Author: Chris Curran

Captivate is a podcast hosting platform with many good features and now they are offering their customers a free Interview Management & Guest Booking platform that integrates with SquadCast. Apparently when a guest books a session in the Captivate ecosystem, a SquadCast recording session will be automatically created. Pretty cool. I’m sure there are more cool features but this is brand new and I don’t have access to it to check it out myself.

Details here.

If you use Captivate we’d love to hear your experience with this in the comments 😉

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Your audio will sound clearer and more intelligible if you reduce the amount of reflections (reverb) in your recording space.

Reflections are the sound bouncing off walls, floors, etc. and create the effect known as reverb. This makes you sound like you’re far away from your microphone in a large hall or 40 feet down a hallway and makes you much less intelligible to listeners.

If the surfaces of your walls and floors etc. are reflective (hardwood floors, bare walls, etc), the sound will continue bouncing around from wall to wall etc. until gradually it loses its energy over time, usually 1-2 seconds. The more the surfaces in your space are covered with sound absorbing materials, the less reverb you’ll capture in your microphone, therefor creating a much better listening experience for your listeners.

Here are some common absorbing materials you can use in your space: Carpeting, area rugs, curtains, soft furniture, acoustic foam on the walls, etc.

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And please keep in mind, the Daily Goody is only a tiny little tip, fact or lesson everyday. Please don’t expect any of these posts to be long, earth-shattering masterpieces that instantly answer every single question you can think of and completely transform you into a world class podcast engineer. “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”

There are many advanced audio tools available today, but no one can be expected to produce professional audio unless they have AT LEAST a fundamental knowledge of audio production in the areas of microphone technique, recording level, editing, sample rate, bit depth, polar patterns, signal flow, gain staging (drink Ralph!), loudness, EQ, compression, acoustic treatment, digital I/O, Fletcher Munson Curve, and the list goes on.

The good news is that these fundamentals are not difficult to learn (unless you decide to “learn” only from YouTube videos, in which case you’ll most likely frustrate the heck out of yourself and completely give up within a very short time like 99.99% of people do).

Another piece of good news is that once you learn these fundamentals properly, they will stick with you for the rest of your life and also assist you in many other areas like video production, music production, consumer audio products, – even dialing in the sound of your car stereo so it absolutely BANGS!, and much more.

Of course, if you’re NOT endeavoring to produce professional grade audio then you don’t have to concern yourself with ANY of this stuff! Just have fun podcasting.

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And please keep in mind, the Daily Goody is only a tiny little tip, fact or lesson everyday. Please don’t expect any of these posts to be long, earth-shattering masterpieces that instantly answer every single question you can think of and completely transform you into a world class podcast engineer. “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”

In today’s podcast industry it is VERY DOABLE to earn over $100K per year producing podcasts from home. I and others have done it / are doing it. Many of my students are on their way as we speak!

There are a few character traits that you will need to develop, though:

• Technical skills – you have to be VERY GOOD at producing podcast audio and efficiently managing clients.
• Outreach – talking with MANY potential clients each week. And when I say many, I mean MANY!
• Persistence for at least a couple years – if you persist YOU WILL NOT FAIL. (Read that again!)
• Strong will and ample confidence – if you need help in this area I suggest setting goals (properly), focusing on your MANY positive attributes as a human being, and having a small, intimate, trusted support team (and this could be just one other person).

Are you willing to put in the effort that it takes?!?! I’m here to support you the whole way 🙂

If you need any help of guidance feel free to reach out to me.

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And please keep in mind, the Daily Goody is only a tiny little tip, fact or lesson everyday. Please don’t expect any of these posts to be long, earth-shattering masterpieces that instantly answer every single question you can think of and completely transform you into a world class podcast engineer. “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”

One insightful habit of professional chess players is that after each of their games they review the game for the purpose of learning from their mistakes and improving their play. Podcasters, editors and producers can follow a similar process with their previous episodes.

This type of evaluation can be completed within a short time and can give deep insight into what can be improved, changed or terminated in terms of audio quality, performance and much more. And you probably only have to do these types of evaluations every 6-12 months. Doing so will ensure that your overall production value continues to improve over time. And you personally will train your ears SO MUCH!

On a related note: Many folks HATE their first handful of episodes. Mostly because of their performance but also sometimes because of the audio quality.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Comment below.

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And please keep in mind, the Daily Goody is only a tiny little tip, fact or lesson everyday. Please don’t expect any of these posts to be long, earth-shattering masterpieces that instantly answer every single question you can think of and completely transform you into a world class podcast engineer. “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”

It’s possible to cut down the time it takes you for post-production by developing a handful of good recording habits.

Here are a few examples:

• Avoid extraneous noises (putting drinks/items down on your desk/table, phone notifications, pet sounds, etc.)
• Avoid moving your mic around too much (mic bumps, rumble, etc.)
• Consciously avoid umms and lipsmacks, etc. (in the beginning you will have to watch yourself like a hawk but very soon your new habit will become second nature)
• Prepare a simple outline for each episode so you don’t fumble transitions
• Train guests a bit before pressing record (instruct them to not make any extraneous noises, to stay close to their mic, etc.)
• Record your show in one take as if it’s Live (this captures lots of authentic energy)

Do you have any additional ideas in this regard? Comment below! I know you can think of at least one additional good habit 😉

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And please keep in mind, the Daily Goody is only a tiny little tip, fact or lesson everyday. Please don’t expect any of these posts to be long, earth-shattering masterpieces that instantly answer every single question you can think of and completely transform you into a world class podcast engineer. “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”

The faster the release time of a compressor, the more “up front” or “in your face” the audio will sound. The slower the release time of a compressor, the more “pushed back” or “not so in your face” the audio will sound.

How would you describe the difference?

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And please keep in mind, the Daily Goody is only a tiny little tip, fact or lesson everyday. Please don’t expect any of these posts to be long, earth-shattering masterpieces that instantly answer every single question you can think of and completely transform you into a world class podcast engineer. “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”

I’d love to hear your answer to this question in the comments!

Personally I’ve used Blubrry’s PowerPress plugin player and Libsyn’s standard and custom players. FYI, here’s where you can see how Libsyn’s custom player looks, and here’s where you can see how the basic PowerPress player looks.

Also, here’s a great article by the incomparable James Cridland of Podnews titled How to embed a podcast player into your website and it shows examples of players from Apple, Spotify, Fusebox, Listen Notes, RadioPublic, Castbox, Podfriend, and Podkite.

Want to receive the Daily Goody in your email, daily or weekly? Subscribe free here.

And please keep in mind, the Daily Goody is only a tiny little tip, fact or lesson everyday. Please don’t expect any of these posts to be long, earth-shattering masterpieces that instantly answer every single question you can think of and completely transform you into a world class podcast engineer. “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”