Category: Daily Goody

If you’re livestreaming video and audio, your audio should be sent out to the stream at a nice loud level. If your mic’s level is too low, it may be difficult for viewers to hear you.

I recently tried using the Fabfilter Pro-L 2 to boost my outgoing livestream audio. Fabfilter’s support suggested this: “If you need minimum latency, choose the Transparent algorithm and also disable True Peak Limiting in the bottom bar.”

Then I tried using Fabfilter Pro-MB for the same purpose. And Fabfilter’s support suggested this: “Do you want to use zero-latency processing? Disable oversampling and lookahead in the bottom bar, and use either Dynamic Phase or Minimum Phase processing.”

Each of those 2 plugins seemed to create a tiny bit of latency, but I didn’t have time to verify that technically.

Ultimately I decided not to use any plugins to boost my outgoing audio level. I simply boosted the audio level in Audio Hijack, which nicely limits any peaks that go above zero 😉

And viewers remarked that that sounded better.

Do you have any ideas or tricks about livestream audio?

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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, as part of telling a joke or being funny, a person will pause awkwardly for an uncomfortable amount of time.

Think twice before removing any of this silence because your edits could change the timing and effectiveness of the joke. It’s usually best to err on the side of NOT changing it at all, rather than chancing ruining the person’s comedic timing.

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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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For a client’s podcast episode, I recently received a mono file containing 4-5 people on stage as part pop a panel discussion. The levels for each participant in the raw recording varied GREATLY (see the waveform image here).

In the past I’ve processed lots of recordings like this. And it’s never easy to process these files so that each participant sounds good in the final episode.

In this particular case:

First I removed several loud thuds due to people unplugging mics, etc.

Then I evened out the levels of all the participants using various processors in this order:

• Compression
• Vocal Rider
• Multiband compression
• Compression
• Compression

How do you handle situations like this?

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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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Instead of relying ONLY on web-based audio recording services like Squadcast, etc., each and every podcast hosts and cohosts should record their own raw audio locally.

It’s not difficult to do, and those local recordings will be better audio quality than any web-based recordings.

Note: It’s not an either/or decision — hosts and cohosts can easily record their own mic locally AS WELL AS record their mic using services like Squadcast, etc. Plus, it’s always great to have a backup recording 😉

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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 a recent recording session with a guest who was using earbuds for her microphone, I had to stop the session halfway through to remind her to NOT let her earbuds flap around and make noise. Then, for the rest of the episode she held the earbud mic right up to her mouth (which I specifically instructed her NOT to do)!

This resulted in the second half of the episode being way louder and having a much different tone compared to the first half.

In post, to maintain the continuity of the sound for the listeners, I had to EQ match and level match the two vastly different sounding parts.

It took a while to dial it in to my satisfaction, but in the end the entire episode sounded good.

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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 this video, Daniel Hager walks me through Voice Meeter, which is an audio mixer application for PC which mixes and manages any audio sources from or to any audio devices or applications, including custom virtual devices.

Enjoy!

Btw, this video was originally streamed on my PES Twitch channel. If you’re on Twitch follow me there 😉

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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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This guy Ethan Winer did some serious testing on loudspeaker isolation products, which are those foam blocks/pads that isolate your monitors from the hard surface they’re sitting on.

Check out his post 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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Another mic I’d love to try but don’t know when or if I ever will…. Sigh…… But Bandrew probably will soon!

Highlights of the Apogee HypeMiC from their website:

• PureDIGITAL connection for pristine sound quality up to 24-bit/96kHz
• Premium cardioid condenser microphone capsule
• Studio-quality analog compressor
• Headphone output with Blend feature offers zero latency recording
• Premium accessories kit includes tripod, pop filter and carrying case
• No configuration required, just plug in and record with any audio app
• Compatible with iOS, Mac and PC
• Optimized for GarageBand, Logic, and Core Audio compatible apps on Mac

The price is around $349.

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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 listener recently asked me, “Hey Chris. Love the show. Just been listening to you talking with Jim Harold. Question. What does ‘hot’ mean in the context of recorded sound. Cheers.” ~Joff. UK.

My answer:

Usually “hot” is an adjective referring to the high/loud/strong level of audio, as opposed to a levels that are low or optimal. For instance, in practice, if you crank a microphone preamp too much and the level is peaking/clipping, you would say that the mic’s level is really hot, and then you would turn down the preamp in order to bring down the level to a more optimal level. Make sense?

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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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Don’t forget about the back catalogue!

I encourage you to look back at the shownotes of previous episodes of The Podcast Engineering Show to see what gear and software I discussed with each particular guest. I always list the main gear and software we discussed.

Find guests who use the same gear/software you do, and then listen to that episode to pick up details and tricks you can use.

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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Pat Flynn’s Smart Podcast Player has been popular for many years. I always wanted to use it but I was never convinced that having a better player embedded on my website would help grow my show and community, etc. Maybe I’m wrong.

Anyways, “Smart Podcast Player” is now “Fusebox Player” and it’s now a bigger product for podcasters.

