Category: The Podcast Engineering Show

My guest is Travis Hill – host of Navigate Life Radio as well as microphone tester/reviewer at PodcastMic.com. We had a really fun session – enjoy listening.

Here are some things we discussed:

• Audio Technica AT875R
• Rode Broadcaster
• Audio-Technica BP40
• Audio Hijack
• Screenflow
• Logic Pro 10
• An Exciter in Logic Pro called Silver
• Shure SM7B
• dbx 286s
• Scarlett 2i2
• Video recording with iPhone 6S+

Listen to the full episode to get the full effect 😉

Thank you, Travis, for a wonderful session!

My guest is Jason Sanderson, podcast producer and audio engineer. He works on several extremely popular shows including The Art of Charm. His website is PodcastTech.com

Here’s the mammoth list of what we discussed in this session:

• Neve preamp
• Amek preamp/compressor
• Using the Abbey Road Test Disc for reference (specifically Alan Parson’s voice)
• RX 6: de-clip, spectral de-noise, de-reverb, leveling, dialogue isolate, deconstruct (removes distortion)
• AKG 701 headphones (Quincy Jones model)
• Plugins: EQ in ProTools, Waves Renaissance De-esser, Waves 1176 (Blue Stripe), Scheps 73, SSL Mix Buss Compressor, Pultec EQ, ProTools Limiter, Master Fader Loudness monitor
• Cutting the high-mid whistle around 3.10, 3.11 or 3.12kHz
• ProTools HD
• Auphonic cross-gating function, sometimes
• RE20
• Zoom H4
• This session Jason is using an SM58

Listen to the full episode for all the goods 😉

Thanks for sharing SO MANY awesome tips, Jason!

My guest is Steve Cherubino, long time podcaster and producer.

Some of the topics we discussed:

• MXL 990 mic
• Mogami cables
• Avid M-box 3 interface
• How your computer sample rate can cause a problem with some audio VoIP services by not matching up. (see below for how to check your computer and adjust your machine’s sample rate)
• Studio One software, version 3
• KRK Rokit Powered 5 Generation 2 Powered Studio Monitor
• Shure SRH440 headphones
• Routing a guest out and back into Steve’s computer
• 24 bit WAV mixdown file
• Final MP3 at 192kbps Mono
• dbx 266 XL compressor/gate
• Plugins:
  • Pro EQ
  • Waves NS1
  • Studio One Limiter on stereo buss

Here are the instructions I mentioned on the show – how to check and change your computers sample rate:

1. On a Mac you can do it via the Audio Midi Setup application: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202968
2. For windows, in the audio settings for recording devices (Win 7 example but I believe this hasn’t changed): https://forums.adobe.com/thread/973133

Listen to the full episode for all the oozing of audio wisdom and wisecracks 😉

Thanks for sharing so much great info, Steve!

My guest is Alex Knight, producer/engineer at Hologram Radio, podcaster, and product manager at FeedPress.

Here’s the partial list of the topics we discussed and the wisdom that flowed in this session:

• Shure SM7B, into a Warm Audio WA-12 mic pre (which models an old API), into a dbx 266 (for a little bit of compression)
• Aphex 204 aural exciter
• Mackie VLZ1604, analog mixer with 8 direct outs
• Avid M-box 3 (interface)
• Pro Tools, sometimes Audition
• Studio in living room with L-shaped IKEA desk, some acoustic panels, mic boom arms
• 6 channel headphone amp
• A 14U rack of gear and a patch bay! wow
• dbx 286 channel strip
• FabFilter Pro-Q 2 (for some low cut filtering)
• Using Compressors, de-essers, expanders
• Normalize each track to -19 LUFS
• Music pre-loaded in a template
• LM-Correct 2 (Loudness plugin)

Listen to the full episode for all the juicy production tips 😉

Thanks for hangin’ with me and delivering the goods, Alex!

My guest is Billy O – podcast host and producer, audio engineer and mixer. His show is The Billy O Show!

Some of the schtuff we talked about:

• Recording multiple people in one room
• EQ’ing voices – cut wide band, boost narrow band
• Sapphire Pro 40 interface
• Macbook Pro with external Thunderbolt hard drive
• His DAW: Logic Pro X
• Sennheiser HD280 headphones
• Mixing on Sennheiser HD700 headphones
• SM7B

Listen to the full episode to hear all the fun and stellar info.

Thanks for being a great guest, Billy O!

Mr. Ralph M. Rivera joins me once again and we cover a lot in this session! He’s the man behind Podcaster’s Toolbox (btw there’s a woman behind there with him). They both host the Carbon Based Business Units podcast, too.

We discussed:

The Microphone Test Drive Booth at the upcoming Podcast Movement conference (which I will be running).

