Category: Daily Goody

The creators of Podcaster’s Toolbox, Carol Lynn and Ralph M. Rivera, recently purchased a Focusrite 6i6 Interface.

Besides being very high quality, there are a couple features they were looking for that convinced them to buy it:

• Two XLR inputs as well as two 1/4” line inputs (so they can plug in their mics and still have 2 line inputs for sound effects, remote guests, etc.)
• Two headphone jacks, each with its own volume control. This is important to them because each like their headphone volume to be just right, and now they can each set their volume to their personal preference without affecting the others volume.

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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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Play this short piece of audio and comment below about what effect you think I used on my voice: (no peeking at previous guesses!)

Also you are welcome to download the file.

And you are welcome to share this with others, too.

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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 heading up the Ask The Expert booth at NAB in their Podcast Pavilion area from today through Thursday (Apr. 8-11).

And I have some awesome help:

• Addy Saucedo (The Podcast Planner)
• Ralph and Carol Lynn Rivera (Podcaster’s Toolbox)

Many other podcasting companies have booths there, too.

*See our social posts from the event:

• Chris Curran – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram
• Addy Saucedo – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram
• Ralph M. Rivera – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram
• Carol Lynn Rivera – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

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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Bit depth is the number of bits of information in each sample, and it directly corresponds to the resolution of each sample.

Examples of bit depth include Compact Disc Digital Audio, which uses 16 bits per sample, and DVD-Audio and Blu-ray Disc which can support up to 24 bits per sample.

For us podcast producers in terms of uncompressed audio like .WAV and .AIFF files:

• 24 bit files are MUCH higher resolution than 16 bit files.
• 24 bit captures more dynamic range than 16 bit.
• 24 bit files are larger than 16 bit files.

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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’ve been enjoying this plugin immensely, not only how it sounds but also the process of figuring out how to set the controls to get the effect I want (because I enjoy tinkering for the purpose of perfecting).

soothe is a “a dynamic resonance suppressor for mid and high frequencies.”

Basically it removes harshness, which for us podcast producers usually comes in the form of sibilance. And it does it really well.

Unlike a traditional de-esser where you set a specific frequency range, soothe is a kind of dynamic equalizer with self-adjusting frequency bands, so it catches and removes sibilance wherever it occurs.

From their website: “Unlike traditional EQ-tools, soothe analyses the signal on the fly and adjusts the frequency-wise reduction based on the input. This saves you from having to manually notch the problematic mid and high frequencies. The reduction kicks in when needed and where needed, without affecting the nearby frequency areas. This results in more detail, top end, and presence, in a way that is hard to unhear.”

And you can try it for free!

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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 is not tax advice; please do your own research.

And note, I’m speaking very generally here.

Probably the best reason to set up a business entity for your podcast production business (like an LLC, etc.) is so that you can clearly deduct all your business expenses and pay less tax.

For instance, you can usually write off all equipment purchases (computers, mics, interfaces, etc.), software and plugin purchases, even “furniture” for your studio, and if you have a dedicated room/office/studio for your business you can usually write off some part of your rent or mortgage, etc. Oh, also marketing services, conferences, travel, business services, etc etc.

This is not tax advice; please do your own research.

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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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Encoding your MP3’s using the iTunes application provides better MP3 quality than many other applications because its Fraunhofer MP3 encoder is superior sounding to the more widely used LAME encoder.

FYI, …

Programs that encode MP3’s using the Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder algorithm:

• Adobe Audition
• iTunes
• Windows Media Player

Programs for which you can buy an optional Fraunhofer plugin for US $339.15

• Pro Tools
• Logic
• Cubase
• Nuendo
• Sequoia
• Wavelab

Programs that DO NOT use the Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder algorithm: (They use the LAME encoder)

• Hindenburg Journalist
• Reaper
• iZotope RX 6, 7
• Fission from Rogue Amoeba

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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 increase the playback speed in Reaper, by default the pitch of the audio is increased as well. As one Facebooker put it, “it sounds like a chipmunk that’s had one too many espressos.”

The fix:

In the Transport area, right-click the Playback Rate slider and select, “Preserve pitch in audio items when changing master playrate.”

That’s it.

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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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Because most Live event staff members aren’t experienced audio producers (including the guy sitting next to the mixing board at the back of the room), many times the recordings you receive afterwards are very sub par. And you will usually receive a mono MP3 file containing all the speakers voices already mixed together! Yay. Or, actually you will receive a stereo file with the same exact audio on both left and right (taking up twice the file size for no reason).

There can be lots of problems with the recording:

• Participants voices at different volume levels
• Applause way too loud
• Levels all over the place
• Questions from audience way low
• Nasty sibilance on one speaker but not the others
• Noise from air conditioners, lights, etc.
• Reverb from the room itself

And your job is to fix all that – congratulations!

Side note: In advance I always ask for multitrack recordings from the event folks but they are never set up to record multitrack. In fact, these days I consider it a huge win to get one mono that’s recorded at a decent level and isn’t too noisy.

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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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Recently I attempted to record a session with a guest and we couldn’t get his audio to come through Zencastr or Squadcast. He said he saw level in his computer, but I couldn’t hear him.

He was using a Zoom L-12 recorder/interface and he saw level there, too.

To make a long troubleshooting story short:

Even though the L-12 is a multitrack device, only the first 2 inputs of the L-12 are recognized by Chrome (for Zencastr and Squadcast). And his microphone had been plugged into channel 7 of his L-12.

Yeah.

So if he plugged his microphone into channel 1 or 2 of the L-12 I would have been able to hear him fine.

Moral of the story: If you have an interface with more than 2 inputs, some audio apps will not recognize any inputs except 1 and 2.

