Category: Daily Goody

Gain staging is the process of managing the relative levels in each step of an audio signal flow to prevent introduction of noise and distortion. Ideal gain staging occurs when each component in an audio signal flow is receiving and transmitting signal in the optimum region of its dynamic range.

Here are a bunch of places in your signal flow where you should optimize your levels and gain staging: (Note: your particular signal flow will probably not contain all of the following)

• Microphone proximity
• Microphone preamp level (on your audio interface or computer settings)
• Input and output levels on hardware like channel strips, compressors, EQ’s, etc.
• Mixer channel fader
• Mixer master fader
• Recorder input level
• Input and output levels in plugins
• And many more

Noise and distortion can be introduced when the output of one component is so low that the input level of the next component must be cranked really high to increase the level back to a normal level.

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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 seems to me there has to be a compromise between spending an hour or more soundchecking the guest to make sure every little detail is in order vs. not sound checking at all and hoping for the best.

Here are some areas of concern when soundchecking a guest:

• Their computer health/speed
• Input/output settings
• Wearing headphones/earbuds
• Internet connection and speed
• Background noise
• Mic technique
• Connection method

Most soundchecks I do take around 5-10 minutes depending on the guests equipment, knowledge and experience.

Which do you think is most important?

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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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Many issues can be avoided when using Chrome by keeping it up to date. And it takes less than a minute to verify and update.

Issues may include not being able to hear other people, not being able to choose your input and output devices, microphone signal not going through, clicks in the audio, etc.

To verify and update your Chrome version, click on: The three dots in the very top right of the Chrome window, then Help, then About Google Chrome

If you are connecting with guests via Zencastr or Squadcast, etc. you should walk them through the process of verifying their Chrome version and updating it if necessary.

Squadcast and Zencastr etc. do a good job of staying on top of Chrome updates and making sure that their services continue to work well using the latest Chrome version.

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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 your podcast, what is the largest number of participants you will want to record in the same physical space?

Keep in mind that to record each participant on their own track you’ll need a separate microphone for each of those participants, and a recorder or interface which has enough inputs to accept that many microphones. Unless you want to use one microphone in the middle of a table to pick up everyone……but you never want to do that, trust me.

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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 power surge is basically a spike in your home’s electrical current. The spike is very brief, usually lasting less than a thousandth of a second, but it can still cause damage to your audio gear and home appliances.

To protect your gear you can use a surge protector, so instead of plugging your audio gear directly into the wall, you plug them into a power strip that contains a surge protector.

Here’s a good CNET article that covers all aspects of this topic: 10 things you should know about surge protectors — https://www.cnet.com/how-to/10-things-you-should-know-about-surge-protectors/

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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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Our friends Steve Stewart and Mark Deal (of the Podcast Editors Club) are organizing this event! And I’ll be presenting there. And this one-day conference is actually part of Podfest 2020 in Orlando so you can attend both!

From their website:

Do you edit podcasts professionally or want to? Learn the business of podcast production in this 1-day laser focused event designed for the podcast post-production professional. Gain valuable insights and learn how to improve the profitability of your audio production business.

Sign up for early details here: http://PodcastEditorsConference.com

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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’m no marketing expert, but marketing your services to secure new production clients is perhaps the most vital part of growing a successful business.

In general, you can either spend your money on marketing (buying ads, etc.) or spend your time doing free marketing like social media posts, generating longer form content, etc, or some of both.

First question to consider: How much time and money are you willing and able to invest in marketing your business?

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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 SWS/S&M Extension is a collection of features that seamlessly integrate into REAPER, the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software by Cockos, Inc. It is a collaborative and open source project.

Download and install for free.

Some Features:

• Loudness
• Marker actions
• Resources
• Snapshots
• Cycle Actions
• Contextual toolbars
• … and many other things!

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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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As a professional working on audio you need to be able to manipulate an audio file in many ways for the purpose of fixing mistakes, polishing the sound, mixing various audio together, adhering to publishing specifications, etc.

Therefore it’s handy to have various software and processors at your disposal with which to manipulate audio.

And here’s a good attitude to cultivate: “Send me whatever files you have and I’ll turn them into the highest quality professional audio possible.”

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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 good to have a saved plugin chain for a person’s voice if you’re processing their voice regularly, and it’s usually comprised of EQ and compression, etc.

In my experience tweaking those presets every episode is almost always necessary, even if it’s the same person’s voice recorded through the same microphone, etc. Because voices change slightly day to day (level, timbre, dynamics, etc.), plus the other voices on the episode that you will be mixing person #1’s voice WITH will be different as well.

Use your ears (critical listening) on every voice on every episode, and tweak accordingly 😉

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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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What steps are included in your current post-production process?

Do you struggle with any particular processes?

Would you like to remove or add any steps?

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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 your recording level is really low, you need to figure out how to boost the level so it’s recorded at strong healthy level.

To do this, follow the microphone signal through it’s entire journey from microphone to recorder and make sure the level is strong at each transition.

Your signal path may include some or all of these transitions: Microphone to preamp, to mixer, to interface, to computer input device (settings), and to recording software/hardware (settings).

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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 a HUGE help to a podcast producer when a guest records his/her own audio locally.

Usually this audio is the highest quality recording you can hope for – an uncompressed WAV file which hasn’t been degraded by traveling through the internet.

After the episode recording the guest can send the file via Dropbox, etc.

Beware though – there have been a few cases where the guest was recording locally but either the recording failed or they recorded all the participants on the same track! So in addition to a guests local recording you should ALWAYS record a “backup” track of their voice using an online recording service (Zencastr, Squadcast, etc.) and/or the hosts/producers local computer.

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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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Adobe Audition, formerly Cool Edit Pro, is a digital audio workstation (DAW) from Adobe Systems featuring both a multitrack, non-destructive mix/edit environment and a destructive-approach waveform editing view.

All the aspects of this software are very high quality. In fact, for podcasting this may be the overall highest quality production software available. In general, the built-in plugins/processors are better quality than those in other DAWs.

The only downside is the monthly fee, which you have to pay every month, forever, as long as you want to continue using the software, which will cost you $20.99 per month, or you can get it as part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud All Apps bundle.

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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Keeping your studio nice and tidy seems to have the effect of relaxing your mind.

Whereas if your studio is a complete mess with crap strewn about everywhere, you’re likely to carry a little extra stress in your mind.

True or false: When we clean up our physical environment, our mind is also cleared up a bit.

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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 Electro-Voice RE20 microphone is extremely popular in radio studios.

It’s also one of the best podcasting microphones, but the $450 price tag puts it out of range of many podcasters.

I use an RE20 on my show and it’s a great sounding microphone on most people’s voices.

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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 sample rate of audio describes how many digital “snapshots” (or samples) per second were taken of the original analog signal when converting that analog signal to digital.

The higher the sample rate, the more accurately the digital information represents the original analog signal. Higher sample rate equals higher resolution.

Standard sample rates are 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz.

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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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One of the most valuable benefits of attending Podcast Engineering School is being invited to the school’s official Slack group, which offers lifetime personal support to students and alumni.

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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