Here’s a nice article explaining the spectrogram/waveform display in iZotope RX.

From the article: A spectrogram is a very detailed view of your audio, representing time, frequency, and amplitude all on one graph. The spectrogram can let you see at a glance where there is broadband, electrical, and intermittent noise, and allows you to easily isolate audio problems by sight.

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If I have a choice between “other” work and audio production, I ALWAYS want to do the audio work immediately. And try new plugins – LOL

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Ampify Studio is a new desktop product available for Windows and Mac from Ampify.

Podcasters could create their own royalty free, custom theme music. It’s designed for people who are novices at creating music. It is free and includes royalty free sound packs that can be used to create tracks. You can sign up for the beta and they’ll send it to you.

From their website: Make music in minutes. We know how hard it can be finding that spark of inspiration, that’s why we’ve made Ampify Studio. Build ideas easily and go from ideas to arrangements in a few clicks. Within minutes you’ll be exploring musical ideas. Get started now and realize your musical creativity.

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The right saturation on podcast voices can make them sound less naked/wimpy and more full sounding and pleasing.

It’s kind of a subtle thing, though.

I use saturation (among other things) on a subgroup of all the voices in each episode:

• True Iron by Kazrog (analog transformer emulation)
• Saturn by Fabfilter (Warm Tape preset or Clean Tube preset)

I don’t always use both of them at the same time, because overdoing it is not good.

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Recently I helped a guest host record a monologue segment. She was reading a pre-written article and she spoke very quickly – too quickly.

So in post I first tried time-stretching her track to slow her pace but it ruined the audio quality by introducing all kinds of weird robotic sounds.

So then I tried creating a Reaper session just for her monologue and slowed down the playback while maintaining the pitch. This worked well and sounded fine. I rendered it out of Reaper as a WAV file which I then added to the full episode session.

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(Note: Curtis Judd made a really good video explaining and demonstrating this)

From Sound Devices:

Using multiple microphones with your MixPre? Enable MixAssist to reduce unwanted microphone and room noise while recording. Sound Devices’ renowned algorithm, once available only on the 6-Series, 7-Series, and 8-Series, is now available as a plugin for the MixPre-3, MixPre-3 II, MixPre-6, MixPre-6 II, MixPre-10T, and MixPre-10 II.

Download at the Sound Devices Plugin Store.

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I recently recorded my singing bowl using a Sennheiser MKH416 into a Sound Devices MixPre-6 for use on my Meditate With Chris livestreams.

To get the cleanest recording (because the singing bowl is not very loud), I had to wait until an airplane passed by, and also had to breathe VERY lightly while recording this. And of course I temporarily shut off the HVAC system so no air would make noise flowing through the vents.

To capture delicate sounds properly you have to be very careful.

Anyway, my recording is not great but it’s pretty cool: ()thank s to the nice tone of the bowl itself)

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After a recent recording session where the guest had terrible plosives, I told him that he could get a windscreen to put on the mic to reduce the plosives, and he said, “Oh, one of those came in the box with the microphone!”

It was a Samson Q2U microphone, and they send a windscreen with the mic.

He thought the windscreen was only for recording outdoors. So I told him to always use it whenever he is recording.

The lesson for me was: If the guest has nasty plosives because they’re not using a windscreen, ASK them if they have a windscreen 😉

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Audio Test Kitchen is the world’s most comprehensive online audio product comparison platform, enabling you to hear the true personality of any piece of gear from anywhere in the world. Audition and compare 300 microphones!

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All of a sudden on my local recording of my mic I heard some scratching sounds, mini pops and clicks, intermittent noise…

Luckily this happened when I was testing some new settings on my channel strip, NOT when recording an episode. Whew!

So I started to troubleshoot where this noise was coming from. It’s the first time I had to troubleshoot something like this in a LONG time, so it was kinda fun (mostly because I was under NO pressure to quickly solve the problem). I started unplugging things, replacing things, ground-lifting gear, circumventing gear, trying different mic’s, etc.

It ended up being my mic cable – a Mogami cable that I have running through my Heil boom arm.

So, temporarily I have another cable connected to my mic, but not running through the Heil boom arm because I have to disassemble the boom arm to get the old cable out and the new cable in.

What I may do is take this opportunity to upgrade to the O.C. White boom arm that I have my eye on 😉

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Does the x stand for extra?

How is this new ATR2100x-USB mic different from the ATR2100-USB that we’ve all liked for many years?:

• Record up to 24-bit, 192 kHz (up from 16 bit, 48 kHz)
• USB-C connectivity
• ~$50 higher price

Of course the most versatile aspect of this mic (and the original) is that it has USB and XLR outputs which can be used simultaneously.

From Audio-Technica’s website:

The ATR2100x-USB is a versatile content creation microphone, designed for live performance, podcasting, and voiceover use. This rugged handheld microphone offers two outputs: a USB output that connects to your computer or other device for digital recording, and an XLR output that connects to a sound system’s conventional microphone input for use in live performance. The ATR2100x-USB also offers a high-quality analog-to-digital converter (24-bit, up to 192 kHz) for excellent fidelity, and a headphone jack with level control for direct monitoring from the microphone. Its cardioid polar pattern reduces pickup of unwanted sounds from the sides and rear. The mic includes an on/off switch and comes with two 2 m (6.6′) USB cables (USB-C to USB-C, USB-C to USB-A) and a 3 m (9.8′) XLRF-to-XLRM cable for maximum versatility. A sturdy tripod desk stand with folding legs is also included for use on tabletops.

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If you’re recording audio from a microphone and you have the mic in your hand and you’re moving it around, for instance to interview people while walking around on the floor of a trade show, the noise of your hand handling the mic will be audible in the recording to some extent.