The launch of Podcaster’s Toolbox! It’s a suite of tools that removes podcasters’ headaches associated with coordinating guest bookings, organizing images and show notes, regularly sharing previous episodes, and much more. You’ll need an invitation to start using it for free, so stop by their booth at Podcast Movement or ask me for an invite 😉

Recap of Podcast Engineering School class of 17A, and a preview of the next PES course which starts Sep. 26th. 

Ralph’s new headset setup using the Audio-Technica BPHS1 Broadcast Stereo Headset with Dynamic Boom Mic.

My new Sonarworks headphone and speaker calibration software.

Ralph and Carol Lynn’s groovy podcast: Carbon Based Business Units

My new plugins:

• Manny Marroquin Triple D (De-boxy, De-harsher, De-esser)
• Parallel Particles (Air, Sub, Bite, Thick)
• Fabfilter Pro-Q 2 (awesome!)
• CLA-76 (Blue stripe and Black face)
• CLA-2A
• SSL E-Channel strip
• PuigTec EQP1A and MEQ5
• PuigChild 660 and 670
• CLA Mixdown

Listen to the full episode for all the fun and info.

Thank you, Mr. Ralph M. Rivera XVIII!

Note* FYI, I now use and recommend Zencastr instead of CAST. As you listen to previous sessions you’ll hear me mention CAST from time to time but their service has gone downhill badly and Zencastr is now the best in that space, in my opinion.

TOPICS this session:

1. Recording with my Zoom H6 at the Pause Your Life retreat. AT 8035 shotgun mic. Also resumed my gawking at the Sennheiser MKH 416 – and sad that I didn’t buy it when it was on sale for $600 (normally $1,000).
2. Arik Levy (last session, #54) “The Rode Broadcaster is the best mic ever!  Out of the box amazing. With no EQ I sound rich and smooth.  NT1 going back…”
3. Describe my PES class recording and production process
   • Zoom – record with this but don’t use it unless Camtasia fails
   • Camtasia – the system audio is recorded very low
   • PPT, Reaper, Sound Forge, Ozone, RX 6
4. RX 6 Advanced (I upgraded from 5) — 50% discount for PES Students
   • Voice De-noise
   • Phase
   • Loudness
   • EQ
   • De-click
   • De-hum

First, I reflect on this show – A Walk Down Memory Lane!

• Session 1 – March 10, 2016
• 2016 break from Thanksgiving to the New Year
• 2017 start – Session 38 with Garth Humphreys – January 5, 2017

Thanks/Shoutouts:

I am continually delighted by so many emails, tweets, and friendships that this show inspires. I appreciate all of you!

Lexington friends – The Podcasting Course (Emergency Medicine): 

• Anton Helman
• Rob Rogers
• Salim R. Rezaie
• Scott Weingart
• Jess Mason
• Anand Swaminathan
• Will Sanderson
• Gita Pensa
• Julie Derringer

2017 Previous Guests: 

• Arik Levy
• Stephen
• Ric Viers
• Roy Stegman
• Kirk Bowman
• Mary Mazurek
• Mike Murphy
• Rob Greenlee
• Patrick Keller
• Jason DeFillippo
• Adron Buske
• Zack Hanni
• The Return of Max Flight
• Garth Humphreys – host and producer of Audio.Pizza

Current PES Students: 

• Ben
• Bryan
• Erika
• Hunter
• Jim
• Josh
• Landen
• Luke
• Ralph and Carol Lynn (also my mastermind partners!)

As I mentioned in the audio, here’s my affiliate discount link for Podcasters’ Society: https://podcasterssociety.com/pes/. It’s a wonderful community for podcasters and producers who have already launched their show(s) and are ready to improve their show(s) big time. It’s WAY more helpful than your average Facebook group, and I’m not knocking any podcasting Facebook groups because they are awesome, it’s just that Podcasters’ Society goes way deeper and wider in so many ways.

Thanks for listening!

My guest is Arik Levy – Law Enforcement Officer, Host of Firearms Nation Podcast, Creator of Shooter’s Summit and the Firearms Nation YouTube channel.

We had a fun discussion.

Here’s some of the equipment that Arik uses:

• Rode PSA1 Boom Arm
• dbx 286s
• Focusrite 2i2
• Macbook Pro
• Logic Pro
• Zoom H6
• Rode NT-1
• He wants to try the Rode Broadcaster microphone
• Also interested in the upcoming release of Sound Devices MixPre 3 and MixPre 6

Listen to the full episode to hear all the fun and great info.

Thanks for hangin’ with me and Barry, Arik!

