Podcast Engineering School

Squadcast is a service you can use to connect with remote guests and cohosts to record podcast episodes. It’s similar to Riverside, Zencastr and others, but each of these services has their own unique features. Squadcast records video and audio at very high quality, and it records both locally on every participants computer to avoid any internet glitching, etc. It’s a good service with a good team of guys and gals creating and managing it. For all the details visit their website: https://squadcast.fm/ *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/

Reaper is not regarded as the go-to software for podcasters, and some folks even claim that Reaper is no good. But Reaper is an amazingly powerful DAW with tons of features and plugin compatibility. Here’s a post describing all the great things about Reaper (keep in mind the author writes mostly in terms of music production): https://www.gearslutz.com/board/cockos-reaper/1131358-why-reaper-has-owned-world.html I’m not capable of arguing for Reaper because I don’t know all of the technical specs, etc., but my experience with it over the past 11 years has been great in terms of look and feel, performance, stability, plugin compatibility, etc. Plus, the incomparable Garth Humphreys loves Reaper! Here’s the episode with he and I discussing Reaper and lots more: https://podcastengineeringschool.com/garth-humphreys-pes-038/ *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/

Never forget: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Here are 3 basic things you can do to minimize background noise: Choose a place to set up your studio which has the least background noise (see list of noises below) Keep your mouth very close to the microphone when speaking (1-4 inches away) Use a dynamic microphone instead of a condenser because condensers typically pick up lots more background noise. Noises you want to be aware of and then minimize: Inside your “studio:” Air ventilation ducts, computer fans, squeaky chairs, etc. Outside your “studio” but inside the house: Other people in your house making noise (kitchen noise, TV’s, kids playing…), pets making noise, etc. Outside the house: Passing cars and trucks, lawn mower noise, rain, dogs barking, etc. *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 diaphragm is the part of the microphone that vibrates in sympathy with the sound waves that come in contact with it. The sound waves vibrate the diaphragm and then an electrical signal is generated based on these vibrations of the diaphragm. This electrical signal is what needs to be boosted by a microphone preamplifier. What Is A Microphone Diaphragm? (An In-Depth Guide) — https://mynewmicrophone.com/diaphragm/ *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/

Keep in mind these are all electrical signals. Microphone level (The output level of a microphone is relatively weak and needs to be boosted up to Line level using a microphone preamplifier) Line level (The standard level at which audio signals travel through gear, mixers, etc. and the level at which recordings are made) Instrument level (The level coming directly out of an electric guitar, etc. which also needs a preamplifier) Speaker level (The level needed to drive a speaker, which is MUCH stronger than line level) *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 opened Fractal Recording in 2012 in New Jersey. It was a physical podcast studio and I started recording podcasts for local business people. They would come into my studio with their guest and I would record their episodes. Then in 2015 I moved to Colorado Springs and went virtual. Now I “meet” with my clients and their guests in my virtual recording studio (using Riverside, Zencastr, Squadcast, etc.) to record their episodes. The physical setup can work really well if you are a local networking all-star. And you could also do virtual sessions from your physical studio as well. But doing things virtually requires much less overhead, equipment and time, etc. *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/

In reality, a podcast editor can charge client using either of these methods. In my experience, clients like it better when you charge them per episode because then there are no surprises when you bill them. Of course, if a particular episode requires significantly more work than your agreement specifies, then you should charge them a bit extra for that episode. And it’s of vital importance to be clear with your clients on the scope of work for each episode, what you will be doing, what you will not be doing, etc. *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/

Firstly to get your final episode audio to the proper loudness. Also, because adding a bit more compression, EQ and limiting, etc. to the entire episode in the very last step of production can make a big difference in terms of perceived loudness, tightening up the mix, evening out levels of voices (slightly), and polishing the low and high frequencies. Plus you can usually fix any small mixing mistakes in the mastering step, too. For instance, if one participant’s voice is a bit louder than the other participant, a bit more compression will tame or reel in the louder voice, and by comparison bring up the level of the lower voice. And once you come up with mastering settings that you like, you can pretty much use the same mastering processing for every episode. 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 may have different names for these two types of edits, but here are my definitions of these terms: Audio Edits: Removing things which don’t alter the words or message but make the audio easier to listen to. These may include umms, stutters, long sections of silence, lipsmacks, extraneous background noises, interruptions, etc. Content Edits: Removing entire questions and answers, reordering sections, removing parts of questions or answers, choosing between repeated questions because the host asked the same question twice because the guest asked the host to repeat the question, etc. If you’re editing someone else’s show, be sure to be REALLY clear on what types of editing you’ll be doing and not doing. 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/

