3 Top Ways to Drastically Improve Your Podcast Audio Quality
There’s no getting around it: the quality of your podcast audio makes your audience engagement sink or swim. Poor audio distracts your audience from your content. Good audio quality shows professionalism and builds trust. Subconsciously, this makes your audience want more. When your audio is a pleasant listening experience, your audience is likelier to show interest and recommend your show to friends. Plus, clear recordings are easier to transcribe accurately, so your show’s social media posts, show notes and blog posts take less time and effort.
Let’s look at three of the best ways to improve your podcast’s audio quality so that you can grow your show.
1. Master your mic technique
It doesn’t matter how fancy your gear is if you don’t know how to use it. It’s better to use a mid-price microphone properly than an expensive one poorly. Think of a microphone as an ear. Some ears are sensitive, picking up sounds others can’t. Some need a hand cupped around them to block out other sounds.
Get to know your mic by recording samples with different gain settings. Gain is another way to describe how sensitive this mic’s settings are. Your audio is visible as a waveform with various peaks and valleys. Peaks that are too high cause clipping, or a popping sound (imagine someone chewing gum right by your ear). Turning your gain settings down slightly prevents these pops. Lower gain settings, though, make muddy sound. Try recording yourself talking at different gain settings, and take note of the differences. Pay attention to what other sounds in the room the mic picks up, and find the setting that feels right for you.
The distance between your mouth and the microphone is often misunderstood. If you extend your pinky and thumb as far out from your hand as is comfortable and curl your other fingers into your palm, you make the Hawaiian shaka sign. You also make the proper mic distance. Too close, and you’ll have that fuzzy sound with an inaccurate transcript. Too far, and the mic has a harder time capturing your voice. The shaka sign is also a good reminder to “hang loose” and relax while talking.
The human ear is shaped to catch sounds from more than one direction. Microphones have different polar patterns inside them to capture sound from different directions. Some are obvious, such as “omnidirectional.” Sometimes, microphones have a logo or symbol near the most sensitive part of the mic. When I started podcasting, I had my Blue Yeti set to “cardioid,” but the entire mic faced the wrong direction. So, instead of picking up my voice directly, the mic picked up my voice’s reverb as it bounced off my computer’s screen and the wall behind it. I’m still embarrassed about this, but I learned from it.
2. Treat Your Recording Space
If your home has an open plan and high ceilings, your voice will reverberate like a choir in a cathedral. You might not notice, but your mic won’t pick up clear, focused sound if you record with your friends at a hard table in a room with a high ceiling and glass windows. Your words will sound muddled.
Remember how I compared a microphone to an ear, shaped to capture sound? Think of the outer ear as trapping sound waves and sending them gently down your concha cymba and cavum through your ear canal. Now, think about your recording space. Sound treatment works like those supple flappy things on the sides of your head, providing more direction for sound to get to your mic or eardrum.
Most people imagine optimal recording spaces as rooms lined with acoustic tiles on the walls and ceiling. But treating the area right around your mic saves you money, reducing stress.
The goal is to decrease sound reverberation, so your voice goes into the mic, not around the room. Acoustic tile is excellent but can be pricey and ruin your paint job. You can hang acoustic blankets from cup hooks on your walls or drape them over furniture or room dividers. There’s also the time-honoured classic, the blanket fort. Hang a duvet over a few chairs, line the floor with pillows, and put your mic and laptop inside. Another inexpensive technique is to use a cat bed. Pick a cave-style bed with a roof, and put your mic inside it. Congratulations, you just saved a thousand dollars or more on acoustic treatment. Your voice will be clear because it won’t compete with other sounds in the space around your mic.
You can also record at odd times of day or night when there’s less activity outside. Some pros (including NPR’s Ira Glass) occasionally record further from windows and exterior walls in their closets, letting sweaters and hanging garments reduce reverb. And, if recording indoors isn’t working, try outside. There's no echo if you don’t have walls for sound to bounce off. Plus, the location helps paint a picture for your podcast’s audience and brings it to life.
3. Use Software Wisely
Software can fix mistakes, but it’s no substitute for careful recording. If your dialogue’s indistinguishable from the background sound or you mumble, no software can fix that. Plus, your transcripts will take more time for you to edit. As we’ve said, most actions you can take to improve your podcast’s audio quality happen in pre-production; record with good technique in a sound-treated space.
Once you’ve recorded the best source material, what can software do to improve your audio quality?
Noise reduction can remove background noises from your audio. Maybe there’s traffic outside, the hum of an air conditioner or your recording equipment. Most audio editing software has a noise reduction feature. First, record 10-15 seconds of silence or room tone. Then, record your podcast episode. While editing, your software can analyse the noise you want to remove. After that, your software’s noise reduction feature samples the silence or room tone and applies it to the recording to eliminate background distractions.
Equalisation, or “EQ,” sharpens and enhances the sound frequencies in your audio. Most EQ controls seem intimidating, like a row of dials, one for each frequency band. Like the gain settings we’ve discussed earlier, you’ll need to adjust these settings and use your ears rather than your eyes to find the sweet spot that gives you the best sound.
Compression applies a noise floor and a ceiling to your audio’s volume, to keep it consistent. In your compressor’s settings, start with a threshold. This determines how loud your audio has to get before the compressor affects it. The noise floor setting makes sure that the quietest parts aren't amplified. The compression ratio determines how much compression happens. Attack and delay are settings you can use to control how quickly the compressor reacts to sudden changes in volume. With normalised volume, your audience knows what to expect and doesn’t get distracted from your message.
For example, let’s say you interview a person who usually speaks quietly, but happens to have a loud laugh if they’re excited. Outside your recording space is a bus stop where people might chat while waiting for the bus. To get the best from this situation, record fifteen to thirty seconds of room tone (while no one is waiting for the bus and it’s quiet). For the interview, record the cleanest audio you can. Afterwards, in the editing stage, you’d use equalisation to get the interview dialogue to sound precisely the way you want, noise reduction to eliminate outdoor chatter, and compression to prevent their laugh from giving your audience a jump scare.
The Extra Work Shows That You Care.
Filmmakers use the expression “fix it in post”, which passes on the problem to the editing department. The saying “garbage in, garbage out” is more accurate in this case; without clean audio at the beginning, it’s hard to have clear audio at the end. Most of the things you can do in advance to improve your sound quality are simple and fun. Try some tongue twisters, and make a blanket fort. Other adjustments require more patience and willingness to experiment, like practising with your software settings. Alitu is software that automatically takes care of volume levelling, equalisation and noise reduction, just like how Capsho can take your podcast’s transcript and re-format the information to make promotion assets. Both can save you time and effort. But there’s no substitute for advance planning and a good duvet.
Authored by Lindsay Harris Friel
Lindsay earned an MFA in Playwriting from Temple University in Philadelphia, and took her live theatre skills straight to podcasting. She enjoys helping people find new ways to tell their stories. When she’s not writing content or participating in the Live Q&As for The Podcast Host, she enjoys making audio drama and learning more about the craft of interactive storytelling.