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 level at which you record audio normally/locally is substantially lower than the audio level you should send to a livestream.

Recording myself locally for my Podcast Engineering Show, my raw tracks end up being around -25 LUFS.

But the audio level at which I should send my mic’s audio to the stream is around -17 to -19 LUFS.

So boosting up your mic level is important. BTW, some streaming apps and services can adjust your level for you 😉

I boost my level in Audio Hijack, so I can keep my mic and channel strip settings the same for local recording and streaming, so when I stream I jack up the level in Audio Hijack just before it goes out to the livestream.

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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-breath sounds that are super-loud-and-harsh usually occur when a person is laughing really close to the mic. But overall they are kind of rare, so it’s not a widespread problem or anything.

Also, keep in mind that using compression on the whole track will make those vicious breaths even louder.

Therefor, it’s usually best to manually drop the level of these killer breaths to taste by 5-15 dB. But be sure not to drop a breaths level TOO much because that will sound strikingly unnatural.

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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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*Clipped from one of my Twitch streams here: https://www.twitch.tv/podcastengineer

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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 my experience it takes a couple months to plan, record, produce and schedule multiple podcast episodes that will publish while you’re away having fun on summer vacation.

And that also includes scheduling an episode to publish on your first week back from vacation. This way you don’t have to start scrambling the minute you return from Hawaii to record and publish an episode within a couple days, for instance.

There is a peace that will overtaketh you after you have 2-4 weeks worth of episodes done and scheduled to publish. Aaaaaahhhhh.

This advice also applies to your clients if you’re producing shows for others. In those cases, it’s up to you to manage your clients preparation before they go on vacation.

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 recently recorded a very high profile guest on her iPhone via FaceTime.

She did not have earbuds so she held the phone to her face for the whole interview.

Also, her phone was connected via a strong WiFi signal and there were no glitches in her VoIP audio. And she was in a quiet room. And she didn’t make any noise. There were zero plosives! All good.

However at times FaceTime would compress the audio extremely – like at the very beginning of some of her answers. She would come in loud, and FaceTime would crush the level down, and then it would slowly release over 5 seconds or more.

That’s a difficult/impossible thing to undo in post. I didn’t even try to undo it; I simply used compression on the entire track which helped bring up the level of those crushed parts. And there weren’t THAT many in the entire episode.

Overall her audio turned out pretty good, all things considered!

If you want to hear how the guest ended up sounding in the published episode, listen to it here.

*By the way, you can hear FaceTime’s compression pretty well at the very beginning of the guests answer to the first question. Severe compression starts immediately, then over 5-10 seconds as the compressor releases you’ll hear the level rise and the tone change.

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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soothe2 is an excellent plugin; I’ve used the original soothe plugin for years and soothe2 is a major upgrade. Intelligent and transparent – it tames harshness, sibilance and muddiness. It’s much better than a traditional de-esser.

A message from its creators:

soothe2 has been redesigned from the ground up. It will feature a fully revised algorithm, along with a number of new features:
– Completely overhauled processing algorithm
– Full frequency range operation
– Attack and release speed adjustments
– Two different processing modes for different uses
– Full mid/side processing
– Lower latency
– Lower CPU load all-together, along with an even lighter Eco quality setting
– Quality settings can be adjusted separately for offline rendering
– Rewritten graphics rendering to offload most of the GUI drawing to the GPU for improved FPS even on older machines
– Sidechain input

soothe2 has been in the works for a long time, the development starting soon after the release of the original plug-in. Since the original soothe, we’ve redesigned and reimplemented our whole codebase for better performance and improved maintainability. For soothe2 we’ve evaluated a lot of excellent ideas and feedback received from the users of soothe. A lot of the ideas have made it into to product. We’re grateful for all the feedback and support we’ve received over these couple of years: thank you!

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 podcasting gear is used on Joe Rogan’s podcast?

Here’s a nice article describing their setup.

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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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The Apogee Symphony Desktop audio interface will be available in Q1, 2020.

From their website:

Flagship Sound Quality. Vintage Mic Preamp Emulation. Apogee Hardware DSP with Premium Plugins. Immersive Touch Screen Interface.

Symphony Desktop for Mac, iPad pro and Windows packs the legendary sound quality of Apogee’s rack-mount Symphony I/O Mk II into an elegant and inspiring 10×14 audio interface that sits on your desk and fits in your bag. With Symphony Desktop, musicians and producers are empowered to record, overdub and mix with the music industry’s most respected AD/DA converters and mic preamps.

By combining superior performance, with new features like mic preamp emulation, the Symphony ECS Channel Strip plugin and ultra low latency recording with hardware DSP and Apogee native FX plugins, Symphony Desktop will amplify your creativity in your studio or on the go and give your recordings the Apogee sound quality Advantage.

Symphony Desktop: $1299

Symphony Desktop FX Complete*: $1399 (*Includes Pultec EQP-1A, Pultec MEQ-5, ModEQ 6, ModComp and Opto-3A plugins, a $499 value)

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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