Author: Chris Curran

When connecting with people over the internet, a weak WiFi connection can cause many problems, including dropouts, varying and degraded sound quality, multiple disconnections, and more.

Before recording, make sure every participant has a good strong WiFi connection, or, with the equivalent odds of winning the lottery, maybe your guest can connect hardwired with an ethernet cable!!! Sorry, I know I’m dreaming…

Oh, and some of the worst WiFi I’ve encountered is at the offices of businesses when some guests connect to the session via a conference room at some company. The WiFi there can be some of the sketchiest ever.

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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.”

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When using a computer for audio/video recording, whether you’re recording on that particular computer or just connecting with someone else as a guest on a podcast/video show, it’s ALWAYS recommended to restart your computer before the session. This allows your computer to start fresh and not be all tangled up and running SLOOOOOW with 97 programs and processes running in the background. And then after restarting, you should only open the programs you NEED for the recording session.

This is information you must share with your guests. When you connect with your guests for the session, ask them if they have restarted their computer just now, and if they say No, then instruct them to restart and then reconnect.

WARNING: So many problems can arise if the guests computer hasn’t been restarted since around the Spring of 2016, including not recognizing their correct microphone, disconnecting mid-interview, glitching, dropping out, pops and clicks, stretched words and phrases, and other random headaches, 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.”

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I occasionally use this plugin and I definitely like it. I wouldn’t call it a must-have for podcast production, but it’s a good plugin. I also saw a video where mix engineer Dave Pensado said some really nice things about this plugin.

From Waves:

The API 2500 is a versatile dynamics processor that lets you shape the punch and tone of mixes with absolute accuracy. Its dual channel design lets the 2500 also function as two separate mono channels via a single compression setting. Using auto-makeup gain, you can adjust Threshold or Ratio while automatically maintaining a constant output level. With both “feed back” and “feed forward” compression types, the API 2500 boasts a wide range of incredibly musical parameters which have made it a favorite of engineers the world over.

• • • • Modeled vintage compressor plugin
      • Developed in association with API
      • Switchable 3-position Thrust high-pass filter
      • Variable link left and right channels
      • 3 Variable link filter types
      • 3 Compression modes: soft, medium and hard knee
      • 6 Release settings: 5 fixed, 1 continuous

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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.”

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…and getting into your recordings, here are a few ways to avoid that:

• If you’re using a cardioid microphone, make sure it is pointed directly AWAY from the computer that’s making noise. This will ensure that the least amount of fan noise will be picked up by the microphone.
• If you’re just recording solo and not connecting with anyone over the internet, turn off your computer and record into a portable recorder.
• Use minimal apps and processes on your computer so the fan won’t need to come on.
• Put your computer behind some kind of barrier, or put yourself and the mic behind some kind of barrier.

Can you think of any other options?

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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.”

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If you use a microphone shock mount that uses elastic rope or rubber to isolate the mic from physical vibrations, eventually the elastic rope or rubber will wear out and need replacing.

Recently your favorite Podcaster, Ralph. M. Rivera, had to do this. He said it wasn’t that difficult to do, and he’s very happy with the result.

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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.”

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A transducer is something that changes one form of energy into another.

In audio production examples include:

• Your ears! (converts sound pressure waves into some type of nerve impulses that your brain can comprehend – amazing!)
• A record player (converts grooves in vinyl into an electrical signal)
• Speakers (converts an electrical signal into sound pressure waves)
• Microphone (converts sound pressure waves into an electrical signal)
• An analog to digital converter (converts an electrical signal into digital information)
• A digital to analog converter (converts digital information into an electrical signal)
• Guitar pickups (converts sound pressure waves into an electrical signal)

Can you think of any others? There are many…

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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.”

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Ever wish you could ask questions, get guidance, and bounce ideas off of your very own audio engineer mentor?

Every time you needed help figuring something out you would have someone there to help.

Maybe you’d like help deciding on equipment purchases, organizing your editing business, marketing efforts, pricing, etc.

Maybe you know someone who can play this role for you.

By the way, students of Podcast Engineering School get this mentorship as part of the program!

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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.”

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Becoming known for producing podcasts within a specific niche can be great for many reasons:

• You can pick a niche that you know and love, therefore you’ll never be bored with the topic
• Forces you to narrow your search for new clients, which makes it easier to search for potential new clients
• Promote your services at conferences that serve your specific niche
• You can become known in that niche and get referrals more easily
• And more, I’m sure

Example: I believe Steve Stewart, head honcho at the Podcast Editors Club on Facebook, enjoys working on many financial podcasts.

Can you think of any other reasons why focusing on a specific niche topic could be great for a podcast editor/producer?

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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.”

