The traditional way to create a podcast can be complicated. It involves a recording computer, specialized software, skill to layer audio effects, and a quality microphone all taking up a large amount of desk real estate. With the amazing Bossjock Studio iOS app, you can easily record and publish a high quality podcast from anywhere using just your iPad or iPhone.
Bossjock supports a number of useful radio broadcast features. When you load up the app, you will immediately see a large array of buttons that represent the audio carts. Using these carts, you can load up any number of audio files including sound effects, theme music, bumpers, looping background audio embeds, and even other recordings. From there, simply tap the button and your audio file will play back into your master mix. To get a file into the audio cart, simply tap an empty cart and load the file from your music library, the apps built-in recording bank, Dropbox, iTunes sync, or even pasted via iOS AudioPaste. On the iPad version, you can choose between 20 or 35 cart buttons, while on the iPhone version you can choose between 8 and 15 buttons.
With a loaded cart, you can tap the gear icon to pull up even more detail options for playback. From here you can set in and out points, control if the track will reset to the start after playback, control if the cart will fade out when stopped, control if the cart will duck the audio when the microphone is active, and control if the cart will continuously loop until stopped. You can also set track’s playback volume level and set the button color for easy identification and grouping.
Continuing onto the simple interface, you’ll see the large push to talk microphone button at the bottom. You can tap the small lock to keep the microphone on continuously as well. On the right, you’ll find the audio meters that tell you how loud your recording is currently as well as a slider that controls the volumes of the main mix, the cart, and your microphone. Simply tap the button at the top of the slider to switch between the different sources. Finally, a record button starts and stops the recording.
Bossjock is a complete turnkey solution and recorded shows are podcast ready without the need for post-production. If you wanted to, you still have the option of sending the audio to another app such as Garageband for some additional finishing and trimming via AudioCopy. Otherwise, you have a number of options to publish your file. Take your recording and edit your title and description, and add an episode cover art. Bossjock natively supports exports in mp3, m4a, wav, and AIFF files in both stereo and mono at a variety of bit rates. From there you can send your file to Dropbox or iTunes sync, publish it to Soundcloud or FTP, email it, send it to AudioCopy to paste into another app such as GarageBand, or “Open in” a number of other audio apps such as Auphonic.
Bossjock’s features aren’t just limited to the simple recording and publishing though.
Bossjock also fully supports Audiobus, an iOS audio system that allows other Audiobus apps to send and receive audio directly to each other. For example, you can create a live effects mix in one app and send its output via Audiobus into Bossjock. From there, you can overlay a live microphone recording and other sound effects right into a complete mix.
Bossjock also includes a built-in low-cut filter to mitigate ground noise and two buffer options. Normal buffer provides a slight delay in the real time monitoring, and low buffer reduces the latency to be nearly real time which requires a newer speedy processor. There is also a space for show notes that you can easily reference while recording. Simply tap the pencil button to open the panel.
One of the best features in Bossjock has to be the ability to turn off the iOS Automatic Gain Control on the built in microphone. Normally, iOS’s AGC provides a decently leveled input, but in some situations, the AGC is too aggressive. You can easily hear this when you are in a quiet room and iOS ends up tuning the gain up high to compensate which will introduce a lot of noise. With Bossjock, you can disable the AGC and manually set the microphone levels. In the iPhone version, you can even set the gain manually, but in the iPad version, the gain is fixed. In both versions, you can control the levels with the normal slider and not worry that the AGC will boost your microphone gain without your control.
For capture, Bossjock works with a host of different microphones, including the Blue Spark Digital. Most digital microphones and audio interfaces will work fine so long as they are either made for iOS or support Core Audio via USB with an Apple camera connection kit.
Bossjock studio is an easy to use audio recording app with a host of features that makes podcasting, or any type of radio-style broadcast, simple and fun. It’s by far the premiere app for podcasting on your mobile device, and in many ways, it’s an even better app for podcasting than most traditional computer setups.
You can get Bossjock from the Apple App Store for $9.99.
What about android users