Category: Daily Goody

Regardless of where you got your show’s theme music from, you may want to EQ that music a bit so it sounds better alongside (and/or under) the hosts/guests voices on your show.

Most royalty-free or stock music tracks sound fine and don’t need any EQ’ing, but some tracks will simply be too bright or too bassy and boomy, etc. compared to the hosts/guests voices.

If the music is too bassy and boomy, it will make the hosts/guests voices sound more small, weak and wimpy.

If the music is too bright and sharp, it will make the hosts/guests voices sound more dull, unclear and muddy.

*Always keep in mind that small tweaks go a long way, for instance removing as little as 1/2 of a dB of some frequencies will make a world of difference.

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.”

.

Of course this is optional, but if your HVAC system is causing significant noise (from air blowing through the vents, or from the unit itself) you may want to turn it off completely when recording. And turn it back on when you’re done.

Personally, if I’m recording any voiceover-type audio I will definitely turn off my HVAC unit.

Also FYI, from personal experience, in the winter if you keep it off for too long your living space will start to get cold!

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.”

.

If a guest connects over the internet using a bad quality microphone, be sure to ask them if they have any other microphones!

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.”

.

Acustica Tan is a free VST compressor based on Acustica’s unique and comprehensive modeling technology. Tan has a fat VCA compression sound and additional control for modulating the shape of the attack curve.

I haven’t tried it yet but Acustica is a very good plugin company.

*To get this plugin free, you have to use their plugin installer program called Aquarius. Download and install Aquarius, then find TAN within Aquarius and click “install.” It’s easy.

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.”

.

There are tons of options when it comes to acoustic panels/foam that will absorb reflections in your studio.

Here are a few I’m aware of: (also, please comment if you know of any additional companies/options)

• The eggcrate foam that I use in my studio (very good price for the size) – http://www.thefoamfactory.com/acousticfoam/eggcratefoam.html
• Audimute – https://www.audimute.com/
• GIK Acoustics – https://www.gikacoustics.com/

And don’t forget about thick curtains, soft furniture, thick carpeting, 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.”

.

I was watching Glenn Beck’s episode 60 on YouTube and his guest Jeff Brown keeps tapping/swiping/slapping the table, and since the mics they’re using are large diaphragm condensers (??!!) ALL that noise is very prevalent and very distracting.

This seems to be a good example of using the wrong mics, but then again it’s video and video people mostly only care about the look. The mics do look kinda cool, each dangling from a wire!

FYI, they must have paused at some point and told the guest to stop doing that because after about 1/3 of the way through the episode he stopped making all that noise.

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.”

.

A harmonic is any member of the harmonic series.

The term is employed in various disciplines, including music, physics, acoustics, electronic power transmission, radio technology, and other fields. It is typically applied to repeating signals, such as sinusoidal waves. A harmonic of such a wave is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the frequency of the original wave, known as the fundamental frequency. The original wave is also called the 1st harmonic, the following harmonics are known as higher harmonics.

For example, if the fundamental frequency is 50 Hz, a common AC power supply frequency, the frequencies of the first three higher harmonics are 100 Hz (2nd harmonic), 150 Hz (3rd harmonic), 200 Hz (4th harmonic) and any addition of waves with these frequencies is periodic at 50 Hz.

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.”

.

Do you realize how much you have learned this year by reading these Daily Goody’s everyday and listening to The Podcast Engineering Show every week?

A fish-ton! A truck-load!

Sincere congratulations to you!

Plus, you’ll receive your yearly audio exam in your email shortly….……..hehe, just kidding.

And BIG Thanks to everyone who commented on the Daily Goody posts, sent me emails, contacted me on social media, guested on my show (!)…..

I appreciate you all 🙂

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.”

.

When a client wants to assemble a “Best of” episode containing clips from various episodes throughout the year, it’s great to have WAV file versions of all previous episodes to cut clips from.

This way you maintain the quality of the original episode audio, as opposed to editing and re-encoding MP3 files which will cause a generation loss of quality.

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.”

.

Loudness Penalty is a cool website I found which will scan your audio and tell you if and how much the big platforms will adjust your loudness level so it complies with their platform standards.

Their site says:

Find out if your music will be turned down by YouTube, Spotify, TIDAL, Apple Sound Check and more. Discover your music’s Loudness Penalty score, for free.

