salad Bar.
i know this is an older post but I am looking for a way to record with out using a mic for the live service… does anyone know of a external mic or some sort of process that works w/ iphone.
we do not have a lapel for our youth group and I dont see it neccisary to use a mic. can anyone help with this pridicament?
Well Anthony Your going to have to use the mic on the iphone and have the speaker hold it at a distance to record their voice. and depending on the leanth of the speaking you may have to have it plugged in. You then have to have it transfered to a CD or upload to the podcate site.
FROG= Fully Relying On God are you?
I am in charge of the projection system at church. Is there a way to record the sermons to put on CD’s or mp3 without using the projection computer resources which would already be being used? I assume that the recording should be done on stand alone equipment that isn’t tied up doing something else at the same time. Does that sound reasonable?? Is there a guide or book or web site to help us?
Thanks!
We are just now setting up to record (just audio) our services. We also have one computer to do the song service and also serve as the recorder.
However, that system is set up with dual head video. The songs are projected using monitor two.
I intend to run the recording software from monitor one and minimize the app while the projectionist does the song service. (We can include the song service audio this way if we so desire)
The recording software (either Audacity or Total Recorder, I haven’t decided which one yet) will never be seen by the audience.
Once the song service is over, the TV’s displaying the song lyrics (monitor two) will be turned off, the display software stopped, and the recording software restored (It has been recording all this time).
Audio will be patched from two (Stereo L&R channels) Sub-Groups to the Line In on the computer.
So Far, the single test I have ran shows promise.
Note: If you are getting a bad HUM when the computer is connected to the sound system, try shutting the monitor off. I had such a hum and tried just about every thing. It ended up being the small power supply (wall wart) for the LCD monitor. Went to a monitor with an internal power supply and good bye Hum (Praise GOD!).
Hi! I’m the Multi-Media Ministry Director at our church. Been doing this now for 4 years, took it over so our key-board player could quit running back and forth. I have had to trust God, as I knew nothing about sound at the time.
We use 2 computers one on each side of the sound board. We just last year moved everything to the back of the church. Desktop for recording and Laptop for power point. I recruit someone each week (Youth Group Member during Praise and Worship until they are excused for Youth Group except 3rd Sunday they stay in service)to do the power point on a Mac Laptop.
Once a month I have a gal at our church in a wheel chair. She can only move her fingers, she has been a blessing, she has a device she uses with her laptop its like a portable laptop mouse pad. She loves doing it but her mom can only get her there early once a month, she is the best person I have to do the power point, song leaders have a hard time tricking her. When she is doing the power point I can focus all my attention to the recording.
I use Linux (Ubuntu 10.10) with Audacity. after the service I save the file in a compressed format on a 500gb external Hard drive take it home and work on it. At home I have Audacity on a Windows XP desktop.
You need to see the recording as it’s recording so you can adjust the volume to make sure it’s not over or under mod. I have 2 1&1/2 inch leads coming off the Studio Room outputs going to a dual RJ female mono jacks to single stereo 3/4 inch male jack to the mic jack on the sound card.
When I get home I open the file save it with another name delete all but the Pastors sermon save as a WMA file put it on CD and send a copy to our web master and she puts it on our podcast. I also save the whole service as MP3 file and put it on DVD so I have a backup and then delete it off the drive. We have some folks that want the whole service cause they work on Sunday and want the Praise, prayer, Communion (first Sunday), testimonies, sermon, and alter call. All this will not fit on a CD, so I save it to a DVD. We also record Praise and sermon to two cassette tapes. off one of the headphone jacks from the sound board. Some folks in rest homes want cassette tapes.
Sorry for the log post. Thought I would explain what and how we do it.
BTW FROG = Fully Relying On God