Podcast Engineering School

Topics: 1. Me podfading kinda sorta :( 2. Podfest in January in Orlando, Florida! 3. Next PES cohort starts January 9, 2024 4. Cool new AI search tool: perplexity.ai 5. Hi to all my long lost podcasting friends!

It’s impossible to hear the sound accurately WHILE you’re speaking into a mic, because in addition to hearing the mic audio coming through your headphones into your ears, the sound of your voice traveling from your throat, through your skull and vibrating your eardrums from the inside MASSIVELY skews what you’re hearing through the mic. So I don’t recommend evaluating the sound of a mic by speaking into it. And this is why we offered the microphone test drive booth years ago. We allowed people to speak in to 8-10 microphones, but we would record them and send them the audio later when they could LISTEN to their own voice but NOT while they are actually speaking. LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

I describe the two types of “studio” setups for recording at conferences, etc. — enclosures and “open air” setups. In both, participants should keep their mouths close to their microphones. And proper plosive protection should be used. If you want to capture some ambient sound of the crowd, you can set up an extra microphone to capture that and then in post-production mix it in to taste. My post on this subject — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/temporary-podcast-studios-at-events/ LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

The only situation in which you may need a separate headphone amplifier is when you have two or more people in the same room that all need to listen via headphones. Most interfaces have one headphone jack, some have two, but if you need to plug in more that two headphones you’ll need a separate headphone amplifier. My original post on this: https://podcastengineeringschool.com/headphone-amplifiers/ Two examples of headphone amplifiers: 1. Behringer MicroAMP HA400 4-ch Headphone Amp: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HA400--behringer-microamp-ha400-4-ch-headphone-amplifier 2. Mackie HM-800 8-channel Headphone Amplifier: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HM800--mackie-hm-800-8-channel-headphone-amplifier LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

I KNOW IT’S BORING BUUUUT…this will make you stronguh: Quick overview to put wavelength and frequency into perspective. Here’s the post I referenced: https://podcastengineeringschool.com/wavelength/ LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

Learn all about Descript, its features, limitations, and why you might want to use it for your podcast audio/video post-production. Margaret Ereneta, podcast producer, was kind enough to school us all on how easy Descript is to use. Here’s her One80 Podcast —> http://one80podcast.com/ And here’s the headset Margaret was wearing/using, the ATH-M50xSTS StreamSet™ —> https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/ath-m50xsts Also the show’s Instagram —> https://www.instagram.com/one80podcast/ LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

I show you how to spot and correct asymmetry in order to avoid potential clipping or distortion. I use iZotope RX to correct asymmetry. LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

Always keeping an eye out for new groundbreaking plugins — not to buy them but to try them just to understand them. Levelers, multiband compressors, de-essers, saturation, etc. What is Dolby Atmos? Regarding podcasts you can think of Dolby Atmos as 3-D audio or surround sound. From Dolby’s website: “Dolby Atmos has reinvented how entertainment is created and experienced, allowing creatives everywhere to place each sound exactly where they want it to go, for a more realistic and immersive audio experience. Whether you’re gaming, watching your favorite movie or show, or listening to that new track on repeat, Dolby Atmos transports you into a spatial sound experience that draws you in deeper, so you hear more and feel more.” https://www.dolby.com/technologies/dolby-atmos/ As someone who works with sound, one of the most fruitful lifelong habits you can develop is to continue learning throughout your life. It will keep you sharp. It will keep you up to date on new gear and software, etc. It will keep refining your ear. When can you focus on learning? Every time you’re working with audio try something new or look into parameters you had not used yet. Set aside 1-2 hours every week/month to download new plugins and play with them, or download trial software and mess around with it. Attend conferences where you can talk with other professionals to learn and absorb a lot. Most importantly, follow your intuition with regards to what you’ll focus on learning next. It will not always be something directly and immediately applicable to your current work; it may be in a genre of audio production which you know nothing about, but learning about different aspects of audio production will widen your knowledge and increase your expertise and value. For example, I’ve been researching Dolby Atmos a bit. And over the years I’ve dabbled in so many different areas of audio production. Sometimes the best place to start is by asking yourself, “In what area are my skills and knowledge the weakest?” LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