It can be difficult. Usually it’s the host who has a decent audio setup that sounds pretty good with normal low end (because they have a decent/good mic), and it’s the guest that sounds really thin if they are on the phone or using a bad headset, etc. The voice with more low end is always going to sound much “bigger” than the thin voice, which can deceive your ears a bit when you’re trying to make these two voices the same level. Some possible remedies: One trick is to remove some low end from the voice that HAS lots of low end in order to try to match it to the thin voice. This may provide a better listening experience to the listener. Trying to add lots of low end to the thin voice will rarely work, and sometimes it’s actually impossible like when someone is recorded on the phone where there are basically no frequencies below 300 Hz. It’s hard to boost something that’s not there. Leveling each of these disparate sounding voices to the same LUFS level may help get their level in the same ballpark, but usually you will manually have to adjust their volumes so they sound good together. 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/

These are the two most popular USB podcasting microphones on the market: -- Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB (or ATR2100x-USB) -- Samson Q2U And they both have an on/off switch on the microphone itself. The problem is that when you turn the switch on or off, there’s a loud click/thud noise. So if you were to flick that switch when recording a podcast, you would hear a loud click/thud on your track. Now, if you’re going to do lots of post-production anyway, it’s not difficult to delete these noises in post-production. But if you’re Livestreaming or you just want to avoid these noises… …there is a way: When you flick that switch on or off, don’t actually flick it, move the switch AS SLOW AS POSSIBLE – like REALLY SLOW – and the click/thud that is created will be MUCH lower in volume. The more gently you switch the switch, the quieter the click/thud sound that comes through. Note: You will want to practice this because it takes a slow hand. Now go listen to the song “Slow Hand” by The Pointer Sisters for more tips. HAA 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/ Meditation Livestreams on my fractalchris YouTube channel HERE — https://youtube.com/@fractalchris

Capture their audio as well as possible in terms of clarity, level and lack of distracting sounds. That’s it. Then, in post-production you’ll be able to enhance the sound as necessary. Vital to achieving this goal is sound checking each and every guest before pressing record. When I soundcheck guests I go through a whole checklist to make sure I’m going to capture good audio. The checklist helps me understand and potentially suggest changes to the guests situation — their physical location, device (phone or computer), microphone, connection speed, mic technique, etc. And part of the soundcheck can be a bit of coaching to make sure they don’t screw up their audio during the recording process. How do you soundcheck your guests? 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/

(My answers are below Danny’s email) *EMAIL FROM DANNY STERN: Hey Chris, Hope your new year is “sounding great.” I enjoyed your episode on the MKH 416. I’ve actually been sitting on one of my own for years that I’ve had for video use. And it only hit me earlier recently that I own a mic a lot of podcasters and VO folk aspire to get. But while listening to your podcast I wondered why you have not chosen to use it for your own show (aside from your meditation vids) considering the quality and advantages such as great rejection from the sides and back. Does it just come down to the loss of proximity effect? Can it not be adjusted in post to get the tone you want? Any other downsides to using it as a primary mic in the studio? I’ve been giving it a lot of thought myself to start using it instead of my SM7b. I’m very happy with the Shure for my voice. But like a lot of podcasters I’m in a mostly untreated room (blanket on a Cstand). And I was thinking the strong sound rejection of the 416 might be an overall improvement. For the past few months I’ve used the 416 for when I need to do VO work on the road as a way to deal with changing hotel room sound “qualities” and it’s been good. As silly as it may be, one thing that has kept me from trying a switch is not being able to find a (good) scissors style boom arm that is not counterweighted for a much heavier mic. If you know of any that would work, I’d love to know. As well, I’m hoping you can share what that shock mount is that you are using. Please keep up the great work you’re doing. ~Danny Stern, Producer and Host of the Art Dealer Show – http://artdealer.show/ *MY REPLY: To shock mount my 416 I got the Rycote INV-7 HG MkIII. It’s really good. Regarding a boom arm that would work well with the 416, I have no idea about that. My main observations about my 416 so far: Because I sit close to a wall (just behind my computer), the 416 seems to be picking up some reflections from the wall and making the low-mids sound a bit wonky. After researching this a bit I learned that 416’s work best in big open spaces, and not as well in small spaces. Even though it has a tighter pickup pattern than most mic’s, it’s also a condenser and WAY more sensitive than the RE20 that I use for my podcast. The 416 picks up much more room reverb as well as my HVAC unit sound from across the house! Note: My “studio” (basement) is not acoustically treated very much. Also, the windscreen that comes with the 416 is OK but if you get right up on the 416 like I do on my RE20, the plosives are out of control. So you either need to stay further away, or I guess I could get an additional pop filter or something. Yes, the proximity effect of my RE20 is still a huge reason why it’s still my main podcasting mic, along with not picking up so much room reverb and noise, etc. And I like to get right up on the RE20 as well, like around 1″ to 1-1/2″ away. Hope this helps. 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/

