Forecast →

In an average month, I edit and publish a whole bunch of podcast episodes on Relay FM. I edit every episode of Liftoff, Query and Ungeniused,¹ and sometimes handle Connected and Download.

I edit in Logic Pro X, adding music, removing crosstalk, tweaking segments and — as of about a year ago — adding chapters. These chapters allow a listener to easily skim around within an episode. We were slow to adopt them because there was a real lack of good tools to create and manage them on macOS, but with Forecast, Marco Arment changed the game:

The last thing podcast producers need is more tedious, manual steps to publish each episode. Forecast automates common workflows and saves time even if you never use chapters. And if you want to add chapters, it has never been easier.

Yesterday, Marco published the first public beta of the app. I have been using it far longer than that, and I can honestly say it has made my workflow better.

I now export a .WAV out of Logic, complete with chapter markers embedded in the file. I drag that .WAV into Forecast, which auto-fills the artwork, title and chapters for me. I can enter any other details I want, including chapter-specific art.

Here’s what episode 169 of Connected looks like in Forecast:

The app encodes the MP3 using a the standard LAME encoder, with a twist: Marco’s made it multi-threaded, so it’s crazy fast.

Once all my metadata is in, I can hit save and an MP3 gets saved to my drive, ready for upload.

If you edit podcasts on macOS, you should check this out. Even if you don’t use chapters, it’s a great way to encode an MP3 easily and quickly.