We've mentioned it before (via Laurie and Scott's posts back in ought-six) but it's worth a Friday Favorite: if you're looking for a free, cross-platform tool that does one thing to audio and does it very very well, you need to download The Levelator today.

The Levelator is offered by The Conversations Network as a single-purpose tool: it takes uncompressed audio (WAV or AIFF files) and performs a small miracle. The file is leveled to a uniform loudness level, even if varying parts are recorded with different microphones, audio settings, or even in diverse corners of the world (if you've ever tried to record a podcast over Skype, you know what I'm talking about). While many audio apps have normalization or 'leveling' functions, in my admittedly amateur audio experience I haven't heard anything like The Levelator; those with more savvy in this area tell me that the output is akin to what you would get with a human engineer 'riding the meters' to adjust the sound dynamically as it varies.

The really nice thing about The Levelator -- and this is an odd thing to say about a Mac application -- is that it has, for all practical purposes, no controls. Drop a file on it, wait an appropriate amount of time and watch the blinking lights, then take your output file and continue on your merry way; the final file will simply sound way better than the original did. It's made my life much easier in editing the TUAW Talkcast, and if you have any hand in producing spoken-word audio it might do the same for you.

The Levelator is a free 48 MB Universal Binary download, and will work on either 10.4 or 10.5, as well as Windows and Linux. Enjoy!

Humble Daisy's ProfCast is a well-respected tool for turning PowerPoint and Keynote slideshows into podcasts, among many other features (including the ability to record live presentations). The software was recently updated to version 2.3.0 and if you haven't been motivated to try it before, it is definitely worth a look now.

Humble Daisy is currently offering the software for 75% off its retail price from today until January 24 to celebrate the Mac's 25th birthday. ProfCast normally retails for $59.95USD, and education discounts are available, but the sale brings the price down to $14.99. ProfCast requires OS X 10.4 and later.

And for the confused, myself included, ProfCast's Web site does say that the discount is for 25% off rather than 75%. However, by clicking on the coupon for a single-seat license, you can see that the price really is $14.99.

Educators and professionals who need to record and podcast lectures often turn to Humble Daisy's ProfCast, a tool for adding enhancements to PowerPoint or Keynote slideshows to create powerful podcasts.

ProfCast today received a major update to version 2.3. The original app allows recording of live presentations, syncing slides with an audio track, and full RSS feed generation and publishing support. The new version incorporates several improvements, the most significant being support for PowerPoint 2008.

The app now automatically detects whether Keynote or PowerPoint is being used for a presentation, and then begins the process of recording and publishing the lecture with all slide timing and voice narration.

Humble Daisy also killed a number of bugs from the previous version of ProfCast, and version 2.3.0 is a free upgrade to existing owners of the application. The program is $59.95 for first-time buyers, and educational discounts are available. ProfCast can be purchased from the online store.

A few months ago, I started recording a podcast with some friends. At that time, our process was to gather everyone into one Skype call and record the session with WireTap Studio. That worked reasonably well, but there were a few problems.

The quality of the end result was dependent on everyone's Skype connection. Throw in a bad rainstorm, a large download or an iffy wi-fi connection and quality suffered. The other issue was people talking over each other. Even the most disciplined podcasters do it occasionally. Since the raw audio was a single track, editing the overtalking out of the final show was difficult, if not impossible.

A few episodes into it, we read Dan Benjamin's tips on recording a podcast with participants in multiple locations. He and John Gruber use a time-tested method called a "double-ender" when recording The Talk Show. As they talk via Skype, John and Dan record their own audio locally, and those two files are edited together as separate tracks. We've adopted a similar method using GarageBand, and it's been working wonderfully. Read on for details on our setup.

We had a little teaser for BoinxTV during WWDC this summer. If you missed it, it's a joint project between Boinx Software and The Coding Monkeys, aimed at smaller producers of video (video podcasters, school TV shows, anyone who doesn't have their own production studio ... ), with the goal of improving presentation and removing the need for any post-production.