A workaround on a Mac is to use Rogue Amoeba’s Loopback app to create a virtual instrument to group together all the inputs from your interface, and then you can feed them all to whatever app you want to use.

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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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That’s what I tell all guests.

I say, “Every little noise you make – tapping your foot, sniffling, clicking a pen, moving stuff around – will be heard on the podcast, so please be quiet. You may THINK you’re sitting in your office, but you’re actually in a recording studio.”

And this works. It drastically reduces the amount of noise the guest makes, and that is extremely helpful in post-production!

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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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Fission is an audio editor made by Rogue Amoeba. (FYI, personally I only use it to create and tag my final .m4a files.)

You can join files, crop and trim audio, and rapidly split up long files. Fission is streamlined for fast editing, and it works without the quality loss other audio editors cause.

One thing that Fission does that almost no other editor does is edit MP3’s and save them with no generation loss. Meaning, it doesn’t re-encode the MP3 audio to create another lesser-quality MP3 when saving; it simply uses the original MP3 audio information to avoid generation loss.

With Fission you can also:

• Convert between audio formats – export or batch convert files to the MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, FLAC, AIFF, and WAV formats.
• Create chapters in MP3 and AAC files.
• Tag files

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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 Samson Q2U is a USB and XLR microphone, and both signals can be used simultaneously.

It’s a dynamic microphone with a cardioid polar pattern, and it has an on/off switch which essentially acts as a mute switch.

This mic is a great option for solo podcasters because they can simply plug it in USB and be ready to go.

In comparison to the more popular Audio-Technica ATR2100, the Q2U seems to have a bit fuller sound with more low end.

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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 you’re recording podcasts indoors, the sound coming out of your mouth will enter the microphone directly, and in addition the sound coming out of your mouth will bounce off the walls, etc. and THEN go into the microphone.

The sounds that bounce off the walls and then into the microphone are called room reflections.

These reflections can make your recording sound like you’re in a hallway or gymnasium.

To reduce the amount of room reflections you can use various absorbing materials around the room like rugs, curtains, soft furniture, acoustic foam on the walls, etc.

It also helps to speak very close to the microphone.

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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 was recording my clients and their guests remotely, and I had several computers so I could bring each participant into the session on a different computer so I could record their audio separately on its own track.

The audio from each computer was brought into the mixer, then I sent direct outputs from the mixer to my Focusrite 18i20 interface and recorded multitrack in the computer using Reaper. I also used the mixer to generate mix minus’s for each participant/computer.

I had compressors which I could use “to tape” in case a participant was too dynamic.

I had my iPad to play the intro and outro music for each of my client’s shows. This would also go into the mixer then direct out into the computer.

I had an actual phone line as well so I could bring in folks on the phone.

And of course I had my own microphone going through my channel strip and then into the mixer.

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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 once had a client who wanted to record his weekly episodes on Thursday morning or midday and then publish the episode immediately, meaning that day, as soon as possible, as quickly as I could finish producing it!

When he told me this, I immediately blocked out 3 hours of time every Thursday afternoon for the next year, just to make sure no other sessions would be booked on Thursday afternoons.

Each Thursday the post production usually took me about 3 hours, and then I would immediately publish the episode.

Currently I have a client who records Thursday and wants it published very early Friday morning, so of course I have time blocked out to produce this one every Thursday afternoon/early evening.

The key with producing episodes like this is to make sure you have the time set aside to do the work, and of course being very clear with the client about timeframes and expectations, etc.

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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 producing episodes, most of us want to end up with the best possible sounding audio we can manage. To accomplish this, we spend lots of time processing the audio, editing, tweaking the sound, more editing, etc. If we wanted to, we could probably spend 10-20 hours on one episode.

It’s easy to get carried away with tweaking a mix until it’s perfect, or taking another pass through the entire episode for one more round of fine-tune editing, or trying to remove more of the reverb on the guests track, etc.

But each of us needs to find that line where the episode is done and sounds good, and stop ourselves from spending more time than necessary on it.

If you’re aware that you’re spending way too long producing episodes, try to be more aware of those moments when you feel like, “OK, it’s done.”

One more thought: Sometimes I experiment a bit when producing an episode, maybe trying a new plugin or editing technique, and this extra time I spend is chalked up to continued learning, which is critical for professional growth.

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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 the final step of production when you are setting the final level of your episodes, it’s good to set the true peak level to -1 dB or -2 dB. This will ensure that your episodes don’t overload and distort any audio players that your listeners will be using. This applies to both mono and stereo episodes.

You can set your true peak level in Auphonic, Adobe Audition, Hindenburg, iZotope RX 7, and many other applications as well.

What software do you use to set your final true peak 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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Sometimes a great interview will be conducted but the hosts recording will be unusable due to glitching, noise, or any number of reasons.

Then someone will come up with the idea of the host re-recording all his/her parts, and matching that up with the original recording of the guest.

Firstly, in cases when the guest is a famous person who will not be available to re-record the entire interview, this idea is good, but not easy to pull off seamlessly.

Second, if the guest IS available to re-record the entire interview, I would highly recommend this!

Because…

When you’re going to re-record one participant and match it up to the original recording of the other participant, you have to take many things into consideration:

• All the times that the two participants “stepped on” each other
• All the times when the host interrupted the guest and interjected a thought
• All the times that the host said “uh-huh” or “mm-hmm” while the guest was speaking. (Especially if the guests audio is ducking every time this happens)
• The energy and “performance” of the hosts re-recording
• Lining up all the pieces of the new recording with the original recording (Aaaaaah!)
• Etc, etc.

Unfortunately, soon I will have to re-record one of my clients hosts and do everything I listed above. Wish me luck!

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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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