First, be sure to know your entire signal flow. Second, it’s usually the microphone preamp causing the distortion. FYI, here’s The Location Sound Podcast with Michael Helms that I mentioned — https://locationsoundpodcast.libsyn.com/ At a recent conference my friend Michael Helms attended a presentation where the voices of the speakers on stage started to distort when they got loud. This was due to clipping that was happening somewhere in the audio signal chain. Unfortunately he also witnessed the sound guy lower the faders of the distorted voices which lowered their volume but didn’t remove any distortion! Not good. In this case, and in most cases with microphones, the distortion was due to the microphone preamplifier being cranked too high. The correct adjustment would have been to: 1. Turn down the mic preamp until the audio stopped clipping and distorting, and 2. Push up the fader a bit to compensate for the reduced level It’s not easy handling sound for Live events, but if you know the actual cause of distortion you can quickly and easily eliminate it. LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

When you’re finished recording, mixing and editing your podcast episode, you may want to use a little bit of EQ and compression as part of your mastering step. If you do, you’ll be applying those processors to your entire episode, which probably includes music, host, guest, and ads, etc. When applying any processing to your entire mix, it’s wisdom to only use a small amount of processing. A little goes a long way in the mastering step because your mix shouldn’t need any major adjustments. Any major adjustments that are needed to make your episode sound good should be done in the mixing and editing stages. Mastering is like the cherry on top. For instance, adding only a half dB of some frequencies using an EQ will make a huge difference in the overall sound of the episode. I don’t use much EQ in mastering because I try to get it right in the mix. Regarding compression, I use a bit more compression in mastering because it helps tighten up the entire mix making it more present and perceptually louder. LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

You don’t always have to make your cuts on the first word of a sentence, or an individual word; sometimes you can cut on a syllable within a word. Sometimes it’s easier to cut on the 2nd or 3rd word in a sentence, or even cut on a syllable within one of the words. It all comes down to the performance of the voice you are editing. Meaning, some participants will: …make a mistake and then back up and start again by repeating a few of the same words before continuing on. This makes it easy to edit out their flub. …laugh when repeating those few repeated words. This makes it almost impossible to edit at all because the result will sound really awkward; for instance after cutting out the flub, half of a sentence will be spoken clearly and calmly, and then the second half will be said while laughing. The listener will be confused and has no idea what happened. Usually in those cases I don’t make any edits at all; I will leave the flub because that’s better than an awkward edit. …mess up the end of a word, then when repeating the word they mess up the beginning of the word, so now you have to try to make your cut on a syllable within that word in order to use the good beginning and the good ending of that word. Sometimes this works really well, and sometimes it’s tough to make it sound natural. I’m sure there are many other examples of this type of ninja editing. Have you made any tricky edits lately? LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

Intro music is nice because right off the bat it sets the tone for the show; it immediately creates a vibe for the listeners. But when the intro music goes on way too long by itself before the host comes in, the listeners can get bored or frustrated or both or etc. Of course I’m talking about a standard podcast show which starts with some music and then the host comes in and says, “Hello, welcome to the show!” Listeners aren’t listening to your show to hear music (unless of course it’s a music show!) so get on with it and start the show after only a short bit of music. Of course the music can keep going underneath as the host welcomes the listeners, etc., and then fade out gently after a bit. In the end, there are no rules, which is awesome. But you may want to be aware of how your listeners are reacting to various aspects of your show. LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

Mike Adams has been using Audacity to produce his podcasts for years and now he wants to start using Reaper, so Chris Curran briefly takes Mike through a high-level overview of setting up a Reaper session and using Reaper for podcast post-production. Mike Adams is the host of Audacity Channel podcast, https://www.audacitychannel.com/ — and he also teaches Audacity at https://www.audacitybootcamp.com/ LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

Services like Riverside, Squadcast and Zencastr make it extremely easy to connect podcast hosts and guests to record podcast episodes. Sometimes, though, a guest will not be able to “figure out” how to connect, how to allow Chrome/Brave to use their microphone, or how to use the web interface of these services. There are two best practices to help these folks: 1. Email detailed instructions of how to connect at showtime to each and every guest several days before the recording session. Mostly they won’t even read this but you definitely need to send this to all guests. 2. Get the phone numbers of all guests BEFORE starting the recording session. This way, if the guest doesn’t show up in the session, you can call them. Also, if they enter the session but you can’t hear them or they can’t hear you, and they don’t realize that there is a chat functionality, it’s very handy to call them on the phone in order to sort out the confusion. I’ve had to walk MANY guests through the process of connecting properly and choosing the correct input settings, etc. Guests appreciate this immensely. Get their phone number beforehand and be ready to help. LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

