Category: The Podcast Engineering Show

My guest is Michael Helms – my long time friend, audio engineer and host of the Location Sound Podcast. Mike and I met when we were both working at Soundtrack Studios in New York City in 1993. Mike has gained tons of audio wisdom from working on music production, commercial voiceover production and currently location sound. Connect with him on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

We discussed:

• Mike’s main podcast setup: RE20, MixPre-10T, Macbook Pro, Squadcast, Adobe Audition
• What’s in Mike’s location sound equipment bag?
• Match loudness
• Processing: Compression, EQ, roll off 80 Hz and below
• Mix buss effects: Multiband compressor and limiter
• Previous equipment: Sterling Audio ST-51 mic, Zoom H5
• Good lavalier mics (Sanken COS-11 and others)
• Working on music and voiceovers  in NYC
• Previous Pro Tools studio in Florida
• A recent Nightmare Session…
• Editing philosophy
• Next Purchase?
• The MKH416 is a beast

Thanks for hanging out with us, Mike!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

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My guest is myself. hehe

I cover many topics that can help your podcast production, and a quick fyi that the next semester of PES starts Sep.18 and early-bird pricing is available for the rest of July.

Here are the things I cover in this episode:

• NIGHTMARE SESSION segment: Lately, I’ve faced more of the usual – guests connecting in non-optimal ways, having bad mic technique, computers running lots of programs, etc.
• NEXT PURCHASE segment: Mine may be the Sennheiser MKH416 shotgun microphone when it comes on sale again 😉 And btw I just bought another Scheps Omni channel plugin for my old production machine.
• Mixing INTO your mastering multiband compressor.
• A recent email from Allan Tépper: “Sadly, Forecast (Podcast MP3 encoder with chapters) downsamples our 48 kHz master to 44.1 kHz 🙁 Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Fortunately, Hindenburg Journalist Pro respects 48 kHz when encoding MP3, as do Fission, RX6 and even iTunes. Hindenburg Journalist Pro also has built in chapter creation with graphics.”
• Recently observed: Removing everything below 30-40 Hz DOES NOT affect the overall LUFS level of the audio. I remove those frequencies in RX6, usually 30 Hz and below, because those frequencies are barely audible and not very relevant to the human voice.
• My new fave: Waves CLA-76 plugin – Bluey mode (as opposed to Blacky). Does a really great job of bringing a voice closer and more in your face in a very transparent way.
• My response to a listener commenting that he doesn’t use that much compression because less compression sounds more natural. “Yes, less compression sounds more natural, or course, but real-world listening environments are not dead quiet, and so compression makes the audio more intelligible in those noisy environments. If you listened to a pop music radio station in a very quiet environment you would not like it, but the compression and limiting that the station uses helps the audio be more audible over the road noise, etc.”
• Idea to play around with: For folks with bad mic technique, in addition to processing their main track, send their signal to a separate track and use a multiband compressor on it. Crush the signal, and then mix in a bit of that crushed signal with the original. You probably want to heavily gate it first, too. I’ll be doing this on one of my upcoming streams, if you’d like to tune in.

I hope that my thoughts and suggestions help you produce better sounding podcasts in less time 🙂

Sound great!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

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My guest is Ben Scheirman, who runs NSScreencast.com and creates the media content there. He also produces two podcasts at Vibrato.fm and Appdevdiary.com.

And we rolled out a new segment called Nightmare Sessions!

We discussed A LOT, including:

• UA Apollo 8 Quad (4 XLR’s)
• Heil PR40 (with shock mount/boom)
• Audio-Technica ATR-2100 USB
• Rolls Mic Mute
• Audio Hijack and Loopback on the Mac (for podcasting)
• Magewell HDMI USB3 Capture
• Screenflow
• Logic Pro (for music), Mainstage
• Beyerdynamic DT770 headphones (80 ohm)
• Onyx Blackjack (interface)
• Onyx 820i firewire mixer
• Mix minus
• KRK Rokit 5 mounted on wall
• API Vision channel strip plugin

Thanks for being a great guest and sharing so much, Ben!

