If you’re just about to start podcasting, you can “play-by-ear” and then fix what you’ve done later on. Or use the following production tips, to keep in mind a couple of things and avoid headaches in post-production. I highly suggest you implement the following production tips, save time, and set your quality standards on a higher level from day one.
Let’s get started.
Tip #1.
Treat your room acoustically.
The cleaner source audio you’ve recorded, the less time you’ll spend on cleaning it post-editing. It goes even further. Sometimes, podcasts are recorded in the room with a lot of early reflections and it sounds like in-the-bottle. It’s very hard to fix in post.
In the case of a very “roomy” or “echoey” recording environment, you might get a lot of undesired reverberation in your recorded materials, which you can cut out and edit, but it will sound unnatural. Of course, you can hire a professional to clean up your podcast, but why not avoid that in the first place.
I hope, I’m convincing enough.
In order to get cleaner sound, you can do a couple of things with the room, that you record in.
- Close windows
- Turn off the air conditioner
- Install acoustic panels on walls
- If you’re on PC or Mac Pro, move your “trash can brains” to another room
- In addition, you might change HDD to SSD, because it’s quieter (and faster)
By implementing the things mentioned above, you will drastically reduce the amount of background noise, that gets into the microphone during recording. As a result – less time editing and higher production quality.
Tip #2.
Use high-quality equipment
First, I must say, that these days, almost every audio equipment manufacturer has high enough production quality. Otherwise, they would go out of the market very quickly. So, every year, it’s becoming more about “how to use” instead of “what to use”. But i would suggest staying away from obvious bottom price equipment anyway.
About background noise. It can be recorded not only by the microphone from the “air” but also from the electricity. We are talking about electricity buzz, that is appearing while using low-quality cables/ preamp/ microphone/ audio interface. Or, because of wrong input gain settings. OR, because of lack of grounding in the electricity system. But it’s whole another story. So, to make things simple, try to:
- Use a microphone dedicated to radio/podcasting. Or a high-quality vocal microphone. Not crappy karaoke mic!
- Use high-quality cables
- Use electricity stabilizers
Tip #3.
Make templates in your DAW
You definitely spend some time preparing the project for podcast recording. You probably set channels, route I/O, insert some plugins, import intro, etc. And most likely it’s almost the same every episode. You can drastically reduce the time spent on that. Instead of setting up a project from a blank session, create a project template in your DAW (digital audio workstation).
If you haven’t used DAW before and have no clue what a hack is that, then there’s one more option for you. Alitu is an online service which is helping to create podcasts and eliminate technical parts (almost). You can try it for free. (affiliated)
But, if you use DAW…
Project templates allow you to save a lot of time on setting up. You just open the template, check the input level, and hit record!
Also, read
Tip #4.
Improve on the go.
It’s really hard to get the perfect podcast episode one, but don’t be discouraged. Even if you’re not fully satisfied with the result, move to the next episode. But always keep in mind what to improve and learn from your mistakes. You just have to bring bad “takes” out. You don’t even have to publish them. Throw them away and move on, if you’re not satisfied with the quality. In order to get to diamond, you have to get rid of dirt.
Quantity transforms into quality. That’s the way to perfection.
Hope these tips were helpful.
Make sure to download and use a royalty-free pack for all occasions below.