Plugins are audio processors which you can use inside your audio production software or video production software. Most audio production software include some built-in processors like noise reduction, EQ, compressors, and more. There are also many third-party processors which you can “plug in” to your audio software, and lots of these actually model classic audio processing gear because a lot of the older gear sounded awesome. In general, these third-party plugins are higher quality than the ones that come with most audio software. So, plugin is a generic word applied to all these audio processors. NOTE: All plugin companies let you try before you buy, and most give away some free plugins, too. 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/

Signal Flow is the journey of an audio signal from somewhere to somewhere else, including all the cables, gear, processors and conversions along the way. (Examples below) It’s good to know the signal flow of all your audio signals because it helps with identifying problems, understanding why the audio sounds like it does, and understanding that adjustments anywhere along the flow will affect all the subsequent processes that that signal flows through. General examples: From your microphone, to a channel strip (which contains many processes), to an audio interface, to your computer, to your DAW software, through a plugin and then recorded. In post-production, the recorded track can flow through many plugins (one after the other in a chosen order) and then be mixed with all the other tracks, and then flow through the mastering processing, and then rendered as a final episode. NOTE: Along the way there are many opportunities for the signal to be degraded; that’s another reason to know your signal flow. 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/

A/D stands for “Analog to Digital”, and it refers to the process of converting an analog audio signal into digital audio information. Examples of A/D conversion: A USB microphone has onboard A/D converters that convert the analog signal of your voice into digital information, which then enters your computer through the USB cable. When you plug an XLR (analog) microphone into an audio interface or digital recorder, the audio interface and recorder do the A/D conversion. D/A stands for “Digital to Analog”, and it does the exact opposite conversion of the A/D converters. D/A converters convert digital audio information back into an analog audio signal so you can hear it. Examples of D/A conversion: When you play any audio on your computer/phone/digital recorder, your computer/phone/digital recorder converts the digital audio information into an analog signal which is then sent to the little speakers in your phone/earbuds/headphones in order to create sound so you can hear it. If you play audio on your phone and your phone is connected to a Bluetooth speaker, the digital audio signal travels from your phone to the speaker (through the air!), and then the speaker converts the digital audio information into an analog signal which is then sent to its physical speaker in order to create sound so you can hear it. FYI, the QUALITY of converters in various audio equipment varies widely, and the quality of the converters DOES affect the quality of the sound CONSIDERABLY. As you may have guessed, the more expensive equipment tends to have much better quality converters, and you can bet that cheaper equipment has cheaper, lesser quality converters. 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/

Students at Podcast Engineering School are tasked with completing a class project at the end of the 7th and final Live class. When the student completes this small project, which entails producing a short podcast episode, they are awarded with a Certificate of Completion which they can proudly display everywhere. This means a lot to the student of course, but it also means a lot to anyone who is thinking of hiring that graduate of PES. In a world where anyone can claim to be a podcast producer or editor, PES graduates are knowledgeable and reliable professionals. 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/

There are many ways to find new clients, but the easiest way (and arguably most effective) is to simply: Introduce yourself to individuals and companies who have a marketing budget, and offer to answer any questions they may have in the future about podcasting or podcast production. DO NOT EVER be a sleazy salesperson. Simply be a resource and a professional. Introduce yourself as a resource and end the interaction — that’s it. You also must realize that you’re probably never going to hear from 90% of these folks, so don’t hard sell or be pushy — just be nicey nice. ***You WILL attract good people. FYI, I created a small course called Getting New Clients at Higher Rates. It provides a system to help you get new clients quickly, and it’s a MASSIVE kick in the butt for you. SHORT COURSE: Getting New Clients at Higher Rates (for independent podcast editors and producers) — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/product/getting-new-clients-at-higher-rates/ 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 converting your final episodes in to MP3’s, be aware that in some software there are different qualities of encoding you can choose. And I’m not talking about bit rate or sample rate — I’m talking about a setting which tells the software to encode the MP3 quickly giving lower quality audio, or encode slowly giving higher quality. Not all software gives you this choice, but its worth making sure that you’re choosing the highest quality encoding in whatever software you’re using. iZotope doesn’t give you a choice because they correctly assume you want the highest quality encoding. Thanks iZotope! These apps DO give you a choice (thank goodness most of them default to the “highest quality” setting): Reaper Sound Forge TwistedWave After all your hard work creating episodes, please make sure that you encode at the highest quality (slowest encoding time)! Does your software give you a choice? 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/