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My returning guest is Billy O – host of The Billy O Show, podcast producer and audio engineer.

We discuss post-production specifically, and of course meander in and out of other podcast production topics including:

• Mixing “in the box”
• Waves plugins: EQ, Vocal Rider, X-hum
• FabFilter Pro-Q2 and Pro-MB plugins
• Nomad Factory plugins – cheaper but pretty good
• General EQ advice: Cut wide and boost narrow
• How to apply EQ and compression directly on a channel vs. using sends for reverbs and delays
• Chris mentions his new way of subgrouping voices so he doesn’t “re-master” the intro and outro music
• Playing tracks off Spotify via through his Pioneer DJM 400 mixer
• Editing

Also, if you’re interested in recording music at home,  check out Billy O’s 5-part series covering DIY Home Recording, published as episodes 19-23 of his Billy O Show podcast.

Thanks Billy O for a great session!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

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Enjoy this solo session packed with lots of recent production scenarios I faced bravely. Hopefully some of what I share will help you in your production.

Situations and Solutions:

• Earbud guest in reverby room.
• Recording a guest by using Skype to call their mobile phone – sounded really muddy.
• Guest in reverby room using an AT2020 condenser mic with a horrendous internet connection causing a billion clicks on Zencastr, and afterwards the guests track was significantly shorter.
• Recording the correct microphone! Check your computer settings as well as the app settings.
• Live panel with 5 people recorded on 1 track. Even out using Auphonic or a compressor with a long release time. Balancing the participants EQ is tough: de-esser, multi-band compressor.
• Mixing WebEx audio recorded at 8kHz sample rate (only capturing up to 4kHz). Some possible remedies: Aphex aural exciter, Scheps Omni Channel preamp saturation, boost 2-4kHz range, remove some low mids and low frequencies.

Announcements and Stuff:

• Last call for the PES semester starting in a week and a half (Enroll and be classmates with a “podcast celebrity” student to be named later!)
• If you or someone you know would be a great guest for this show please let me know.
• On a personal productivity note: I’ve removed lots of apps from my phone: all social media, YouTube, Twitch, Wikipedia, etc.
• I listed off all the audio and podcasting apps I still have on my phone.
• I recently taught a webinar titled “How to EQ” for Steve Stewart’s Podcast Editors Club Facebook group. Check it out here.
• A recent message I received from VaShaun Jones (who was my guest on session #67) responding to my recent call for screen-sharing app recommendations: “You should use Team Viewer Quick Support for your remote access concerns. It’s free and tried and true. I’ve been using it for 8 years.”
• My recent research on ipDTL (ISDN calls and radio remotes from a web browser): I believe it’s mostly used by radio folks and voiceover folks. Deal-breaker: No local recordings of each participant. And btw, the clicking on Zencastr recordings seems to be gone for good 🙂

Let me know if you have any questions.

Comment below with any questions or comments.

My guest is John Bukenas, podcast engineer, owner of Audio Editing Solutions, and graduate of Podcast Engineering School!

We discussed lots, including:

• Various on-location recording scenarios
• Mistakes podcasts hosts make when recording audio
• De-reverb plugins
• Upgrading equipment
• RE320 microphone
• dbx 286s channel strip
• Mackie 1624 mixer
• Focusrite 18i20 audio interface
• Macbook Pro
• Adobe Audition, including effects and match volume, etc.
• Auphonic multitrack
• Paying homage to previous guests Darrell Darnell and Daniel J. Lewis.

Thanks for hanging out with us, John!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

My guest is Chad Sowash – host and producer of The Chad & Cheese Podcast.

We covered a lot including:

• Audio-technica ATR2500-USB
• Zencaster
• Audacity
• Windows Surface Laptop
• On-location recording
• Noise reduction (if necessary)
• Normalization
• Compression
• Editing
• Soundcloud
• Rev.com

Thanks for being a great guest, Chad!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

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I am interviewed by my guest host is Arik Levy – Law Enforcement Officer, Host of Firearms Nation Podcast, Creator of Shooter’s Summit and the Firearms Nation YouTube channel.