Some mic’s have low handling noise, which means the handling sound won’t come through in the recording so much.

Other mic’s pick up lots of handling noise making the recorded audio sound terrible or even unusable.

If you’re ever planning on handling a mic while recording, make sure to do some tests beforehand to make yourself fully aware of the handling noise (or lack thereof) that will be present in any recordings.

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Occasionally a funny thing happens to a podcaster (with zero previous audio experience) after they’ve published around 10+ episodes of their podcast – they go on social media and start giving audio advice as if they’re a seasoned audio engineer.

Most of their comments and advice are shallow, uninformed, oversimplified and incorrect.

They show no respect for professional audio production.

They brag how easy it is to produce good audio but their own show sounds pretty bad.

And you know my philosophy about podcast audio quality for most podcasters – it just has to be good enough for people to hear it and understand it – there’s not an absolute need to produce really good professional audio. It helps if your audio is great, but it’s not necessary.

So I’m not being an audio snob, I just want you to understand the truth so you don’t make a fool of yourself, or worse – perpetuate the WRONG idea that new podcasters shouldn’t even consider the quality of their audio before recording and publishing.

Picture two painters standing side by side:

One is a house painter and says, “Yeah, just open the paint cans and paint the side of this house, and do it quickly – the quicker we get it done the more money we can make.”

The other is a fine artist and says, “To create a work of art I use 97 different colors of paint and I pay close attention to the finest details. It takes me months to finish a painting, and my goal is to create a masterpiece.”

Now, what if the house painter said to the fine artist, “Bro, just throw the paint on the canvas and finish quickly – don’t bother with so many colors – and don’t worry about mere details like portraying the face of the subject precisely – just get it done!”

Yeah, you get it.

And a reminder – I’M NOT SAYING that being a “fine artist” of podcast production is NECESSARY, but audio production definitely IS an art, and the resulting audio quality from the “artist” is not even in the same league as the house painter.

“Those who think producing good audio is easy don’t know what good audio is.” ~Marcus DePaula. Seconded by Chris Curran. The motion carries 😉

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Lots of local businesses might want to start a podcast but they just don’t know HOW to start a podcast, or WHERE TO GET ALL THE VARIOUS INFO (from someone they trust) about how to start a podcast. So they don’t ever start a podcast.

What if you could be their knight in shining armor?

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In the late 90s I used a Finalizer 96K hardware unit to master many music projects, and it was quite impressive back then. It was loaded with amazing presets which utilized multiband compression, limiting and EQ algorithms.

Now an improved version called Finalizer is available as a plugin!

Note: It’s made to master music, but I hope to test it someday on “finalizing” some podcast episodes.

From their website:

The Finalizer app compiles the best multiband compression, limiter and EQ algorithms that we have ever developed. They are ported 1:1 from our System 6000 platform, optimized for modern performance and bundled in a brand-new package along with a wealth of new features and an entirely new way of presenting audio visually. The distance between your mix and final master has never been shorter.

They also offer a Free Analyzer, a cloud-based service that allows you to harness the power of TC Electronic’s innovative displays and advanced measuring algorithms:

Brand new TC-developed Compress-O-Meter shows how dynamic and loud your track is compared to other tracks.

Spectr-O-Meter compares the spectral response of your whole track against the spectral response of other tracks for example in the same music genre.

Loudness Radar reveals the loudness envelope over the duration of your track. This is great for checking the different parts relative to each other or to other tracks.

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When transitioning between two ads, or between content and ads, or coming out of ads back into content – how tightly cut should those edits be?

Your answer to this question solely depends on the experience you want to provide for your listeners.

Tight cuts (leaving very little silence) maintain the energy and flow, but can also feel rushed and negatively impact the listeners comprehension of the ads.

Longer gaps of silence bring the energy down and sort of “cleanse your pallet” before going into the next section. Longer gaps can also cause the listener to feel bored and more annoyed by how long the ads are going on and on.

What are your ideas on this topic?

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A recent guest repositioned her headset mic halfway through the episode and that changed the sound drastically.

In post-production, in order to match her first half sound to her second half sound, I split her recording and put each half on its own track so I could process each separately to match their different levels and tones and sibilance reduction, etc.

It worked out well, though of course it added a substantial amount of time to my post-production.

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When using a USB microphone, it’s probably best to plug earbuds into the USB mic instead of plugging earbuds into the computer itself. This helps avoids any weird playback issues (especially on a PC).

On a recent session a guest had their earbuds plugged into their PC while speaking into an ATR2100-USB microphone, and midway through the session they stopped hearing everything. So we had to troubleshoot why they couldn’t hear anything, and ended up having them plug their earbuds into the ATR microphone, and then they could hear again.

Plus, it’s more straightforward for folks to set both their computer’s input and output device settings to the USB mic.

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Let’s say you are going to record an episode with a remote guest who will be connecting on their Microsoft Surface device.

If they have a strong WiFi signal and are connecting using Skype, Zoom, FaceTime, etc., everything should function OK.

However, if they are connecting via Squadcast, Zencastr, Ringr, etc., (service that record participant’s audio locally without them knowing it) there is a chance that the local audio recording made by these services may encounter problems due to the Surface’s lack of processor speed, memory, or other factors.

Some people think that Surface’s ARE regular computers, but I don’t buy that. I’ve never owned one, but I’ve done several sessions with guests connecting from a Surface and there have been problems every time.

All I’m saying is, be aware and be careful when connecting with guests using a Surface, etc. And you may want to ask them if they are able to connect from a regular computer, so you can avoid any potential problems 😉

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