Now, I love Microsoft Office as much as the next guy, but–let’s be honest–Word is rarely exciting. Part of the fun in communicating is using our toys to create multimedia experiences.

In this series, I’ll cover video, audio, photos, and more. First up: adding audio to your website or blog. This is a great place to start because it’ll cost you little to nothing in equipment and software.

Step one: RECORD

While a professional-level recording studio will obviously provide the best results if you’re producing a music album, you can get great audio for the web with any of these (much cheaper) tools:

1. A digital audio recorder: portable, specialized equipment, great for recording interviews or voice notes. You’ll spend less than $100 for some nice features, but if you can live without it, there are much cheaper options.
2. The voice recorder function on your MP3 player or cell phone. You may already own a simple version of a digital audio recorder. I’ve used my BlackBerry to record some audio posts (1, 2, 3) on this site.
3. A microphone connected to the mic jack on your computer. How much you spend depends on the quality of mic–but you get to choose.
4. A subscription service that records phone conversations. I’ve used RecordMyCalls.com, which charges a small subscription fee but gets the job done. If you need to record a phone conversation, this is one option.

Once you’ve recorded your source material, transfer it to your computer for editing.

Step two: EDIT

Although I’ve used more expensive programs, I always return to the free option: Audacity. It’s a free download, and it’s powerful enough that it can probably handle whatever you need. You’ll have to download one more file to let it export MP3s.

Clean up the file by adjusting audio levels, deleting “umm” noises and pauses, and removing any extra material.

Export the file as an MP3. Why?

• It plays almost anywhere.
• It’s compact.
• It sounds great.

Don’t forget to take advantage of Audacity’s tagging ability to specify artist, album, etc. A dialog box should appear when you export the MP3.

Step three: POST

Surprisingly, this is perhaps the most difficult step. How you approach it depends on your site. Ideally, you’ll upload the file using your blog or CMS platform or copy it directly using FTP. If you can’t do either of these, you’ll need to consider alternate file hosts (for now, try googlepages.com).

I recommend a link to the file, which allows the reader to download it directly. You can also use this code (source) to add a Google audio player to your site:

<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3247397568-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=MP3_FILE_URL" width="400" height="27" allowscriptaccess="never" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" wmode="window" flashvars="playerMode=embedded" />

Just replace MP3_FILE_URL with the url.

Here’s an example preview of next week’s interview on diversity PR:

Download clip (.mp3)

For this interview:

1. I conducted it over the phone and recorded it using RecordMyCalls.com (record).
2. I edited it using Audacity (edit).
3. I copied it to my server and posted it with a direct link and the above code (post).

It’s that simple.

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Let me know what you think about this “Tools & Tech” series. Was this post too simple? Too complex? What else would you like to learn? I’m open to suggestions.

If you like this article, tweet it! And don’t forget to subscribe or come back tomorrow, because I’m posting new content every day this month.

(Creative Commons image by flickr user ralphbijker)