Also, I asked the folks at Loudness Penalty if any of the platforms have different loudness target for podcast episodes as opposed to music tracks. Here is their reply:

“To date, platforms use the same standard for loudness normalization on all of their content, so there are not different values for speech or music streaming. Of course this could change in the future, so we would update Loudness Penalty if it’s necessary.”

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.”

.

I recently recorded a podcast guest who literally said the word “Right” about 300 times.

The funny thing is – I didn’t really notice it during the recording session!

But in post-production it became painfully apparent, so I had to start chopping them out like mad.

And fyi, it wasn’t for my 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.”

.

Check out the free iZotope plugin called iZotope Vinyl!

It could be used for some cool sound effects, and it’s fun to play around 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.”

.

When recording directly into a computer using a USB microphone or earbuds, be careful with cranking up a microphones level all the way for a participant who is in a reverby room.

If the mic gain is cranked up too high, it will most likely cause the sound to be severely limited (compressed/crushed) by the computer and/or app, causing a lower signal to noise ratio, making the reverb and noise floor much louder compared to the person’s voice.

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.”

.

This plugin is Free until February 14, 2020.

It’s called Celestial – a channel ctrip plugin from Acustica.

Channel strip plugins are handy for podcast production because they contain several different processors in one plugin. Celestial includes saturation, EQ, filters, compressor, and stereo spectrum processors.

I’ve been playing with it and I really like it.

FYI, first you have to download and install their installer application called Aquarius, then open Aquarius and install the plugin there.

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.”

.

Sometimes a guest will struggle connecting their audio over the internet and I often have to hold their virtual hand and walk them through the myriad settings and steps necessary for them to be connected properly and sounding good using whatever equipment they have.

Most soundcheck take around 5-10 minutes, but occasionally soundcheck can take 30-60 minutes depending on the guests equipment and computer savviness. Usually after a long struggle all the technical difficulties are sussed out and the interview can start, but sometimes the audio-ruining issues cannot be overcome and we have to give up. In those cases we often revert back to calling the guest on the phone which of course results in audio that sounds quite bad. This concession can also have the effect of sucking lots of energy and/or enthusiasm out of the participants due to the fact that a 30-60 minute struggle produced absolutely no good results. But, the show must go on.

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.”

.

I haven’t tried the Sound Siphon application but apparently it’s similar to Audio Hijack which I love. FYI, both are Mac only.

Sound Siphon makes it easy to capture your Mac’s audio. Use it to create virtual input audio devices that send audio from one app to another. Or, record right in the Sound Siphon app.

Our friend Allan Tépper covered Sound Siphon in BeyondPodcasting episode 13 when he discussed it with Rob Greenlee, and also in this article.

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.”

.

I bought this USB C to Ethernet Adapter so I can hardwire my phone to the internet!

It’s so great to plug my phone in and download and update apps, download new podcast episodes, check social media – all at ridiculously high speed.

Plus it sidesteps my mobile data plan 😉

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.”

.

Have you ever heard of the Heil PR30? Most podcasters and producers/editors have heard of the often-exalted Heil PR40, but have never heard of the PR30.

The PR30 has a bit hotter output than the PR40 so it will require a bit less preamp gain.

PR30 frequency range: 40 Hz to 18 kHz

PR40 frequency range: 28 Hz to 18 kHz

I haven’t tested them back to back so I can’t comment on any tone differences.

FYI, on an upcoming episode of my show I’ll be using the Heil PR30 so you can hear what it sounds like.

And BTW, I know that my previous guest Jonathan Messinger from The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian was using a PR30 as his main microphone. Not sure if he still is, though.

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.”

.

If any recorded audio sounds terrible and has lots of major problems, there’s no way to magically fix everything 100% and make it sound great. New podcast editors/producers don’t understand this, but after one experience of spending 3 hours banging their head against the wall trying to fix some nasty piece of audio hopefully they have an epiphany.

Let us all endeavor to capture good quality audio!

Fact FYI: Podcasting is mainly comprised of people who know absolutely nothing about audio, let alone the ultra-importance of capturing good audio. I’m not criticizing anyone, I’m just stating a fact that we need to acknowledge if we want to do a better job helping everyone produce better 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.”

.