Category: Daily Goody

Instead of rendering your mix and then bringing it into another application like iZotope Ozone 8 and/or RX 7 to perform mastering, you could use plugins on the master buss of your multitrack DAW mix session to do some of the mastering right there. Of course you would still have to set the final LUFS level after rendering your “mastered mix.”

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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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Mouthclicks are the tiny clicks that are picked up by a microphone when it’s very close to a person’s mouth. They are created by saliva, lips, tongue, etc.

Some people have almost no mouth noises and other people have tons.

Causes:

• Dehydration, and surprisingly, over-hydration.
• Not projecting your voice enough. This brings down your voice-to-mouthclick ratio, which is why when people speak in a whisper really close to a microphone you will often hear lots of mouth noise (like in those ASMR videos).

Some people are almost “allergic” to hearing someone’s mouth noises and they will immediately turn off a podcast if someone on there has nasty mouthclicks and/or noises.

To get rid of mouth noises in post-production:

• iZotope RX has a module called Mouth De-click which is great for removing mouthclicks.
• And I recently tried a plugin called Spiff from Oeksound which can also remove mouthclicks and noises.

NOTE: You _could_ remove mouthclicks by hand in the editing process but if there are too many then this manual process becomes impractical.

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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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Generally speaking, the amateur fades out music too abruptly, usually using a “straight line” fade – a uniform reduction of the volume from full volume all the way to silence.

Using more gentle and transparent fades are the mark of a professional, and this usually means fading out the music more slowly as the volume approaches silence. In other words, start the fade with one slope, then midway through the fade adjust the slope to be more gentle, then near the end make it even more gentle.

And this applies in reverse to fading music in.

Of course, if you want to create an effect of music stopping abruptly or fading in quickly, you obviously can.

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The Cloudlifter provides up to +25dB of ultra-clean gain in two distinct stages and optimal impedance loading for dynamic and ribbon mics to perform their best. NOTE: It requires phantom power to function.

It and other similar devices are especially handy when using a microphones with relatively weak output ALONG WITH a mic preamp which doesn’t provide a lot of gain. (Like a Shure SM7b plugged into a cheap Behringer mixer, etc.)

To use it:

1. Connect the output of the Cloudlifter to a preamplifier, mixer, or any other source that is capable of supplying phantom power.
2. Connect your Passive microphone (dynamic, ribbon, crystal, or otherwise) to the input of the Cloudlifter. NOTE: It cannot and need not be used with microphones that require phantom power, like condenser mics; those mic’s usually have a strong enough output level not to need a boost from a Cloudlifter.
3. Turn on phantom power.

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Question from Chip:

I enjoyed your episode with Emily Prokop and learned some new tricks to use with Reaper.

I just got Scheps Omni Channel and I love it.

I’m trying to find out more about how to set attack and release times for compression. I’ve heard people use language like “fast attack” or “slow release” but I don’t understand how that translates to milliseconds.

Do you have a reference that lists a range of times for the different attacks and releases on a compressor?

I’ve asked the same question a few other places and I haven’t gotten a good answer. So I’m starting to suspect I’m coming at the issue from the wrong angle.

My current setting is an 11ms attack with a 110 ms release. I got it from an NPR guide and it seems to work.

Also, I recently learned that SWS extension will let me normalize audio to specific LUFS levels on reaper. To level my audio I normalize the whole thing to -24 LUFS then I put splits in after each phrase and normalize each clip to -24 LUFS. This results in a nicely leveled file.

I know this probably causes my noise floor to bounce around but I’m not sure it matters because I use an expander. If I add more than like 5 dB to a clip I add RX Voice De-noise just to that clip and adjust it so the noise sounds similar to the clip before and after it.

After everything is leveled to -24 LUFS I use a limiter to boost it up to -19 LUFS.

This seems to work for me but I don’t want to do something that would be considered bad engineering. I just do dialogue using the clip by clip method. I don’t use it on music.

I hope you are having a great weekend.

Answer from Chris:

Hi Chip! Good to hear from you.

Sounds like you’re doing just fine 😉

The attack time of a compressor will determine how much of the initial transient gets through before the compressor kicks in. Perceptually, this will allow the transients to “poke out” a bit more (longer attack) or not to poke out as much (shorter attack). Roughly, I would consider 0-10 ms very short, 10-35 ms medium, and 35+ ms long.

The release time of a compressor will determine how long it takes the compressor to completely deactivate after the sound goes below the threshold. Perceptually, and subtly, this will make the voice sound like it’s closer (shorter release) or further away (longer release). Roughly, I would consider 0-100 ms short, 100-500 ms medium, and 500+ ms long. Also, most compressors are capable of up to a 5000 ms release time; generally 2000-5000 ms release times are used to broadly level out a signal which is loud for a while, then quiet for a while, etc.

