Including Transcripts With Oral History Podcasts

I think it is important to include transcripts with oral history podcasts.  Transcripts help everybody:

• Listeners
• Researchers
• Deaf users

At the Oral History Association’s annual meeting in Little Rock (see previous post), Rebecca Wright emphasized this point in the “Introduction to Oral History” workshop.  She said words to the effect:

“Given a choice between audio and a transcript, researchers will choose a transcript.  Given a choice between audio and nothing, researchers will choose nothing.”

Researchers need to scan quickly to determine if an interview has relevant information and quotes.

To make scanning easy, there are two techniques:

1. Index - which contains a timestamp and a brief description of what is being talked about.  This helps all listeners find the audio clip they are most interested in. 

2. Transcript – which contains a word-by-word copy of what is being said.  This is very useful for researchers.

So far in my project, I’ve been doing a hybrid of these two techniques.  I started by listening to the raw audio (anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours - broken down into more than one audio file.)  As I listened in Windows Media Player which displays a running timestamp, I created an index. 

Then, as I decided which parts of the interview to include in a 12 to 15 minute podcast, I found myself going back and transcribing some of the detailed conversation to make editing easier.  This was helpful because I sometimes selected audio out of sequence and needed exact words and phrases to make it sound plausible.  (For example, I frequently asked the person to expand on something they said earlier). 

I intend to upload either the index or my hybrid document with all of my podcasts.

Balancing Access and Privacy in Oral History

The good news about posting a podcast is that everyone can access it.  You can reach a very wide audience.

The bad news about posting a podcast is that everyone can access it. You might not want a completely unrestrained audience.  

So, the question is - how / where do you create a page for a podcast so that it’s easy to access and others can see it.  But, if you are doing oral history, it protects the privacy of those who were interviewed.

This is part of a bigger problem oral historians face as they move oral histories to the Internet — oral histories that were conducted decades ago, before the Internet was imagined. 

WordPress offers a couple of options:

1. Password protect the entire blog.  The disadvantage is that each individual who wants to view the blog has to have an individual account with WordPress.  As the administrator, you have to enter each person’s Login ID to allow them to see the blog.  This can be time consuming, especially if you want a large audience to be able to view the page with the podcast.
2. Password protect a single page using a single password.  With this approach, as the administrator, you send the same password to everyone you want to have access to the page.  Something you can probably accomplish with a mass email.

Test Run of Final Podcast Project

I played a test version of my final podcast in class last week to hear how the audio sounded.  I had conducted several one-on-one interviews using the Audio-Technica Pro 24 microphone.  All the interviews were done around a kitchen table (or smaller table).   (See previous post.)

My concerns were:

1. After uploading the audio files to my laptop, the audio sounded much softer that what I was used to when using the Sennheiser MD-46 mike.

2. The Audio-Technica Pro 24 is a double-cardioid mike which means that my voice sounded much louder in one speaker, while the interviewee sounded louder in the other speaker.

During editing (in Audacity):

1. I started by trying to use the “normalize” effect.  But it increased all the background noise, so I decided not to use that.

2. Instead, I used the “gain slider” to increase the volume to 9db, which sounded about right. 

3. I used the “noise removal” effect, which worked great.  It’s a two-step process.  I selected a portion of the audio that had background noise, but no voices.  I clicked the “Get Noise Profile” button.  Then I selected the entire track and clicked “Remove Noise”, after moving the slider about one-fourth of the way, so that it would only remove about 25% of the noise. 

The results:

1. Dan, the instructor, had to turn up the volume all the way.  However, after doing that, the audio sounded fine.  So, the next questions are:

- What impact will increasing the gain even more have?

- Dan suggested trying a compression filter (in place of gain?)

2. In regards to the stereo effect, Dan said not to worry about it, but that I could try to flatten the recording after I finish all the edits.  Not sure what feature that would be in Audacity.  He suggested listening to the podcast through speakers, rather than just through headphones.

3. Dan also suggested using the blog to clarify sections of the podcast that need more explanation.  For example, my interviewee talked about going to U.T. (meaning the University of Tennessee).  It’s not obvious from the interview, but the blog post could clarify that point.  That’s a great idea and will make editing much easier!  I won’t feel as compelled to cram in a snippet of voice that really doesn’t belong.  

Podcasts About Women in World War II

My class project, Soldiers Without Guns: The Patton Girls in World War II, is a series of interviews with my mother and aunts about their experiences during World War II. 

I decided to look for similar podcasts – whether done as family history or oral histories.  I found a couple of examples I’ll describe over the next few posts.