I’m solo this week…. well of course Barry is still with me! YEAH OH YEAH

Some of my meanderings:

• Appreciation to previous guests and podcasting friends – Thank you all! 
• Dave Jackson (School of Podcasting) rules. 
• Pod to Pod weekly email rules. 
• Music I’ve been listening to lately – Dopes to Infinity by Monster Magnet, Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple, Plans by Death Cab for Cutie, OU812 by Van Halen, and Mozart on Pandora.
• Rabbits podcast – my impressions after listening to 3 episodes.
• If you know someone who would be a good guest on this show, please introduce them to me. Email: info@podcastengineeringschool.com
• Tomorrow morning I leave for Lexington! (The Podcasting Course)
• Podcasting trending up means more business to be had for podcast engineers. 
• Zencastr vs. CAST vs. Ringr…
• Update on the current batch of Podcast Engineering School!
• Podcasters’ Society: A community of experts and podcasters focused on helping you improve all aspects of your podcast after it’s launched.

Thanks for listening!

My guest is Stephen, a mix engineer working on mostly hip hop, rock, and alternative music.

We talked about many aspects of audio engineering that will definitely help podcast engineers/producers, including:

• Processing the human voice
• Rode NT-1
• Neumann TLM-103
• ProTools 12.5
• EQ’ing first
• Pultec EQ
• De-esser before and/or after EQ
• Multiple compressors in series:
  • The first one having slow attack and fast release
  • The second one having fast attack and slow release (around 3 full seconds!)
• Listening on different speakers in different environments
• FGX mastering software by Slate (he used to use Ozone 7)
• Constant Gain Monitoring

Thanks for having fun with us on the show, Stephen!

My guest is Ric Viers – Sound Designer, Sound Effects Producer, Author of The Sound FX Bible and The Location Sound Bible, Full Sail University Hall of Fame Inductee, and Creator of The Detroit Chop Shop web series!

Ric is the Master of Sound FX. And I gave him the most over-the-top introduction EVER. (Can you tell what movie it’s from??)

We discussed so much about recording sound effects and audio on-location:

• Using Multiple mic’s simultaneously
• Shotgun mic’s, including one of Ric’s favorites, the Rode NTG3
• Ambience mic’s, including the stereo mic Rode NT4
• Large diaphragm mic’s including Rode NT2A, NT2000, NT1
• Blimps
• Dead cats and wookie condoms
• Ric’s trusty Fostex FR-2 recorder
• 24 bit, 96 kHz recording resolution
• Post-production using Soundforge Pro
• Editing
• Normalizing
• Other software Ric uses, including Vegas and Acid
• Subtractive EQ

Thanks for being an awesome guest, Ric!

My guest is Roy Stegman – Audio Engineer, Podcast and Audiobook producer, and Host of The Complete Audio Producer podcast.

We had a blast discussing the following items and more:

• SM57 with a wind screen
• Original PreSonus Blue Tube
• FastTrack Ultra
• TC Electronics Loudness Meter
• SSl E Channel Plugin
• Legacy LA2A plugin
• Nigel Amp simulator plugin
• UAD1 and UAD2 – signal processing units from Universal Audio
• Marking edit spots in Adobe Audition
• What is 32 bit float and where is it used?

Thanks for having fun with us, Roy!

Today I’m using my new microphone for the first time! Actually it’s over 30 years old – a vintage RE20 from the 80’s I believe, and courtesy of Marc Johanssen. (join his Facebook group here). Yesterday I recorded session #50 with Roy Stegman using it, too, but that was before I spent time dialing in the settings on my channel strip to make the mic sound tip-top.

NEWS: I’m proud to announce that I am now a resident expert (of audio engineering) in the Podcasters’ Society! It’s a wonderful community founded and facilitated by Daniel J. Lewis, a former guest on this podcast 😉

It’s a wonderful community for podcasters and producers who have already launched their show(s) and are ready to improve their show(s) big time. It’s WAY more helpful than your average Facebook group, and I’m not knocking any podcasting Facebook groups because they are awesome, it’s just that Podcasters’ Society goes way deeper and wider in so many ways.

*As I mentioned in the audio, here’s my discount/affiliate link for Podcasters’ Society: https://podcasterssociety.com/pes/

NEW GEAR: I purchased a Zoom H6 for on-site recording among other things. I especially like the solid build, the different microphone attachments, and most of all the backup recordings on the L and R which record at 12 db lower than the main recordings to provide a safety net in case there is some distortion on the main L and R channels.

I also reflected briefly on Podfest again. Love that conference…

It’s getting close to Podcast Engineering School which starts online on April 4th. I commented on all the training modules and topics that will be covered. Even if you don’t attend the course, these are some areas where you can improve your production value a lot.

Thanks for listening!