Breathing is part of speaking. If you were to delete all of a person’s breaths between speaking, that would sound extremely unnatural. Probably the only thing that sounds more unnatural than that is when you remove, let’s say, half of a breath. It will sound really weird. So when you’re editing out pauses or “dead air,” be sure not to chop off parts of anyone’s breaths. One cool exercise for you to do — listen to some pop songs and listen for the breaths of the lead vocalist — they are SO LOUD — but it sounds natural, and you didn’t even notice them before I pointed them out. 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 discuss Ringr, their updates and fixes, their tweet reply, some specs and pricing plans, and a bit about how Ringr compares to Riverside, Squadcast and Zencastr. My previous frustration with Ringr (from 3 years ago) — https://podcastengineeringschool.com/my-frustration-with-ringr/ 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 unsure about how to process your voice to sound great using EQ, compression, etc., maybe I can help. I’ve had many PES students and TPES listeners ask me to process their voice to where I think it sounds best and then share my settings with them so they can use those same settings on their voice going forward. Everyone has been really happy with their custom settings. I think this process works really well because of my audio engineering experience, my tuned studio monitors, and my ears. This process is most easily done using the Scheps Omni Channel by Waves because it’s a great quality plugin and it includes all the types of processing you could possibly want when mixing. And it frequently goes on sale for $29. Here’s how we would do this: I’ll process your audio using my Scheps Omni Channel plugin to make it sound great, then I’ll send you all my settings which you can dial into YOUR Scheps Omni Channel plugin to make you sound great, every episode. This is a service I will now offer on a limited basis. Message me if you’re interested; all you would need to send me is a raw recording of your voice which has not yet been processed in any way, as well as the introductory price is $195 per voice. 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/

Amateurs tend to get excited when processing audio and add way too much processing, which usually makes the audio sound worse. Overdoing EQ will cause boominess or muddiness or sharpness or anything in between. Overdoing a compressor will cause pumping and breathing. Overdoing a De-esser will ruin the audio. Overdoing saturation will cause distortion. Here’s a method that helps solve that problem: (We will use EQ as the example but this method applies to all types of signal processing) First, do what the amateur does – find what frequencies sound good and boost them (or find which frequencies sound bad and subtract them). Then, back off on the AMOUNT that you added or subtracted. Meaning, if you boosted some low end 6 dB, back it off so you’re only boosting about 4 dB. Then, stick with that sound for a short time, maybe 2-5 minutes, while you’re working on other tracks or editing, etc. After hearing for a bit how your +4 dB of low end EQ sounds in the mix, you will more accurately be able to decide whether that still sounds good, or whether you should add more low end (maybe your initial amount of 6 dB WAS correct), or whether you should back it down to adding only 1 or 2 dB. Obviously you can iterate this process many times within a 10 or 20 minute timeframe and achieve great results with processing your audio just the right amount. 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/

My studio setup is in a fairly quiet area of my house, but when my family members are doing normal things around the house, the noise they make sometimes makes it into my recordings and streams. When I’m about to record any episode or voiceover that’s really important, I will ask my family to not make noise for the duration of my recording session. This works pretty well but I wish I didn’t have to hinder their activities AT ALL. I wish I didn’t have to ask them to be quiet. I’m going to start looking into options with regards to building a soundproof room/studio for myself, or maybe getting one of those pre-made whisper rooms, etc. Up until now I’ve avoided any major construction because, well, one thing is the expense, and secondly I’m concerned that “the studio” may be an issue if and when we sell our home. So for now, I’ll just have to do the best I can. 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 original RØDECaster Pro disrupted the podcast industry when it was initially released in late 2018, and immediately many other audio gear companies started designing their own comparable version (of which today there are many - Tascam Mixcast 4, Zoom PodTrak P8, etc.). Historical Tidbit: It was a blunder not to include multitrack recording functionality when the RØDECaster Pro first launched, but RØDE added it quickly (within a few months) after receiving so much negative feedback from customers and industry folks, once again proving that RØDE is a highly respected company. [VIDEO] RØDECaster Pro II Review by Podcastage — https://youtu.be/E5GSmNcibdw RØDECaster Pro II - https://rode.com/en/interfaces-and-mixers/rodecaster-series/rodecaster-pro-ii User Guide and Support — https://rode.com/en-us/user-guides/rodecaster-pro-ii 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/