First, Women Welders in World War Two, is a podcast from a BBC Radio Show called Woman’s Hour.   The 8:05 minute podcast describes the work of Dr. Margaretta Jolly, who found letters written by women welders in Yorkshire, England, and turned the letters into a book, Dear Laughing Motorbike.  Although this podcast focuses on women in the United Kingdom, whereas my family is all in the United States, I found one point particularly interesting:

“We don’t want to exaggerate the idea that this work was, in any simple sense, liberating.  We often tend to do, now, looking back.  That’s one of the images.  Rosie the Riveter is standing for some kind of simple image of women going into the workplace or being liberated.  I realize through interviewing the women today and through reading the letters that it wasn’t in any way glamorous or romantic.  They did it, first of all, for money.  And they went into those jobs because they were called up by the Labor Exchange.”

But as one of the woman welders emphasized,

“When you were doing it, you felt that you were helping the war.”

I found similar sentiments in my interviews.  My mother and aunts recognized it was a good opportunity, especially to make money, which was important because they had grown up relatively poor.  However, they believed they were helping the war effort in their own way and were proud of it. 

Woman’s Hour: History and Science Archive lists other podcasts regarding women’s role in history.

Rural Voices Radio: Today’s Current Events are Tomorrow’s Oral History

“Rural Voices Radio: Mississippi Voices Sharing Their Stories of Place”, presented by Emily Noble, was perhaps the most moving presentation at the Mississippi Historical Society’s 2007 Conference.

“Rural Voices Radio” encourages school children to write personal stories in their own voices.  Selected stories are recorded by the students and broadcast over Mississippi’s public radio stations.  If the story isn’t selected for radio, the child receives feedback and the chance to revise the story and submit it again.

Students record their stories in a professional recording studio, frequently traveling to another town to do so.  Each child receives a CD containing their story. 

Emily Noble brought her CD player and played several stories for us.  All were personal stories of surviving Hurricane Katrina - heartbreaking and inspiring – including one child who sang the blues:  

“Hurricane Katrina swept away, all my possessions into the bay.”

Rural Voices Radio is intended to develop student’s writing and thinking skills.  But because they represent real life in Mississippi, they serve as oral histories as well. 

Visit Mississippi’s Rural Voices Radio to see photographs of the budding writers and listen to their stories.

Using iPods in Oral History

“Wade in the Water: Memory and Community in the Delta”, presented by David Cunningham at the Mississippi Historical Society’s 2007 conference, illustrates an interesting way to use iPods in the recording and playing of oral history. 

Dr. Cunningham, who teaches Sociology at Brandeis University, brought a group of students to the Mississippi Delta (supported by Delta State University) to interview local people on topics such as civil rights, music, political and economic issues.  The students spent nine days based in Cleveland, Mississippi, while branching out to Clarksdale and other towns.  In each town, they first meet with local community members to explain their project in an attempt to really engage the townspeople. 

For interviews, they clipped a small microphone to the end of their iPods and set out to interview teachers, business owners, story tellers, etc. in their own environment, like the local barbershop.  They uploaded the iPod files to a laptop, edited them in Audacity, and are in the process of creating a Web site which will also contain photographs and other artifacts.  Playing excerpts for us, I was surprised at the quality of the audio.  It sounded very good.

Ultimately, they hope the podcasts will serve as “audio walking tours” of each town, of its history and culture, told through the stories and voices of the people who live there. 

The class blog expresses the experiences and reflections of students and teachers during the class trip.  One Brandeis student wrote about the common lament of “We have no jobs.” Another post mentioned how they took time out to teach an 8th grade class about podcasting and oral history. 

This class appears to be part of a larger initiative called the iPod Experience at Brandeis University.

Microphones – Part II

Last week, I conducted several one-on-one interviews using the Audio-Technica Pro24 microphone.  All the interviews were done around a kitchen table (or smaller table). 

I positioned the microphone between us, placing the mike a few inches off center, so that we were speaking at about a 70 degree angle to the front of the mike.  Centering the mike between the two of us would have meant we were speaking at about a 90% angle and thus into the side of the mike.  I don’t know if that makes any difference or not.  We sat about 18 inches from the mike, but I’m sure we moved around a bit.  (Will load a picture of the setup later.)

 Results (in terms of how the raw audio files sound):

• Listening through the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 recorder, the audio files sound good – crisp and clean.   The voices are way out front of any background noises.  Because the Audio-Technica Pro24 is a stereo mike, you can hear both voices in both speakers.  However, one voice is dominant on the left speaker; the other voice is dominant on the right.    
• Listening in Windows Media Player after uploading the files to the laptop, the audio sounds good as well, although I had to turn the volume up more than normal.  That concerns me a little.
• Burning to a CD and listening to the CD, the audio sounds very good.  (Which is good news.  I can easily burn the files onto a CD and give them to the interviewees.)