Arik really wanted to know all the details about my recent major revamp of my studio. We discussed my new setup, my previous setup, my podcast production background, software, hardware, workflow and more.

Some of the elements of my new setup:

• RE20 microphone (same one I’ve been using for about 1-1/2 yrs.)
• Neve Portico II channel strip
• Sound Devices MixPre-6
• iMac Pro
• Neumann KH 120 A near-field monitors
• Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack and Loopback
• iZotope RX 6 Advanced and Ozone 8
• Sonarworks speaker and headphone calibration software
• TwistedWave audio editor
• Reaper
• Plugins: Sheps Omni Channel Strip, SSL G Channel strip, etc.
• VoIP Recording services: Squadcast, Zencastr, Ringr, etc.

Thanks for hanging out with me again, Arik!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

My guest is Ben Brown, host and producer of the Municipal Equation podcast and the Tourette’s Podcast.

We covered a lot including:

• Cathedral Pipes Durham – mic activator
• Steinberg UR-44 audio interface
• Mackie monitors
• ATH-M40x headphones
• Goldwave audio editor
• Publishing stereo MP3s at 112kbps resolution
• FX chains
• RE20 mic
• Libsyn
• AT8035 shotgun mic
• Zoom H5
• Reaper compressor with 4:1 ratio, fast attack, pretty fast release
• Baxter EQ (more cutting than boosting)
• Waves NS-1 for noise reduction (it’s a one fader plugin)
• Stereo mic: AT 2022

Thanks for being a great guest, Ben!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

My guest is Aaron Dowd – Podcaster Success Lead at SimpleCast and host of The Podcast Dude. 

Great conversation covering lots!:

• Shure Beta 87a microphone
• Scarlett solo – audio interface
• Logic Pro DAW
• RX Dialogue De-noiser and De-clip
• Loudness meter plugin aiming for -16LUFS
• Bussing all voices to a single channel and adding effects to that channel, which effects all the voices simultaneously — dialogue de-noiser (light setting), some EQ, de-esser, an RMS Compressor, and adaptive limiter. 
• Editing in Logic Pro
• HD 600 headphones
• Using the Forecast app to convert to MP3 and add chapters. During production he marks where chapters will be, usually when the host asks a question, etc.
• Link to a tutorial on using Forecast and podcast chapters: https://medium.com/simplecast/forecast-by-marco-arment-what-it-is-how-it-works-and-why-podcasters-should-take-a-look-ba446ffa8a35

Thanks for hanging out with us, Aaron!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

I recap my experience at NAB last week, including our Mic Test Drive Booth and lots more including:

• BIG thanks to my booth brothers: Michael Helms, Josh Wade, and Landen Hardy!
• Our 10 mics, Mackie 1642VLZ4, MixPre-6 borrowed from Sound Devices, and a BP40 borrowed from Steve Savanyu at Audio-Technica.
• Sennheiser’s upcoming wireless clip on mic, and the Neumann U67 at their booth!
• My birthday gift – a Neewer mini microphone! Watch Bandrew Scott’s video on this mic here.
• The Venue was HUGE – Las Vegas Convention Center. Booth traffic was OK. And I was interviewed twice – one audio and one video. I also mentioned my drive out there – TO Vegas via New Mexico and Arizona, FROM Vegas via Utah and Colorado.

