Category: Daily Goody

I recently listened to the LifeAfter podcast and I really enjoyed the mixing of all the episodes, as well as the story. There are 10 episodes and each averages 25 minutes in length – well worth a listen.

Check it out here.

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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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In general regarding echo-cancellation:

• If everyone is wearing headphones or earbuds you should not use echo-cancellation processing, and that is how you should ALWAYS record episodes, unless…
• If one or more participants do not have headphones or earbuds (really?!?!) and they must listen to the other participants through speakers, then use echo-cancellation. But please, instead of lazily relying on echo-cancellation processing, ask all guests to FIND headphones or earbuds, because echo-cancellation has one big nasty side effect…
• That “ducking” phenomena, which happens when people talk over each other and one person’s voice gets “ducked,” meaning its volume gets pushed down significantly and the sound is also completely garbled temporarily, making it inaudible.

Clarification #1 regarding Squadcast’s echo-cancellation feature in particular: When you enable echo-cancellation it is applied to ALL participants’ audio. Which means if one participant doesn’t have headphones/earbuds, then EVERYONE ELSE’S audio will still suffer from the ducking effect refereed to above, which can cause terrible sounding audio for everyone. Yuck.

Clarification #2: Only the person hosting the Squadcast session has control of turning on/off the echo-cancellation processing. And that on/off setting is saved for future sessions.

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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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It’s very unfortunate when a podcast guest has a spouse in the next room who is coughing, moving stuff around, making noise, dropping things, opening squeaky doors, closing doors, etc. And it’s especially horrendous when the guest is using their onboard computer microphone!

Truth: Most people don’t realize that ANY noise that’s happening around them is going to be picked up by the microphone, and that those noises WILL end up ON the actual podcast episode.

In my most recent experience with this situation I had to interrupt the recording mid-episode and ask the guest to please ask his spouse to not make so much noise in the next room, but the guest didn’t want to / couldn’t find the guts to actually ask the spouse to be more quiet. Hmmm. Luckily the noise didn’t completely ruin the episode audio.

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.”

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The Brainworx bx_console Focusrite SC plugin is a channel strip plugin containing compressor, EQ, gate, filters, de-esser, saturation, and of course analog hardware emulation.

It is renowned as one of the cleanest and transparent and frankly best sounding plugins on the market.

Regular price is $349.

I’ll be experimenting with this plugin a lot over the next few weeks.

If you already use this one, please let me know how you like it 😉

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.”

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Check out 10 different monitor controllers in this article from B&H.

Do you own one of those?

Or do you want one?

I’m still using my old and probably overpriced (due to other brands offering many more features these days) Palmer MONICON Passive Monitor Controller. But someday I will upgrade.

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.”

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The microphones on inexpensive old school call-center-type headsets usually don’t sound that good.

But I recently heard one that didn’t sound bad 😉

It was a Plantronics Blackwire 3200 Series Headset.

I’d LOVE to know – do you know of any headsets like this that sound halfway decent?

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.”

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What is latency in terms of audio production?

Here’s what Wikipedia says.

And here’s an article from Sound on Sound.

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.”

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Giving advice to anyone is usually very annoying because, for some reason, people don’t follow other people’s advice – EVEN WHEN THEY ASK FOR IT!

Usually people who want to start a podcast don’t know anything about microphones, interfaces, software, etc. and they almost always want to spend AS LITTLE MONEY AS POSSIBLE. When I’m asked to suggest really cheap gear and/or free services, etc., I always feel so hesitant.

In general, when you spend good money on gear, it works well and it’s easy to use – and that’s why it’s not cheap. On the other hand, in general, when you use cheap gear it’s easier to screw up the sound quality, and it may not be as easy/enjoyable to use.

Going the cheap route is usually more difficult.

Also…

For people who want to look really nice and sleek on camera with an “invisible” microphone and no headphones, etc., please understand, at minimum, good audio requires a decent mic used properly in a decent space.

Let me ask you – what is your experience with giving podcasting audio advice to other individuals?