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When I create an MP3 file from a WAV file using iZotope RX7 or Rogue Amoeba’s Fission (each uses the LAME MP3 encoder…ugh) my final MP3 turns out to be about 0.4 LU lower than the original WAV file. Meaning, the MP3 file is not quite as loud as the WAV file.

To offset this, I set my final WAV files to -15.6 LUFS (stereo) so that the final MP3 file is exactly -16.0 LUFS (stereo).

Here’s what I’m wondering:

Would the same effect happen with software that uses the Fraunhofer MP3 encoder, like Adobe Audition?

If you have Audition and you feel inspired to test this, please let me know your results!

And BTW, this effect DOES NOT happen when encoding to M4A files 😉

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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.”

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When editing a conversation, part of your job is to clean up sections containing:

• People talking over each other
• Unintentional awkward pauses
• Unnecessary filler words (umms, etc.)
• Silence that is too long or too short
• Etc. etc.

And when you’re done cleaning up those elements, another part of your job is to make sure that the final audio sounds 100% natural in terms of timing, flow and naturalness.

If you edit a piece of audio but simultaneously cause the natural timing of the conversation to be distorted, in my opinion that’s not a good edit. Because consciously or unconsciously the listener’s experience will be interrupted by their brain saying, “Whoa, that sounded weird…”

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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.”

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Sometimes it can be tricky to mix phone call audio (usually the guest) with regular microphone audio (usually the host).

The reason is because the phone call audio has a severely reduced frequency range. For more information see the three Daily Goody’s that I have linked to at the bottom.

In my experience, most folks set the phone call audio at too low of a volume. And if you ever listen to a radio station take phone calls you will hear that the phone callers actually sound a bit LOUDER than the host! And this is actually a good thing because phone audio is significantly more difficult to understand because of it’s diminished intelligibility.

Also, most folks don’t EQ the phone call audio to have more clarity than it normally does. Normally phone call audio is not very crisp or clear, and a bit of EQ’ing can make a huge difference in intelligibility. (Maybe remove some mud around 250-450 Hz, and/or add some clarity by boosting around 2-3 kHz)

For more information, enjoy these previous Goody’s:

• Guests Joining From Their Phone
• Wideband Audio, Also Known as Wideband Voice or HD Voice
• Creating That Telephone Call Sound

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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.”

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Here’s a really nice article from Sound Devices: https://www.sounddevices.com/32-bit-float-files-explained/

FYI, most audio software takes any file you drop into it and converts it into 32-bit float, and then all processing/editing within that software is done in 32-bit float, and then when you render/output the file it is “degraded” down to whatever file resolution you want.

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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.”

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A guest with their own local production team helping her/him connect from a sound booth with a great microphone using a computer connected via ethernet instead of WiFi, …oh, and recording their own audio locally, too!

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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.”

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Auphonic Multitrack is software that allows you to do many helpful things in post production:

• Mix together several participants audio
• Clean up each track separately
• Automatically mute a track when that person is not speaking (removing any mic bleed)
• Leveling each track to a specific LUFS loudness level
• Mixing all the individual tracks together
• Outputting the mix as well as each cleaned-up individual track

I especially love using this software when lots of folks are sitting in the same room/studio/stage and all their audio is bleeding into each others microphones. Auphonic Multitrack does all the heavy lifting to clean up all the tracks.

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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.”

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Ever hear a podcast where one person sounds like they are 30 feet down a hallway? Well, they’re most likely in a room with bare walls, hardwood floors and lots of hard surfaces. And most likely they are not very close to their microphone.

All this adds up to terrible sounding audio which can be difficult to hear clearly, which of course provides a bad listening experience for the listener.

To avoid creating this sound:

• Choose a good quiet space to record in that utilizes items that absorb the sound to prevent it from bouncing around the room: rugs, acoustic foam, drapery, fabric furniture, etc.
• Make sure your mouth is really close to your microphone, and be sure to use some kind of windscreen or pop filter.
• And if you wear a huge gaudy tacky holiday sweater while recording, that’ll help absorb sound as well. hehe

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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.”

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Question:

Is it true microphone sensitivity can help to offset preamp noise in a recording? Does high sensitivity also equate to picking up every single noise to be heard??

Answer:

Sensitivity basically refers to the output level of the microphone, and a higher output (higher sensitivity) will require less preamp gain, which means you wouldn’t have to crank the preamp as much which in turn means less “preamp noise.” Also, higher sensitivity doesn’t mean the mic will pick up “every single noise” – it only means the output level of the mic will be stronger, as mentioned above. With regards to picking up “every single noise,” that depends on the transducer type and polar pattern of the mic. Condensers will generally pick up more detail and noise than a dynamic mic. An omni polar pattern will pick up more noise from all directions than a cardioid mic.

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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.”

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