And it was great to hang out with:

• Rob Walch – Libsyn
• Todd Cochrane, Mike Dell, MacKenzie – Blubrry
• Jennifer Crawford and Vernon Ross – Podbean
• Rob Greenlee – Voxnest
• Eric Larsen – Tascam
• Sean and Ira – Samson
• Podfest guys – Chris Krimitsos, John Dennis
• Podcast Movement guys – Jared Easley, Dan Franks
• Allan Tépper
• Emma Victoria
• Austin Dillman – REV
• Angela Copeland

Other stuff:

Skype Has a Big Announcement for Content Creators: Skype was proud to announce the new Skype for Content Creators, which looks to be what podcasters have been asking for, for years. The new feature is available in preview form now (at NAB) and should be widely available in the summer for both Mac and Windows 10 users. Skype for Content Creators records calls directly through NDI-capable software like Wirecast, Xsplit, and Vmix. The feature provides “clean” copies of all call participants that you can quickly drop into audio and video production apps, so you can focus more on the content and publishing of your show, and less on double-checking everyone’s recordings.

I detail how I mixed an episode using the wrong Sonarworks profile, and then had to correct it. Because I had already done many edits, it wasn’t an option to go back to the mix and adjust the individual tracks.

Lastly: Congrats to the current students enrolled in PES! Next semester starts June 26th and super-early-bird pricing still available.

Comment below with any questions or comments.

My guest is Ashley Lehmann – audio engineer and audiobook editor. She also records classical music on location. She’s also a musician, singer, and songwriter. And at the end of this session you’ll hear a song by her band, All Night Drivers!

We discussed:

• Ashley’s audiobook production workflow
• Soundgirls and Weathervane Music – two nonprofits that are helping with audio education
• ProTools 12.6
• Waves Limiter, Maximizer, DeEsser, and Q1-Q10 EQ
• Izotope RX6 and Ozone 8
• Shure SM57
• Onyx Blackjack – 2 input interface
• iMac
• Adobe Audition
• AKG K240 headphones
• Live recording with a pair of Rode NT5’s – setup high in the room

Thanks for being a great guest, Ashley!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

My guest is Paul Kafasis, CEO of Rogue Amoeba!

We talked about A LOT this session – these show notes don’t do our conversation justice.

*PC users: We are going to talk a lot about Rogue Amoeba’s software which is only available for Mac currently, although some of the functionality we talk about may be available for PC at some point. You’re welcome to hang with us or skip this session.

Here are the Rogue Amoeba software we discussed:

• Audio Hijack (flexible and powerful recorder)
• Loopback (route any audio anywhere)
• Piezo (simple recorder)
• Fission (audio editor) – editing, metadata, chapters, and lossless editing on lossy files! Chapters – set different art and URL or each chapter.
• Farrago (soundboard) – note: it’s not currently able to be controlled by any midi controllers yet.
• SoundSource (simple sound control)

Paul also answered some questions from Twitter fans:

• Loopback lacks an essential professional working environment feature: a straight forward backup utility for all defined/saved virtual devices. Currently you must dig into the file system and save copies of Preference/.plist files. It works. On the other hand, it’s clunky. (Paul Figgiani @produceNewMedia)
• How to run my mic through a channel strip plugin so effects can go through Skype/FaceTime live. (Travis Hill @PodcastMic)
• They’re so good at native Mac app, I’m surprised they don’t take advantage of the CloudKit API and sync that with iCloud. (Alex Knight @ZeroDistraction)

Thanks for being a great guest, Paul!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

My guest is Niel Guilarte, founder of Wildstyle Media working on high-end video production, film, podcast production, and audio for gaming. He is also the Director & Editor of The Messengers: A Podcast Documentary!

We discussed a lot, including:

• Rode Procaster microphone
• Focusrite Clarett 8 Pre audio interface
• Logic Pro X software
• Waves plugins
• iZotope RX
• Focusrite plugins
• Softube
• Machina – plugins
• Behringer X-touch controller
• Producing episodes for The Horse Radio Network
• Tascam portable recorder – DR-701-B w/ SMPTE timecode,
• Final Cut Pro for video editing
• Motion 5 for graphics
• After FX

Thanks for such a fun conversation, Niel!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

My guest is Tim Cumings – Producer of the Cooking in the Dark podcast!