Also, normalizing each clip after you split up the original track is probably only necessary if the recording is extremely dynamic, meaning very loud at times and very soft at times; this is rare, but can happen when someone has terrible mic technique. If the original track is OK in this regard, you’d probably be OK just using a compressor or two on the entire track, which would save you time of splitting them up and normalizing separately, etc.

Hope this helps.

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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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Zencastr is a great way to connect with guests online and get a separate recording of each participant.

Like every.. single.. one.. of the other VoIP recording services, they have had a few issues in the past, but it’s a solid service that records good sounding audio – in fact better quality than any other comparable service that I could find.

Note about recording guests using services like this: Most of the problems that happen are because of participants who join — either they haven’t restarted their computer in 4 months, or they have an old computer, or a glitchy Windows machine, their dropbox is syncing, etc. So, to avoid potential problems, make sure your guests connect properly with a decent computer and restart it just before connecting.

Some features:

• Record in lossless .WAV format and/or .MP3
• Receive a separate track for each guest
• Optional automatic post-production to mix all participants audio
• A soundboard to insert your intro, ad, or other audio live as you record

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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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Note: I have not tried this app yet, even though I bought it recently for around $10.

Backpack Studio is a mobile app for iOS allowing you to use an audio interface, record multiple tracks, play clips from a soundboard, mix, publish, and more.

Apparently you can connect a Focusrite 2i2 and other interfaces to your iOS device and record multitrack.

It has lots of features including:

• An automatic mixing function.
• Effects including compression, limiting, and EQ.
• An adjustable 0-100% ducking function to attenuate the volume of sound clips when someone speaks over them.
• Publish to various destinations right from the app.
• And more. (Like I said, I haven’t tried it yet)

Have you tried it? What was your experience?

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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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These near-field monitors have gotten good reviews and they are not that expensive (around $300 for a pair).

Serious music engineers would not rate these as the very best, but for the money they are supposed to be very good near-field monitors.

Keep in mind that with near-field monitors, the frequency response is supposed to be flat in order for the engineer to properly mix.

When speakers have a subwoofer and tons of bass it is more difficult and, in fact, risky to mix audio on them alone. That’s why most music studios have 2-3 different pairs of monitors to allow the engineer to switch back and forth between the big huge bassy monitors and the accurate near-field monitors.

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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 sound and music, an envelope describes how a sound changes over time.

There are four stages: attack, decay, sustain, and release.

As an example, here are the four stages with respect to pressing a piano key:

1. Attack is the time taken for initial run-up of level from nil to peak, beginning when the key is pressed.
2. Decay is the time taken for the subsequent run down from the attack level to the designated sustain level.
3. Sustain is the level during the main sequence of the sound’s duration, until the key is released.
4. Release is the time taken for the level to decay from the sustain level to zero after the key is released.

These four stages also apply to the way most dynamics processors such as expanders and compressors operate.

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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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SoundGym describes themselves as “The Gym for your Ears: Get audio ear training online, improve core listening skills like frequency detection or compression, and start sounding like a pro. Anytime, anywhere. Let’s start training!”

They offer some training for free and a lot more if you pay.

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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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Before adjusting the final level of your episodes to be the standard -19 LUFS (mono) or -16 LUFS (stereo), you can use some compression and/or limiting on the final mix to make it seem louder. It will also reduce the dynamic range (the volume difference between loud parts and soft parts).

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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 podcast guests mumble or trail off at the end of sentences, etc.

At times they speak so softly that the listener will have trouble hearing those parts.

Using compression helps raise the level of these sections in relation to the loud and normal  parts.

But sometimes you have to go caveman and manually boost the level of particularly quiet parts. Basically you highlight the quiet section in your software and boost it like 4, 8, or 12 dB etc.

One thing to be careful of: Boosting it too much making it sound too 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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Some people are heavy breathers in general, and others APPEAR to be heavy breathers because of the proximity of their microphone to their mouth.

If someone is wearing a headset (not earbuds, an actual headset) and the mic is situated under their nose, it will pick up a lot of breath sound. It’s best, during soundcheck before recording, to ask them to move the mic to a position that doesn’t pick up their breaths as much.

Dealing with these types of breathing sounds after they’ve been recorded is not difficult, but it may take quite a bit of time to clean things up.

A few thoughts:

• Deleting/silencing their breaths when they’re not speaking is usually the best way to clean up their track.
• Using a gate will not usually work well. Because if the breaths are loud they will open the gate and get through, and if you set the threshold higher so the breathing doesn’t trigger the gate then the gate will start cutting off the beginnings of words, etc.
• Be careful using Auphonic’s leveling and gating features together, as it can sometimes amplify erroneous noises, including breathing sounds.