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.”

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Clients that understand and obey your audio advice — Thank God for them!!!

Conversely, clients who repeatedly MESS UP their audio are much less fun to work with.

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.”

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Most podcasters, editors and producers process their final episode audio to make it the proper LUFS loudness level.

But some of these folks, in addition to setting the overall loudness level, also try to do some last minute fancy audio processing like leveling, compression, multiband compression, vocal riding, DE-ESSING?!?!, NOISE REDUCTION??, etc.

My advice: BE CAREFUL when processing audio like this. It is VERY EASY to ruin the sound of the entire episode by trying to use more processing just because other people might use similar processing. GO EASY when processing audio because it is VERY EASY to ruin good sound quality.

As always, use your ears.

You must learn to use your ears, trust your ears, and MAKE SURE that you’re not ruining episode audio just because you want to use 7 cool new plugins, etc.

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.”

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As mentioned in Podnews, CleanCast is software that “assists you while removing unwanted umms and other filler words from your podcast.”

Try it here.

Post-test survey.

Note: Only works with Chrome. May need to wait up to 2 mins while uploading.

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.”

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*I have not tried Trackspacer yet, but I saw several people online raving about it.

From their website:

Secret mixing weapon

The Trackspacer plugin features a 32 band EQ that reacts to the incoming sidechain signal. It analyses the spectrum of the sidechain and applies a reversed EQ curve to another track. As if by magic, Trackspacer creates space for the primary track by cutting the exact frequencies on other tracks.

No more fighting for space for the vocal in a mix, or any other instrument for that matter. If you have a solo that needs the room to breathe then Trackspacer makes the task easy.

Complicated automation moves on your mix are a thing of the past!

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.”

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A recent guest on one of my clients shows joined the session remotely using a Samson Meteor Mic.

Because it’s a condenser mic, and because it’s on a tiny stand which ends up ensuring that the mic is very far from the guests mouth, it was picking up a ton of background noise (a loud air vent and significant room reverb).

I asked the guest to try plugging in their earbuds so we could see how that mic sounded in comparison.

The earbuds mic sounded MUCH better.

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.”

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Sometimes you may have to call a guest’s cell phone from Skype on your computer. Usually their sound is quite bad with no clarity.

In post I usually remove quite a bit of low end and also add some clarity.

Note: I don’t use much compression in post because it’s already being squished/decimated by Skype and the phone lines, etc.

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.”

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The Timeless 2 plugin from Fabfilter has an amazing number of cool effects inside it – delay, chorus, reverb, flanger, distortion, and MANY more. Seriously, there are many hundreds of effects to choose from.

This is the plugin I’ve been using on my intros and outros for that reverb/delay/chorus effect. (The Podcast Engineering Show)

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.”

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Here’s a helpful Audio Interface Buying Guide from Sweetwater – https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/audio-interface-buying-guide/

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.”

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Enter to win two expensive pieces of gear from Sound on Sound!

1. Enter by Friday April 3, 2020 — Win yourself an outstanding Zen Tour Synergy Core audio interface from Antelope Audio.

2. Enter by Friday May 1, 2020 — Win a Lauten Audio Atlantis FC‑387 FET microphone.

Good luck, and if you win please let me know!

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.”

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Many veteran radio hosts lose their hearing later in life because their day-to-day listening volume has been kinda loud all day everyday for their entire career.

Don’t be like them. Keeping your day-to-day average listening volume low. Protect your hearing for the LONG TERM.

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.”

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Have you been editing/producing podcasts for clients and now you want to earn A LOT more money serving more clients?

Do it! Step up your game, focus and persevere.

FYI, a great Facebook group where you can get a lot of guidance on your journey is the Podcast Editors Club. There have been many posts in that group centered around getting new clients, marketing your services, pricing your services, etc.

And for in-depth audio production training, consider Podcast Engineering School. (see dates for the next semester)

So, have you decided to go for it and create the business of your dreams? (work from anywhere, decide your own hours, decide your own salary, etc.)

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.”

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