BoinxTV 1.0 was released today after months of beta testing and nightly builds. It's stable, powerful and, most of all, fun. The easy-to-use system of layers, (which can consist of on-screen graphics, video sources, lower thirds, etc.) allows for simple setup and easy, live production of professional-quality video presentations. There are over 30 available layer types, all customizable, and custom layers can be created with Apple's Quartz Composer software (free with OS X). BoinxTV includes professional-grade chroma-keying which, with a decent green screen and lighting setup, makes transporting yourself or your cast to exotic locations a breeze.

The software is targeted at video producers who could benefit from losing the tedium of post-production. If you have an existing production setup and demand finite control, you'll probably want to stick with what you have. For educational institutions, video podcasters and anyone who needs a rapid transition from recording to publication, though, it's an ideal solution.

BoinxTV retails at $499. If your needs don't justify that kind of hefty price tag, a "sponsored" version is available for $199. The only requirement for using that version is that every production must credit BoinxTV. Not a bad tradeoff, really. A free demo is available, and the software is available for purchase today. Visit the BoinxTV page for more information.

Take Control Books has just published the second edition of Andy Affleck's popular Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac ebook. Anyone interested in getting started with podcasting or improving the quality of their current podcasts should read this ebook.

Take Control of Podcasting on the Mac: Second Edition adds coverage of two widely-used Mac podcasting applications, WireTap Studio and Übercaster, with information on recording and editing podcasts with these two apps. Andy also updated the ebook to discuss podcasting with GarageBand 4, and dropped his coverage of Audacity as a podcasting tool. Want to hear how good your podcasts can sound? Listen to Andy's promo.

As with all Take Control titles, the $10 ebook will be updated regularly and is available for immediate download from the Take Control website. The ebook includes a coupon code good for up to $14 off the price of Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro and Fission, so if you're in the market for both of those products you essentially get the ebook for free.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have written two Take Control ebooks.

Feeder 1.5, a venerable champion in the area of RSS and podcast feed creation, editing and publishing just hit the scene with a host of improvements. In addition to an updated interface for Leopard, it improves on editing, video podcasting, enclosure redirects and more.

I'm pretty excited about the fact that Feeder's Sparkle support has been updated to automatically generate MD5 sums and DSA signatures, as well as handle password-less SFTP. If that's not your thing, you can get your RSS kicks in the improved template editor and support for the Media RSS extension that allows the inclusion of thumbnails in search engines and programs like Miro. And, in keeping with the times, the improved performance in tagging MP4 files will help anyone publishing for iPod, iPhone or Apple TV.

Feeder has a 15 day free trial and costs $29 to register. Version 1.5 is a free upgrade for all 1.x users. Check it out at Reinvented Software.

Realmac Software today released v3.6.2 of RapidWeaver, their popular WYSIWYG tool for creating websites, podcasts, blogs and more. Among the new features of this version are:

• Aperture Support in the iMedia Browser
• Dynamic PHP Sidebar option for the blog plugin
• Sidebar is now a fully features styled text area
• The link panel now supports linking to tags and categories from Blogs

Also included in their blog post announcing this update is a PDF manual for the new version and an all-new Help Desk area with links to tutorial videos, manuals, FAQs and more.

A demo of RapidWeaver is available, while full licenses costs $49.00 and upgrades from versions previous to 3.6.x are $25.

It's been a while since we've written about Übercaster, the all-in-one tool for recording, editing and publishing podcasts, but that doesn't mean its developer, Eberhard Rensch, hasn't been hard at work on it. Through updates over the last couple of months, Übercaster v1.1.5 has gained a ton of handy new features and polish, such as:

• Delete and Close Gap: Instantly re-join two pieces of a track after cutting out a portion of the middle. A big time saver when editing out the false starts and other mistakes.
• Reset Playhead on Stop: An option to automatically return the playhead to its original starting point. Another huge timesaver when reviewing a specific clip.
• Split All Tracks: Splits every track at the playhead, regardless of which tracks are selection.
• New PleasantConnect version: An update to the Mac OS X kernel extension included with Übercaster that allows for pulling off tricks like recording Skype conversations in separate tracks, with you on one and any caller(s) on another.
• New progress bar in Dock icon: This is great for a real-time yet unobtrusive display of a podcast's upload progress.
• Sparkle integration for automatic updates: Andy Matuschak's popular Sparkle framework has made to Übercaster, providing wonderful automatic software updates that so many apps are enjoying.

