Software Setup (Audiograbber)

This tutorial is specific to West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church's podcast settings, but may be useful to others who are also using Drupal to manage their website's content. All the software used in this tutorial is freeware. The MP3 creation software (Audiograbber) is attached to this post for download, or it is available off of www.download.com as are several other options. Audiograbber was chosen for this site because of its ability to work on Win95-WinXP and the configuration options it allows, plus the author is very used to this program having used it since before became freeware.

The tutorial will be on a couple different pages so that parts that don't need to be done every time (i.e. this section) can more easily be skipped if someone needs a refresher or someone is stepping in to help out on a computer that already has Audiograbber installed. If that applies to you, please go to the next section instead.

First, you will need to install Audiograbber by downloading the agsetup.exe file attached to this page (scroll to the bottom). If you are inexperienced with installing software, save the file to a place that is easy for you to find (such as your desktop). Double-click on the agsetup.exe icon to install, and allow it to install to the default settings by clicking the "next" button until you get a "finish" button.

If the software doesn't load immediately, click your Start button, then Programs, then the Audiograbber folder, and finally click on the word "Audiograbber" and the program will load.

When the program first loads, it should look like this:

Click "OK" to make the Tip of the Day go away.

Next, click on Settings (from the Menu Bar) and then chose General Settings. The following screen will open:

The changes you need to make are:

1.) Select the Browse button near the upper right part of the window. Click on the white section starting "C:\" - delete what is already there and type "c:\podcasts" in the space instead, then click OK. It will ask if you want to create the directory, select OK.

2.) Select the "Advanced" checkbox in the Naming section and type in "wsuuc-%7-unedited" in the white space (this sets the filenames to be a standard format, %7 will be replaced with the date of the service so the files will sort chronologically).

Click "OK" when you've made those changes.

Next, select Settings again, then MP3 Settings. The following screen will open:




If you don't see LameEnc as an option, close Audiograbber, scroll to the bottom of this page and download the file "lame_enc.dll" directly into your c:\windows\system32 directory folder (c:\winnt\system32 if you're running Windows NT), then restart Audiograbber and continue with the settings below



The changes you will be making are:

1.) Select the radio button next to "MP3 via intermediate wav file. Delete the wav file"

2.) Under "Internal Encoder" make sure "LameEnc DLL..." is selected as it is in the screenshot above (usually it's the default)

3.) Make sure the "Constant Bit Rate" radio button is selected and move the slider over the numbers all the way to the left until it is over 32 (this creates a smaller file of lower audio quality but is fine for spoken word audio, if for any reason you later want to make MP3s of music you will want to go back in and change this setting to at least 128)

4.) Select the Mono and Low radio buttons in the next section (again, if you later want to make MP3s of music, you'll want to change this back to Joint Stereo and at least Normal)

When those changes are made, select "OK"

Next, select Settings one more time, then Normalize Settings. The following screen will open:

The only important part of this one (and the window may be smaller if the "Advanced" lower section isn't showing - not to worry) is to make sure the checkbox in the upper left next to Use Normalizing is checked.

When all this is done, on the main Audiograbber screen there should be checkmarks in the boxes next to Norm and MP3, and all is set for creating MP3s. If you don't have a service that needs to be turned into an MP3 right now, you can close Audiograbber by clicking the X at the upper right corner of the program screen. The configuration settings you've edited will be saved and ready for next time.

If you do have a service to work on, you are now ready to go on to the next step. This has been created as a separate page since, assuming the settings aren't changed to make music MP3s, none of these steps need to be repeated (unless you need to re-install or install the software on another computer).

Creating & Uploading a Service MP3 (Long Version)

This tutorial is specific to West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church's podcast settings, but may be useful to others who are also using Drupal to manage their website's content. All the software used in this tutorial is freeware. WSUUCMedia.org is run on Drupal 5.2 with the Audio module installed and we are using Audiograbber to create the MP3s from existing CDs of the services. If you haven't already installed Audiograbber, please see that tutorial via the link in the column to your left.

This is the LONG version of how to do this, complete with images of what the screen should look like at various points and explanations of WHY you're being told to do things in specific ways. A shorter "cheat sheet" version is available, please see that tutorial via the link in the column to your left.