• Opening the files in Audacity, they sound good, but the waveform is much smaller (i.e. less amplitude) than previous audio files created using the Sennheiser MD 46 mike.  That concerns me.  

My next focus will be editing.  I am not sure how the audio will sound after being edited and exported as a MP3 file again.   It will also be interesting to see how the stereo effect impacts the editing process.

Lessons Learned From 1st Class Podcast

We played our first podcast in class (with some fairly powerful speakers), and it sounded pretty good.  I was concerned because sound quality sometimes changes as audio is edited and then exported again as an MP3 file.  But the sound quality held up. 

The podcast was a conversation among four class members where we each told a humorous story. 

The only problems were a few popping P’s and the occasional intake of air.  I think that is because I held the microphone right in front of my mouth rather than down to the side.  Adam Weiss, podcast consultant, has a great video that explains proper microphone placement. 

The other thing I learned is this:  There were four of us sharing a Sennheiser MD 46 cardioid mike, which meant we had to pass it back and forth as we talked, because the mike only picks up the speaker who has the mike pointed right at them.  That made editing easier because no one could talk on top of another person’s voice and there was no background noise.  There was a pause between speakers, but that was easy to edit out. 

However, passing the mike back and forth cut down on the interaction among us.  You can’t hear the spontaneous laughter and jokes.  

For my next podcast, I will be doing one-on-one interviews with my mother and aunts.  Because the interviews will probably last about an hour, the Sennheiser mike is out.  I don’t think it will work to pass the microphone back and forth.  So I will be using the Audio-Technica Pro24 mike.  The description says it is a double cardioid, but it seems to work like an omni-directional.  It picks up both speakers well and seems to be pretty forgiving if a speaker moves around a bit.  The problem is, it may pick up too much background noise.

“New Media” Class – Posting 1st podcast

I was going to post an mp3 file (of my first class project) on this blog.  I went to the Write Post page, thinking I could upload an audio file, similarly to how I upload a photo.  However, it appears that WordPress does not allow you to upload audio files. 

The file types that WordPress allows are jpg, png, gif, pdf, PowerPoint, and doc files.  However, last semester I wasn’t successful trying to upload a Word doc. 

In the FAQs, WordPress says that this policy was created for security reasons. 

It looks like the next thing to explore is how to upload the mp3 file to a site that WordPress allows access to. 

Microphones – Part I

I think microphones are the most confusing part of creating podcasts.  Most references describe microphones as dynamic versus condenser and directional versus omni-directional. They describe the pickup patterns in detail, which is good.  But what is missing is how to apply this information to specific situations.

For example, for this scenario, what microphone is best? I will be conducting oral history interviews. I will most likely be in someone’s home, sitting across the kitchen table from them, so approximately 3 feet from them. The interview will probably last 1 hour to 1 ½ hours.

So far, the best choices seem to be an omni-directional mic, a cardioid mic, or lavaliere mics.

In “Audio Field Recording Equipment Guide”, Andy Kolovos of The Vermont Folklife Center  says:

“For most ethnographic and oral history interviewing a decent dynamic mono mic – whether directional or omni-directional – will work great.  They are sturdy, less expensive and, since they don’t require an external power supply, less of a potential hassle than condenser mics.” 

Andy names several microphones that should do the trick, including the Audio Technica AT804 (omni-directional), which I’ve not had a chance to try, and Sennheiser MD-46 (cardioid), which is what we use in class.

The omni-directional microphone makes sense because you can put the mic on the table between the two of you and it will pick up both voices well. It’s more forgiving of placement, and less sensitive to handling noise and “plosives.” (That’s how I did interviews before when I was recording with a cassette recorder and an external RadioShack mic.)   The disadvantage is that you can pick up other noises in the room – the humming of appliances (most of my interviews seem to take place at the kitchen table), clocks, and other people if they come into the room.  Some of this is okay because it lends authenticity to the interview, but too much can be distracting and make it hard to hear both people, especially if one has a soft voice.

The cardioid mic, like the Sennheiser MD-46, doesn’t make as much sense to me.  Although it cuts down on background noise, based on my experience in class, it must be held two or three inches from the person’s mouth.  That seems impractical and awkward for an hour-long interview.    

Lavaliere mics seem to be the other common choice.  I tried one out in class last week.  It was quite loud (or “bright” as the instructor said) and seemed to pick up a lot of extraneous noise.  I don’t know as much about them, but unless they control the background noise, I’m not sure I see the advantage.  And there seems to be debate as to whether the interviewee forgets it’s there or, instead, “plays” with it throughout the interview.

I have a ways to go before I figure this out and make a decision.