5 Case Study 1 - Leicester Research Archive - University of Leicester

Toby Travis (V&A): No, I was hired to manage the content management system
or to help manage it and just to do general web development. I have never done
podcasting before.
So you are now responsible for all the podcasting at the V&A?
Toby Travis (V&A): Yes, I do the recording, pretty much decide what goes into
them and then publish them. In a couple of months time, we are going to have a
review and decide whether we will go ahead with it.
Promoters of podcasting often say that to produce a podcast relatively little
equipment and only very basic computer skills are needed. Do you agree with
this?
Toby Travis (V&A): I think it depends what you want to do. If you want to
produce a fairly DIY sounding podcast, then I think it is quite easy to produce.
However, if you want to make something in the quality of the SFMOMA, then its
not so easy. I found the hardest thing is to get decent audio recordings.
Particularly in situations were there is a group of people discussing. Its one thing
sitting down and interviewing someone, that’s ok. Having said that, at the V&A
there is no quiet room, or no studio, so even if you are recording just one person,
producing a high quality sound recording of it is difficult. There is always some
background noise or something going on. Even more so, in a group discussion, I
have done one discussion with some designers… knowing nothing about audio
recording, I ended up with something that was usable, but really quite poor
quality of audio.
What kind of audio equipment did you use and how did you decide on which one
to get?
Toby Travis (V&A): I bought a book called ‘Podcasting solutions’ and that
recommended some equipment, which I went and bought. We are now using a
‘Maranatz PMD 660 Portable Solid State Recorder.’ You can plug a dynamic
microphone into that and record a .wav file from it. I also bought a mixer to go
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