How to Make Better Quality Podcast Recordings

One of the biggest worries when it comes to producing your own podcast is the sound or the recording quality. Truly, there is only so much that you can do to make it sound better, such as projecting your voice as clearly as possible, buying the best software out there, or spending too much of your time on post-production. If you need some help in these too, check out this article titled “How to Make Quality Podcasts Quicker and Easier”.

Still, there are some of us who have great talents in coming up with great content, but simply do not have the patience to deal with technicalities. Although it may be hard to admit, the technical know-hows of podcasting, both from what is needed pre- and post-production, may take some time to master or even to execute satisfactorily. In this case, you may want to employ the help of Podcast Engineers, who have managed to cover podcasting needs on the technicalities skillfully and wonderfully.

If you are decided on DIY-ing the whole thing, check out the super tips below and be on your way to becoming a podcast master.

It really is all about the mic

Buying a high-end microphone can actually save you more in the long run (e.g ATR 2100). If you are starting out, it is very understandable that you do not want to be so invested (financially) in something that has not brought anything into fruition yet. However, you still may want to consider this: if you were to buy a low-end mic now, you will surely need upgrades as your podcast gain more audience. This means, once you purchase mics and other equipment of better quality, you will throw out the old ones or you sell them for a second-hand price. Thus, if we were to look at the bigger picture, you are basically throwing away money to have crappy microphones at the beginning.

Removing the Background Noise

When you are speaking, whether in a recorded podcast or in a simple conversation, you want the listener to have his full attention on you. Assuming that you really cannot shell out the needed cash right now, how do you get rid of all that background noise?

Easy! First, you must remember to leave some few seconds of silence at the end of your recording. Then, download Audacity. This software is free and user-friendly so it is super perfect for beginners. It even has steps on what you need to do, given that you know what to look for. After that, pick the part where there are background noise only and go to the Effects tab and select noise removal. Next, click Get Noise Profile. When a window pops up, just click OK.

Having too much noise removal would make your voice sound robotic, so may want to set the Noise Reduction at 12 at the beginning and adjust it later on if needed. Because the noise is removed, the whole recording might sound too quiet so go to the Effects tab again, but this time, select Amplify. Audacity would automatically decide what is the best loudness so just click OK after.

Here at Podcast Engineers, we go through a much more complicated but effective process. Although for starters, the above tip should work fine!

Truncate Silence

Sometimes, when recording, you run out of thought (or of breath), leaving the clip with few silent moments. If it were a short recording, selecting each silent part and deleting them one by one might just work.

However, if you are looking to save more time and for accuracy, Audacity can help you yet again. Simply highlight the entire recording and select the Effects tab on the menu bar. Then, click Truncate Silence. In a window that will pop-up, you will see Min Duration, Max Duration, Silence Threshold, and Silence Compression. The first three are used by Audacity to determine what you would want to count as silence.

On the other hand, Silence Compression compresses the silent parts at a rate that you have set. For example, if you want a two-second silence to be shortened to only one second, adjust it to 50 percent. A word of warning, this is not perfect and might run the risk of ruining your whole show and going through these truncated silence over again. So tread lightly when doing this part.

Doing these, while they are very basic, can help get you to the right path of making a better-quality recording that if you relied on your microphone alone.

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