First of all, don’t do this unless there is absolutely no way each participant can have their own microphone. But if they MUST share a mic… 1. If you’re using a regular cardioid microphone (ATR2100, SM7b, etc.) the two guests should sit side by side (as close as possible to each other) and you should point the mic at the area directly between them. This way each person’s voice will enter the mic from the same slight angle. 2. If you’re using a microphone which has an omni-directional pickup pattern, then it doesn’t matter what angle the participants are in relation to the microphone (they could sit on opposite sides of the mic), but they should be the same distance away from the mic as long as they both speak at approximately the same volume. If one person speaks louder, move the microphone away from them and closer to the quiet speaker. 3. If you have a microphone which has an bi-directional pickup pattern, then the two guests should face each other with the mic directly between them. LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

You know what’s NOT a good feeling? When you realize the evening before you’re supposed to publish an episode that you haven’t even recorded it yet!!! Then you have to scramble. Not fun. It’s much better to always have 2-8 weeks worth of episodes recorded and ready to produce, or even completely done and ready to publish. Then, you’ll always have episodes “in the can” (ready to publish) which you can easily publish whenever you need to. This strategy is extremely helpful during vacations and holiday breaks, too. And it’s SUCH a good feeling to be ahead of schedule with regards to recording episodes! LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

The two things you want most: A fast processor and lots of RAM. I typically like to max out those two specifications. Upgrading those two components will cost you quite a bit more but they will save you LOTS of processing time over the years to come. There’s nothing worse than being forced to wait around for a long time for your computer to process or render audio and video files. LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

I demonstrate the technique of clipping and moving all breaths to a separate track and then reducing the volume of that track. This is very handy for avoiding breath-reduction plugins, which don’t always work as they’re supposed to, or as well as we wish they would. Posts I referenced: Emily Prokop (PES 125) — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/emily-prokop-pes-125/ Why I Rarely Use De-breath Plugins — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/why-i-rarely-use-de-breath-plugins/ LINKS: *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

Podcasts are typically published in mono or stereo. 1. Monaural (aka mono) is 1 channel of audio. 2. Stereo is 2 channels of audio (classic left and right). 3. For reference, surround sound is multiple channels which play through speakers which “surround” the listener, like when you go to the movies. Many podcasters prefer to publish episodes in mono because the file size is half the size of a stereo file, which means it’s a significantly smaller file for the listener to download/stream. Also, many podcast media hosts charge podcasters for the amount of megabytes they upload each month; in those cases podcasters would be able to upload twice as many mono episodes as stereo episodes. Also, many podcasters (like me) prefer to publish episodes in stereo because I incorporate stereo music, and music sounds more lifeless when collapsed to mono. Also, I’m not worried about listeners downloading/streaming a slightly larger file – their phones and computers can easily handle that storage and bandwidth. And personally I’m never really in danger of going over my monthly media hosting limit. NOTE: If your episodes don’t include stereo music or stereo sound effects, you should publish in mono because you don’t actually “need” a stereo file. Do you publish in mono or stereo? Comment below! *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

Question: When a participant on a podcast doesn’t speak for a while and then starts to speak, immediately their audio volume spikes loudly for a second or two and then comes back to a normal level, and remains normal for the rest of the time that they continuously speak. And this happens throughout the episode every time they start speaking after they are silent for a while. How to handle this in post-production? Answer: The most likely reason this happens is due to the apps that are processing the person’s audio — like Skype, etc. Many programs use ACG (Automatic Gain Control) and/or compression (and who knows what else) to adjust a person’s volume ON THE FLY depending on their input level — meaning that if a person is really quiet, the ACG will boost their volume, but as soon as the person gets get loud the ACG will lower their volume, and so on. To avoid this issue, you can (and probably should always) turn off ACG in Skype, and usually you’re able to turn it off in other programs, too. And what’s the solution in post-production? A couple options: Use a compressor with a medium/fast attack time (1-30 milliseconds) and slow release time (around 2-5 seconds, which is 2000-5000 milliseconds). Then adjust the threshold so that their loud parts are compressed a bit but their normal level parts are not (or hardly) compressed at all. In your DAW software using volume automation, manually bring down the level of their loud parts, making sure to fade the volume gently so the effect is transparent. I’m sure there are other solutions, too. How do you handle this situation? *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