We discussed:

• GoldWave
• Ferrite noise suppressor
• Presonus Audiobox iTwo audio interface into a PC
• Sennheiser HD202 headphones
• Audio-Technica BPHS1 broadcast headset
• CAD GXL-3000 condenser microphone
• Plantronics audio 995 USB multimedia headset with noise cancelling microphone
• Mackie 802 vlz3 mixer
• PLEXTALK Pocket- Portable Daisy-MP3 Player and Voice Recorder
• Triton Audio Fethead Microphone Preamp
• VOX  Pop Stop Microphone Filter
• RODE PSA1 Swivel Mount Studio Microphone Boom Arm
• Studio: Spare room / computer/guest room
• Auphonic

Thanks for hanging out with me, Tim!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

My guest is Brandon Gonzales – host of Podcasting on a Plane. He’s also an Air Traffic Controller!

A portion of what we discussed:

• Kaotica Eyeball
• Apogee MiC – $200 small diaphragm condenser
• iRig Pre-HD
• Side tone
• CAD E100s mic for home studio use
• Apple Mac Mini
• Zoom H6 to record as well as using it as a USB audio interface
• Logic Pro (Brandon recently “upgraded” from Garageband)
• AKG K702 Headphones
• Blue Everblue Bluebox – in ear monitor
• The Auphonic Mobile App. Brandon said, “It Records 24/48 WAV, -16 LUFS, and your file goes straight to Auphonic server from your phone for processing if you wish. Georg is a damn genius!”
• ATR-2100 mic

And on the right is the picture of the Kaotica Eyeball hanging in Brandon’s car! (as we discussed)

Thanks for being a great guest, Brandon!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

My guest is Sam Matla – host of The EDM Prodcast and Electronic Music Producer at EDMProd.

Here’s a portion of what we discussed:

• Ableton Live
• Audio-Technica ATH-M50 Headphones
• Blue Bluebird – Large Diaphragm Cardioid Condenser Microphone
• CAD pop filter
• Focusrite 2i2
• iZotope Ozone for mastering
• Volume automation if there’s louder or softer parts
• Podtrac for analytics
• Zencastr
• Macbook pro 2015
• Compression
• EQ
• Saved chain for Sam’s track
• Music tracks and transitions
• Splitting tracks for different topics for shownotes times
• Mix to MP3 128kbps
• Soundcloud – that’s where his community is/was. That’s changing now; they’re mostly on Spotify now 😉

NOTE: Here are the three exceptional albums Sam mentioned when I asked him what his favorite music was:

• BT – This Binary Universe
• Koan Sound & Asa – Sanctuary EP
• Mat Zo – Damage Control

Thanks for sharing so much, Sam!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

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

Since his last appearance on the show, Arik has upgraded his production gear and workflow significantly. I was happy to chat with him about all the gory details.

A small portion of what we discussed:

• Rode Broadcaster
• Using his dbx 286s again
• Sound Devices MixPre6
• Switching from Logic Pro X to Adobe Audition
• The difference that replacing an XLR cable can make…
• iZotope plugins: Nectar 2 (Arik uses the gate), Neutron, Ozone, RX 6
• Zencastr
• Using video and Skype for his Shooter’s Summit

Thanks for hanging with us again, Arik!

Comment below with any questions or comments.

My guest is Noah Chelliah – host of The Ask Noah Show, and President at Altispeed.

From his studio he sends his show audio to the FM station from which it’s broadcast. He also records locally and publishes the podcast version later. When he’s on the road, he hosts his show remotely by sending uncompressed audio back to his studio which then is sent to the FM station. Also fyi, he built his broadcast studio with 100% Linux. 

Some of what we discussed:

• Axia Broadcast Console – preamp and processing
• YellowTec M!ka Arm
• Telos HX Telephone Hybrid
• Tieline Via Remote IP Codec (for on location)
• Lexicon Alpha Interface
• Marantz PMD580 AES3 Recorder
• OBS software
• RE20
• PR40
• Sony 7506 headphones

Thanks for so many insights, Noah!

Comment below with any questions or comments.