I won’t tell you how to do a great podcast but I will tell you how to do a multiple person podcast that is super easy and way cheap.

In my world I use Macs so that’s what I’ll detail here but there should be similar outcomes available on other platforms.

Here’s what you need:

A Macintosh computer running current version of OS X 10.5.5 works fine
A version of Skype for Macintosh that runs on your machine.
A Skyoe account and Skype Dial account with some money in it (for when you call people who don’t have Skype)
A microphone other than the built in Mic on some Macs. For relatively cheap and cheerful, the Blue Snowflake or Blue Snowball are excellent. You can of course use the built-in mic, the quality just won’t be as good, but there’s zero configuration that way.
A copy of Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack Pro. Or another rerouting tool of your choice. I’ve looked at Wiretap Anywhere and it looks cool, but I couldn’t make it work under pressure.
An audio editor like Garageband or Audacity or something along those lines. You do not need to spend a fortune.
A pair of good headphones that plug into the Mac, preferably the over ear types

Now here’s what to do.

Launch Audio Hijack Pro
Launch Skype (order is important)
In Skype preferences select your audio in (the mic) and the audio out (your line out or headphone jack) SIDE TP Get Rogue Amoeba’s FREE Soundsource preference pane, a much faster way to switch inputs and outputs at the OS X level).
Make a Skype test call to confirm your audio setup works, that you can hear the remote site and that you can hear yourself speak and also that you can hear your recorded voice properly.
Now go to Audio Hijack Pro and don’t do the obvious.

On the input tab don’t select Application, from the drop box pick Audio Device and then select your microphone as the input and your internal speakers/headphones as the output.

Here’s a screenshot of that:

Now navigate to the Effects tab, we’ll come back to the others later. You’re now going to add an Effect so click in one of the empty effect boxes (top left is a good place to start) and from the callout choose 4FXEffect | Application Mixer. If you are successful you will get a little dialog box popping up that is the Application Mixer controller. Now in that controller SELECT the application you want to capture, in this case that’s Skype. You don’t need to change any other settings unless you want to fool around and learn, but the basics will get you going.

Here’s a screenshot of what we just did:

To hide my real screen that is not pretty I use a freeware tool called Screenhelper from Katsura Software to put up a fake backdrop and to hide icons. Just so you know.

Now with Skype and Audio Hijack Pro running, go to the Application Mixer windows and click Hijack. It will change from Hijack Off to Active. You are now redirecting the Skype output to the main Audio Hijack Pro tool. In the main Audio Hijack Pro window, click Hijack. Now talk. You should be able to hear yourself in your headphones without having to be on a call.

Now go to Skype and call your other speaker. Make sure he or she has his or her speakers turned off and is using headphones otherwise you will hear yourself as an echo. Chat to ensure you have a plan for your podcast and listen to your mutual audio levels. You have limited volume control so you will need to use the Sound Preferences window or the aforementioned SoundSource to control your input volume. On the Effects tab in the main Audio Hijack Pro window click on the meters on the left and select RMS In. Now as you chat with your co-caster watch the meters as you each talk so you are getting similar levels.

When you are ready to record, in the main Audio Hijack Pro window click Record. Now everything you say or your co-caster says is getting written to an MP3 file in your Music/Audio Hijack folder unless you’ve changed the location. Record your content. If either of you flub a part, say so, wait two seconds (because it’s easy to find that big a gap in your editing software) and do the part again. If one of you will talk for a while use the Skype call controller to mute your side so coughs, chair movement and your cat yowling don’t spoil a take. Don’t try to get it all perfect, that’s what editing is for.

When you are done, click Record to close the recorder and the file. You can unhijack Skype and your mic as well. Now open the folder in the Finder where the file is stored and drag the file you made (AHP uses intelligent naming) into Audacity or Garageband. The file will import and you can now play it back and use the editing tools to clean it up, add content, add jingles or do whatever. My frequent co-caster Erin was experimenting and pushed my voice through a guitar flanger effect. So there’s always room for improvement.

I’m not prepared to get into editing the work down to final, and there are lots of good tutorials out there for that purpose. Now that you’ve recorded your first multi-speaker podcast and gotten through the rush to make something, go back and look at the Recording and Tags tabs. in recording you can control where your files are stored and the quality level. Disk space is cheap so I default to 128kbps and VBR. On the Tags tab you name your podcast, indicate the participants, date it, set the genre to podcast, basically manipulate your IDv3 tags. The last place where you can experiment for days is the Effects page. This is true effects chaining so the order and split chains matter a lot. In addition to the required Application Mixer I always add the Apple compressor (Audiounit | Apple | AUMultibandCompressor because it’s so very good for a free software compressor (part of GarageBand) and a low pass filter. In the example below I’ve added the Steve Harris DJ EQ Mono as well.

Now you can easily record podcasts with multiple speakers using Skype, Audio Hijack Pro and the editor of your choice. Need more than two speakers, no prob, use the Skype conference call feature.