To start the MP3 creation process when Audiograbber is not already running, open Audiograbber by clicking the Start button, then Programs, then Audiograbber, and Audiograbber again.

You will see a screen that looks like this:

Click "OK" to make the Tip of the Day go away.

If you don't have the relevant Order of Service handy, take a moment to write down the information that's printed on the CD, then insert the CD of the service into the computer's CD drive. Depending on your version of Windows, you may get a pop-up asking what you want to do with the CD - if you do, just click "Cancel" to make that screen go away.

Once Audiograbber realizes there is a CD in the drive, it will say the words "Track 1" in the big white area and blanks in the Year, Genre, Artist, and Album sections. Those need to be changed so that podcast subscription sites (such as iTunes) can recognize the MP3.

Here is an example of how the changes will look, taken from the February 4, 2007 service:

Going from the top of the screen downwards, do the following:
1.) In the Year: whitespace, type the date of the service in the following format: YYYY-MM-DD (it's cut off in the image above, but in that instance it was 2007-02-04). This step is important so that the created file will sort chronologically when in a folder with other service MP3s so please follow that date formatting!
2.) In the Genre: dropdown box, select Speech (you can get there quicker by hitting the S key after selecting the dropdown box)
3.) In the Artist: field, put the names of the speakers in the service - try to put at least which minister it was and who was acting as Worship Associate(s), or if there was a special speaker for a reading. The final edited-down version will usually be cut to only including Welcome/Readings/Sermon. If there was a special music section that was performed into a microphone, including the name of the performer/group is also helpful (unfortunately hymns and the choir rarely get recorded at a decent sound level to be kept in the file so those sections usually get deleted during the advanced editing process).
4.) In the Album: field, enter West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church
5.) Click on the words "Track 1" and then press the F2 key to make it editable. Change the name of the track to the name of the service (in the example in the image above it was You Need Not Think Alike To Love Alike - it's partially cut off in the image but it was all there in the image capture but it is all there in the file). Notice that the screen you're looking at doesn't have the extra stuff in the "information" column - this is because the image was captured after the MP3 had been created, that information is created by Audiograbber and isn't anything to worry about unless the word "error" is in there. Your Time and Filesize columns will also display different numbers as these are specific to the CD in use.

Now that you've edited the information to be specific to this service, click on the hand icon toward the top of the screen with the word "Grab!" under it (make sure that there are checkboxes under Normalize and MP3 - as long as settings haven't been changed from what was instructed in the other tutorial, they should be). The computer will now create the MP3 for you and place it in the directory specified in the other tutorial (c:\podcasts). This process can take a while depending on the speed of the computer, up to about 20 minutes on older machines, so feel free to wander away. Especially on older/slower computers, it's not a good idea to try to do other things on the computer at the same time the MP3 creation process is running.

When the creation process is done, the window that opened to show the status of MP3 creation will go away, returning you to the screen you had just before clicking "Grab!" with some extra stuff in the Information column. You are done with Audiograbber as long as there isn't an error in the Information column (if there is, make sure there are no other programs running that may be trying to do something while the MP3 creation process is going on, such as email software, then click "Grab!" again. If you continually get errors, the computer may not be up to the task without further intervention, ask for tech help from one of the church computer gurus). If you don't have any other services you'd like to convert, close Audiograbber by clicking on the little X in the upper right hand corner of the program window.

Now it's time to upload the file you've created to the wsuucmedia.org website. If you're reading this as you go along, you will need to log in at this point. I recommend you open a new browser window and go to the wsuucmedia.org website in it also, so you can switch back and forth between windows as you go through the steps.

Once on the main wsuucmedia.org page, enter the username and password you were provided with into the appropriate fields in the left hand column (you may need to scroll down the page to see it) and click the "Log In" button.

Now that you are logged in, you will have the ability to create content (the words "create content" are visible to people not logged in, but it takes you to a blank page unless you are logged in). Click on "Create content" and from the page that loads select Audio.

The page that loads will say "Submit audio" near the top. The first thing you're going to do is scroll down to the line that says "Add new audio file:" and click the browse button.