My guest is Kirk Bowman, host and producer of The Art of Value Podcast. Kirk is seriously on top of his game in the area of podcast production. We had fun discussing his equipment, workflow and processing, etc. (list of topics is below)

I asked Kirk to send me the stock settings for the Broadcast preset in the multiband compressor which comes with Adobe Audition (because tons folks use this preset). Here’s the screenshot with all the settings:

Kirk also told me about a channel strip which has a phase ‘rotation’ function (which is different than the much more popular phase ‘inversion’). Here it is – the Aphex Channel:

Here are some other things we discussed:

1. MOTU 1248 interface
   • 4 XLR inputs
   • Routing matrix
   • AVB (audio over ethernet used to connect multiple interfaces together)
   • Thunderbolt to Mac
   • Built-in effects
2. Match Loudness in Adobe Audition
3. Multitrack recording
4. Processing each track to -18 LUFS using Auphonic
5. Multiband compression during mixdown
6. Editing
7. Upgrading equipment as he grew

Thanks for being a great guest, Kirk!

My returning guest is Mary Mazurek! She is an audio engineer with 25 years experience, radio producer at WFMT Chicago including the “Live from WFMT” show, and instructor in the Department of Audio Arts and Acoustics at Columbia College in Chicago.

We discussed:

• Recording ping pong balls being poured into an open piano!
• Recording and broadcasting classical ensembles in studio and on location
• Identical stereo pairs of AKG 414’s and Schoeps mic’s capturing the room in stereo
• Spot mic’s on each musician including KM 184, DPA, Shure’s
• Blending close mic’s and room mic’s
• Lexicon 300
• Phasing, space between mic’s, etc.
• F5 Fusion
• 8 channels of Grace mic pre’s
• Recording to Tascam flash recorders as well as a CD burner
• ProTools mastering and MP3 creation
• On location ISDN line

And here are two other programs that Mary engineers: The Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert, and Live from WFMT.

Thanks for hanging out with us again, Mary!

My guest is Mike Murphy, host and producer of Mike Murphy Unplugged. He also created the Podcaster Toolkit (resources and tutorials for content creators), which btw is very completely different from our friend Ralph Rivera’s Podcaster’s Toolbox 😉

We discussed equipment, workflow, processing, production time-savers and more:

• The Essential Sound Panel in Adobe Audition (match loudness feature, etc.)
• Recording resolution (32 bit, 44.1 kHz)
• EQ’ing by rolling off lows and adding “air” on top
• Shure SM7B mic
• Rode NT-1 mic
• Rode PSA-1 boom arm
• CL-1 Cloudlifter
• Allan and Heath ZED-10 mixer
• Sony MDR 7506 headphones
• Recording into a Macbook Pro
• Normalization

Thanks for being a great guest, Mike!

My guest is Rob Greenlee, Head of Podcast Content at Spreaker, host of the Spreaker Live Show, and co-host of the New Media Show.

And here’s the link to Rob’s post which we discussed at the top; it’s titled Nine Evolutions of Podcasting In 2017.

Rob has been involved in podcasting for many years so he had a lot to share above and beyond his equipment and workflow.

Topics we discussed included:

• Doing sessions on his Surface Tablet w/USB hub
• SM7b and ATR2100
• Mackie Mixer
• Digimax 220 USB Interface
• Levelator
• Soundforge
• Editing
• Recording directly into the Spreaker platform
• and many more details…

Thanks for being a great guest, Rob!

My guest is Patrick Keller, host and producer of The Big Seance Podcast. He also teaches vocal music and music production and technology at a middle school.

Note: We talked a bit about EVP’s (electronic voice phenomena), which are basically audio recordings of ghosts and spirits! Check out one of Patrick’s episodes where he plays some of this audio.

We had a blast discussing various production situations and solutions, as well as all of his podcast production equipment and workflow processes:

• Behringer Q802 USB Mixer
• dbx 286s channel strip
• Heil PR40 mic
• MXL 990 mic
• Audacity
• Auphonic
• Zoom H5 recorder
• Editing a lot!
• Making teasers
• Generating the MP3 using iTunes

Also, we talked about using foam in your studio to deaden the room sound, including one really good place to put the foam (behind you).

Thanks for having so much fun with us, Patrick!

My guest is Jason DeFillippo – producer of The Jordan Harbinger Show podcast, cohost of Grumpy Old Geeks podcast, Podcast Editor, and host and producer of Does It Have Legs.

Jason has an awesome podcast studio setup – listen for all the details. We discussed his equipment, workflow, processing and lots more.

Here’s some of what we covered:

• PreSonus 192 interface
• 2-3 Mac mini’s for connecting guests and hosts
• Ecamm call recorder
• Apollo 8
• Zoom H6
• RE20
• RE27 ND
• AT-2005
• Logic Pro
• Zencastr
• Rolls MS111 Mic Switch (cough button)
• Cloudlifter
• Contour Design ShuttlePRO v2
• MX Master mouse

Then there’s his road kit:

• Two RE27’s
• Apollo Twin interface
• Laptop running Logic Pro
• Zoom H6
• Two Rode PSA1 boom arms
• Headphones
• Rolls MS111 Cough buttons

Thanks for sharing so much with us, Jason!