If you're currently looking to onboard new podcast production clients, Q1 of 2023 is your next best opportunity to have massive growth in your business. Why? Larger companies can access their 2023 budget money starting in January and this allows them to start new projects like podcasts in Q1. The New Year is when lots of people make decisions to start new projects, including starting a podcast. Usually they've been considering it for a while but the New Year provides the spark that finally lights their fire. Jump into January with massive action and focus if you want to grow your production business! Oh, and I have this course, of course ;) HA ---> Getting New Clients at Higher Rates: https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/getting-new-clients-at-higher-rates/ What do you think about January timeframe in this regard? *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

Fyi, this is not an exhaustive list ;) 1. iZotope Ozone — I use this one sometimes. It has many modules including EQ, Multiband Dynamics, Maximizer, Exciter, Vintage Tape and more. You can also use each module as an individual plugin within your DAW! 2. Auphonic — Mostly used by podcasters to level the final episode to the official unofficial LUFS standard (-16 LUFS for stereo and -19 LUFS for mono). And now Auphonic can actually add compression and limiting to make your episodes have a specific dynamic range measured in Loudness Units (LU). It doesn’t include EQ or any other processing, so I would consider this a stripped down version of mastering, yet very handy for the average podcaster for sure. 3. Individual plugins chained together — You could put a bunch of plugins on your master buss in your DAW and adjust them to taste. These could include EQ, compression, limiting, etc. Personally, I usually use Aquamarine 4 (dual-stage compressor) on my Master buss. 4. Plugins that come with your DAW — I think first of Adobe Audition which has lots of great processing right inside the program. You could just apply a mastering preset to the entire mix and voila. Other DAW’s have processing, too, so investigate what processing comes native with your DAW. What do you use in your mastering step, if anything? *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

Some podcast episodes feel painfully slow, drawn out, and energy-less because one or more participants is speaking at a very slow pace. As an editor you can help remedy this by editing the audio a bit "tighter" than usual to increase the perceived speed of the episode. As an editor, here are some things you can do to increase the pace of an episode: Shorten long spaces (between question and answer, between an answer and the next question, while someone is silently struggling to find the right words, etc.) Umms and stutters (the usual) Repeated sentences (usually short sentences like, “Yes, I truly believe that. Yes, I truly believe that.”) Removing an entire question and answer (usually when the guest’s answer was essentially the same as their answer to another question) NOTE: You can only fix so much in post-production. The “performances” of the hosts and guests will set the pace. If a guest or host is dreadfully boring and slow you won’t be able to completely fix that! Hosts can learn to be more energetic and succinct, etc., but unfortunately guests will be what they are and there’s no changing that. *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

…because your faculty of hearing is vital to audio production… Here’s some solid foundational information from audiologist/audio engineer Dr. Derek: Ear Wax Removal – How to Clean Your Ears (Best Practices) – https://youtu.be/bxEFJfcxLi8 FYI, he says usually people don’t need to do any earwax cleaning because their ears will shed/eject the wax on their own. As always, you should ask your doctor (or mother-in-law, etc.) to decide what is best for you. Even though I’ve seen so many people saying that Q-tips are bad, I VERY GENTLY use Q-tips approximately once per week and I DON’T GO DEEP AT ALL. I’m extremely conscious and careful. And sometimes I forget for 2 months. Do you have any earwax cleaning methods or habits? *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/

If you’re using multiple microphones in the same room, the angles you face the mics will impact how much separation (or bleed) there will be between microphones. Inevitably some of each individuals voice will be picked up by every mic in the room, but you want to minimize that bleed so that each voice can be more distinct and separated, and therefore more intelligible. If you have 2 microphones: Participants should face each other and the mics should face directly away from each other. If you have 3 microphones: Point the microphones 120 degrees away from each other. If you have 4 microphones: Point the microphones 90 degrees away from each other. *Another vital component in these situations: MAKE SURE that each person is speaking REALLY CLOSE to their microphone. (1-3” away, consistently) *Podcast production tips email list signup: http://eepurl.com/geOdAD *CAREER Option: Learn how to produce podcasts professionally from home and earn a great living doing it! — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/pes-online-program/