In the window that opens, click on My Computer, then the C: drive, then the podcasts folder. Select the file you created in Audiograbber and then click the "Open" button. Then scroll down to the bottom and click "Submit". Depending on the connection upload speed, you will sit at the same page for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. Unfortunately there is no status indicator available.

When the file is finished uploading, a pink box will appear at the top of the screen telling you that the service-type field is required. Now it's time to put in service-specific information that will be useful to site visitors.

There is no need to edit the Title section, the strange-looking stuff that is there will generate standardized titles from information below.

If there was a special speaker/musician, such as a special offering project representative or Uncle Waldo's performer, it's nice to put a link to their website in the "Body" section. Otherwise leave it blank.

Scroll down to the Audio Metadata section, and you will see information that you entered in Audiograbber has been automatically imported. Sometimes it will lose the Genre; entering "Speech" in the field is a good idea. The next field under that is NOT automatically imported, Service-type. On that line, type "Sunday-unedited" (this will allow the title line to list that automatically and allows for searching/sorting by site visitors).

After that, scroll down the page to the words "URL path settings". Click on the words and it will expand a section with a rectangle you can type in. Enter in the date in the same format you did for the year in Audiograbber - YYYY-MM-DD (this section creates a static URL to make linking it to the sermon text on the main website easier - the URL for the Feb 4, 2007 service in this example is therefore www.wsuucmedia.org/2007-02-04)

Next click the words "Authoring information" and that section will expand. Enter in the second line (Authored on:) the date in the same format as before, then a space and "10:30:00 -0500" - this will set the post to indicate the date and time the service was going on, and also helps the software sort everything chronologically.

You're done! Hit "Submit" and the entry will appear on the main page, as well as in the section titled "Audio Gallery" Thank you for your help!

Creating & Uploading a Service MP3 (Short Version)

This tutorial is specific to West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church's podcast settings, but may be useful to others who are also using Drupal to manage their website's content. All the software used in this tutorial is freeware. WSUUCMedia.org is run on Drupal 5 with the Audio module installed and we are using Audiograbber to create the MP3s from existing CDs of the services. If you haven't already installed Audiograbber, please see the software setup tutorial.

Feel free to print out this page for quick reference. For the long version, with explanations of why certain steps are taken and with some screenshots, click "previous" in the navigation at the bottom of tis page.

1. Start Audiograbber (Start->Programs->Audiograbber->Audiograbber)
2. Write down info from CD, then put the CD in the CD drive
3. "Year:" line - enter date of service in YYYY-MM-DD format
4. "Genre:" dropdown box, select "Speech"
5. "Artist:" line - type names of speakers in the service
6. "Album:" line - West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church
7. Click on "Track 1" then press F2. Type in the title of the service.
8. Click "Grab!" and go get a cup of coffee - process will take 5-20 min depending on the computer. It's done when the status screen goes away.
9. If you don't need to make any other MP3s, close Audiograbber, otherwise repeat steps 2-8 with the additional CDs.
10. Open the internet browser (Internet Explorer or other) and go to wsuucmedia.org
11. Log in using the office login
12. Click "Create content"
13. Click "Audio"
14. Under "Add new audio file:" click browse and go to "c:\podcasts", select the file with the date you just created, click "Open"
15. Scroll down and click "Submit". Go get another cup of coffee while the file uploads, a pink box will appear at the top of the section when it's done.
16. Optional: enter URL of musician or charity that the special offering went to (if applicable) in the "Body" field.
17. In "Audio Metadata" section, "Genre:" line type in "Speech",
18. Also in "Audio Metadata:, in "Service-type:" enter "Sunday-unedited"
19. Scroll down to "URL path settings" and click to expand section.
20. Type in the service date in YYYY-MM-DD format on the "URL path settings"
21. Click on "Authoring information" to expand that section.
22. "Authored on:" line - service date again in YYYY-MM-DD format, then "10:30:00 -0500" (without the quote marks, ie. 2007-02-04 10:30:00 -0500)
23. Click submit
24. You're done, unless you have more services to upload - if so, repeat steps 12-23 now. Thank you!