As always, it’s better to avoid a problem than have to fix it later 😉

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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 it’s your microphone and you control the preamp — never.

If it’s your guest and you control the preamp — never.

If it’s an internet guest and you do NOT feel confident that they can follow your directions as you walk them through their computer settings to turn up the mic level — you may want to accept a low recording level. But not if it’s TOO Low. If it’s REALLY low then you have no choice but to walk them through raising the level. Have fun!

And BTW, this pertains mainly to folks using Windows machines. If they have a Mac it’s actually not that difficult to direct them to System Preferences, Sound, and the Input level slider.

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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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Guests on podcasts, obviously, can’t be required to speak properly and avoid all the crutch words and bad habits that amateur unskilled orators typically use.

Hosts, on the other hand, CAN, if they wish, hold themselves to a higher standard by learning the basics of speaking that are fundamental to the activity they are performing – namely, speaking to many people simultaneously.

And one of those bad habits that hosts can STOP doing is lipsmacking.

Of course, most people who lipsmack a lot do it unconsciously — but should anyone host a show unconsciously???

When I was in Toastmasters about 10 years ago I was amazed to learn that when one member was giving a speech, a few of the other members were evaluating the speaker in order to give feedback later — and one this they evaluated AND COUNTED were lipsmacks!

Encourage hosts to up their game!

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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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Some audio software companies, in order to run their software on your machine, require you to download and store your license on a special USB device (a physical iLok) that holds you licenses, and if you don’t have this USB device plugged into your computer, the software won’t run.

The good news is that these days, instead of needing the actual USB device, lots of companies allow you to have an online iLok account which takes the place of the physical device.

I have many different plugins that require an iLok account and thankfully all of them don’t require the physical device. All I need to do is register the plugin on my machine using my iLok account, and then the plugin is essentially “registered” with my machine so I don’t need the physical device.

And many plugin companies don’t use iLok at all, like Waves, Fabfilter, iZotope, etc.

From the iLok website:

How does it work and why do I need one?

The iLok is a special USB device that holds your licenses for iLok-enabled software. Software publishers use the iLok to provide secure protection for their software. When you run their iLok-enabled software, it looks for the software license on your attached iLok.

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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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Ever since I’ve been producing audio using a computer I’ve always needed a physical volume knob which I could use to control the volume of my monitors.

And yes, I say NEED because the thought of me relying on a some dinky volume control slider on the screen, or up and down arrows on my keyboard is excruciating.

I need to be able to grab a knob and turn it with my hand to adjust the volume of my monitors. Period.

So I’ve been using a Palmer MONICON Passive Monitor Controller, which has been working just fine.

But one of my students just bought the Mackie Big Knob and that seems like a much better product than what I’m using. And he loves it.

Here’s what he had to say about it: “It is so smoooooth… perfect volume control for my monitors, knob is sitting right in front of my keyboard. Connects to two sources and two sets of monitors. Passive, so no power is needed.”

Plus it has a DIM switch, which I miss 😉

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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 it takes a long time to learn something new, usually because you don’t have enough dedicated uninterrupted time to learn everything in one sitting. Usually you are able to learn and practice a little, then return to it again and again when you have time. And then after weeks or months you feel skillful and comfortable with all the aspects of it.

Personally I like taking my time to learn new software and plugins. Mostly plugins these days. And I feel that there’s a real benefit to learning a little at a time over weeks or months.

One of the biggest benefits is allowing my subconscious to “digest” what it recently learned, and then the next time I open the software I find myself noticeably better at operating it.

It reminds me of a seminar I once attended where they asked us each to juggle for 3 minutes even though we had never juggled before. Not surprisingly, I just kept dropping the balls and couldn’t juggle at all. Then we sat down and the presenter kept on teaching. After 30 minutes we were instructed to do the same exercise again the same way we had done it before, and in my VERY FIRST attempt I was able to juggle for like 3 or 4 repetitions! And for the next 3 minutes I was able to have many periods of juggling briefly. Why was I able to do it after 30 minutes of doing NOTHING? Because during those 30 minutes my subconscious was integrating everything I had “learned” from my first failed attempt at juggling.

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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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When you upload audio to Soundcloud, they ALWAYS re-encode it for playback.

If you upload a wonderful-sounding MP3 file, they will AGAIN re-encode it to AAC 256 kbps. Even if you upload an AAC 256 kbps, which apparently is the format they want, they will AGAIN re-encode it as another AAC 256 kbps.

So, you should always upload uncompressed files to Soundcloud – for instance WAV, FLAC, AIFF, or ALAC because re-encoding an already compressed file will degrade the audio quality significantly due to generation loss.

If you have previously uploaded your tracks to Soundcloud in a lossy format, you can re-upload your uncompressed tracks by following these 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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