Nick Halsey

<p>WordPress supports featured images out of the box, allowing images to represent posts in various ways defined by the theme. This plugin adds similar support for audio, allowing musicians, podcasters, and anyone who publishes audio with WordPress to feature audio files on posts and pages in a structured way. Each post and page gets a featured audio metabox where an audio file can be uploaded or selected from the media library.</p>
<p>By default, featured audio is displayed at the top of posts and pages <code>(within the_content)</code>. Developers can change this by adding theme support for <code>featured-audio</code>, via several API functions listed below.</p>
<p>Why use featured audio instead of embeding audio directly into posts? Featured audio organizes the content in a structured way, alowing infinite possibilities to customize the way users experience audio content on your site. The plugin ships with one example of this – the featured audio playlist widget. Add this widget to your sidebar and it’ll automatically display a playlist of all of the audio files featured on posts shown on the current view, on views with more than one post such as the main blog page or a category page. The plugin also supports a recent audio playlist widget, which behaves similarly to a latest posts widget.</p>
<p>For a more comprehensive way to manage <em>music</em> with WordPress, particularly if you need to include sheet music alongisde audio, see the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/sheet-music-library/" rel="ugc">Sheet Music Library</a> plugin.</p>
<h3>Developer API Functions</h3>
<h4>Add Theme Support</h4>
<pre><code>add_theme_support( 'featured-audio' )
</code></pre>
<p>Adding theme support for featured audio tells the plugin not to add the featured audio to the content automatically. Instead, you can add featured audio exactly where you want it with <code>the_featured_content()</code> (see below for details).</p>
<h4>Change Supported Post Types</h4>
<p>By default, the <code>post</code> and <code>page</code> post types are supported. You can use the <code>featured_audio_post_types</code> filter to modify this list. For example:</p>
<pre><code>add_filter( 'featured_audio_post_types', 'prefix_featured_audio_post_types' );
function prefix_featured_audio_post_types( $post_types ) {
    // Add support to the sheet_music post type.
    $post_types[] = 'sheet_music';

    // Overwrite the entire list to remove support on pages.
    $post_types = array( 'post' );

    return $post_types;
}
</code></pre>
<h4>the_featured_audio( $args )</h4>
<p>Display the featured audio, if it exists.</p>
<p>Parameters:</p>
<pre><code>$args                   array   Display options.
$args['id']             int     Post id (optional). Defaults to current post id. 
$args['album_art']      boolean Whether to display the album art for the featured audio cycle. Default: false.
$args['album_art_size'] string  Size to use for the album art picture. Default: thumbnail.
$args['title']          boolean Whether to display the title of the audio attachment. Default: false.
</code></pre>
<h4>get_the_featured_audio( $args )</h4>
<p>Get the featured audio, if it exists, as a string. Has the same arguments as <code>the_featured_audio()</code>.</p>
<h4>get_featured_audio_src( $id )</h4>
<p>Returns the url of the featured audio file, if it exists.</p>
<p>Parameter:</p>
<pre><code>$id int Post id (optional). Defaults to current post id.
</code></pre>
<h4>get_featured_audio_attachment_id( $id )</h4>
<p>Returns the id of the featured audio attachment, if it exists.</p>
<p>Parameter:</p>
<pre><code>$id int Post id (optional). Defaults to current post id.
</code></pre>
<h4>get_the_featured_audio_playlist()</h4>
<p>Get the featured audio playlist, if there are multiple posts with featured audio in the current query. Used by the featured audio playlist widget.</p>
<h4>the_featured_audio_playlist()</h4>
<p>Displays (echoes) <code>get_the_featured_audio_playlist()</code>.</p>


Featured Audio

Add featured audio to your posts and pages, like featured images.

libsyn

<p><strong>Libsyn Hosting Account Required</strong></p>
<p>Not already hosting with Libsyn? Sign up at <a href="http://www.libsyn.com" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.libsyn.com</a>, or contact <em><a href="mailto:support@libsyn.com" rel="nofollow ugc">support@libsyn.com</a></em> for details.</p>
<p>Libsyn’s Publishing Hub allows for the perfect workflow for publishing podcast episodes straight from WordPress and into your Libsyn show. Features such as episode creation, Apple Podcasts optimization tags, creating ID3 tags, automated feed/show migrations, pulling in previously published episodes, and advanced scheduling bring some of the best of Libsyn’s publishing options to your WordPress website.</p>
<p>Media file uploads direct to Libsyn, as well as by using already loaded WordPress media or access your Libsyn FTP Dropbox all from one place.</p>
<p>The best part is your media files stay hosted with Libsyn, and your RSS feed will still be generated by Libsyn as well, meaning your web hosting server remains unaffected by your podcast and your RSS feed and media files are unaffected by your web hosting server. It’s the best of both worlds.</p>


Libsyn Publisher Hub

It's a great plugin, the code needs to be updated to make the backend of WordPress not break. 

Otherwise, it does as is advertised.

Style Sheet Breaks Meta Boxes

The Libsyn Publisher Hub plugin allows Libsyn producers to publish their podcast right from Wordpress for easy management of their show.

Featured Audio vs Libsyn Publisher Hub