This isn't all though; there are far more new features and bug fixes listed in just the last two updates than I can fit in this post, so check out the Übercaster changelog or grab the latest version yourself. If that updated kernel extension can fix my problems and allow me to record multi-track Skype conversations, Rensch will certainly be seeing a $79.95 purchase from me.

We here at TUAW have no qualms about our 'unofficialness.' It is what makes us all so cool (we're cool, right? Right?!). Our very own podcast is full of wit, wisdom, and helpful tips that make using a Mac even more pleasant. There is a new podcast in town, though, and this one is very official indeed.

That's right, Apple, Inc is serving up a video podcast called 'Apple Quick Tip of the Week.' At the moment 3 episodes are up, though the podcast is lacking album art (what up with that?). The podcast is hosted by Joy (to the right) and Anthony and judging by the soft, soft light it is filmed in I can only assume it is shot on location at the Apple Store in Heaven.

Thanks, Chad.

We last mentioned Übercaster several months ago, and now the German-made all-in-one podcast producing tool is finally shipping. Übercaster is designed to replace a variety of different applications, allowing you to produce, record, and edit your podcast all in one interface. You're able to set up a variety of clips (e.g. intro and exit music), clips, sound effects, etc., which you can invoke with one-click as you're talking. It even allows recording audio directly from iChat, Skype, and Gizmo Project. Once you've laid down your tracks, it allows you to edit them in a multi-track editing environment. I played with the beta while back and was impressed with the Mac-like nature of the program, though I did notice it sometimes does not gracefully handle large audio files dropped into it.

Unfortunately, all of this podcasting goodness does not come cheap. Übercaster is $79.95 and a demo is available.

[Via Macworld UK]

Well shiver me mousies - it's a good thing I haven't quite convinced my wife why I need yet another piece of software, because Desktopple, the powerful desktop hiding and management app from FoggyNoggin Software that I just mentioned, is on sale at MacUpdate for a mere $9.95. That's 41% off its regular price of $17.00, and a great deal on what is probably the most powerful and easy to use app in its class for podcasters and desktop clutterbugs alike (oh yea, just like the car commercials - I went there). Check out my previous post for a refresher on what Desktopple is capable of, or snag a demo and take it for a whirl yourself, but don't forget that MacUpdate's sale is a one-day-only deal.

You've heard of SpaceCamp. You've heard of FatCamp. Now, discover "PodCamp". MSNBC posts about this latest kind of retreat. PodCamp offers BarCamp-style off-site conferences allowing people to learn about how to create video and audio content for sharing over the Internet.

Recent sessions have been held in Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Berlin. MSNBC reports that about half the participants were new to podcasting, attending so they could pick up basic skills like creating notes in advance and learning not to say "ummmmmmm" a lot.

Let's say you've made a few podcasts that you're proud of...mostly. There's always room for improvement, right? If you use GarageBand as your main podcasting tool, check out these tutorials at MacProVideo. Tips include using the right EQ settings for your voice, volume management and getting the most out of your remote Skype and other over-the-net sessions.

It's $29.50US for nearly two hours of video (you can view two demo videos at the website). Check it out, and bring your podcasts to the next level.

Sharon Housley of Best Syndication has published a very practical guide on the do's and don'ts of podcasting. Her suggestions range from providing show transcriptions and iTunes support to adding useful metadata tags and providing enough bandwidth to handle your downloads as you grow your audience. In addition to the points she's laid out, let me emphasize the utility of a good outline and short punchy segments. And don't forget that podcasts do not have to be recorded all in one take. Programs like Fission and Garage Band can help you trim and assemble your final product and eliminate the segments that didn't quite work.