To make sure that your podcast is going to be successful, you need to pay extra attention to the quality of the sound. Electrical noise, distracting echoes, or voices in the background can get your audience frustrated and distracted. It is only possible to deliver the necessary message effectively to people if the sound of your podcast is clean and consistent. In fact, the higher the quality, the more probability there is to reach your goal.
In this article, we share some of the most valuable pieces of advice on how to make your audio recording perfect. The five tricks will help you understand what you should do to come up with a podcast that sounds great, even if you are on a low budget.
Work with Sounds’ Levels of Pronunciation
One of the main things you need to perform to create a worthy podcast is to keep an eye on the volume levels while you are recording. The great majority of recording software shows the levels in the form of a scale. The colors you will see there are green, yellow, and red. Your task is to keep the sound level of pronunciation in the green section if the tone is supposed to be the normal conversational one. In the event of making stress on something, your level should be in the yellow section. You should do your best to give the red section a miss because the sound, in this case, is likely to be distorted.
Use Room with Plenty of Space
The right environment is as essential as the right equipment. Consequently, you need to find a suitable place to make a recording. This factor alone is enough for high-quality sound. Before the episodes are recorded, you should make sure that there is no echo. The reflections in a room with plenty of space can be avoided if you place soft things around, which can be pillows, furniture, or carpets.
It is also crucial to keep sounds around you to a minimum, and the usual offenders are:
- Cars outside
- Pets
- Fans
- Electronic devices
- Open windows
Alternatively, you may try using a smaller room, and some people even utilize closets to make their podcasts. At times, this solution is the easiest one.
Work with Microphone Placement
Some people prefer creating their recordings while holding the mic in their hands. We would recommend avoiding this technique unless it is necessary to hold the microphone this way.
Another common mistake people usually make is attaching a microphone-stand to a surface your feet or hands touch easily. It is barely possible to stay still all the time while recording, so you should better connect your microphone to something nearby. In the case of a desk-mount stand, it can be a piece of furniture, which is at some distance from the desk. If you are utilizing a floor-mount stand, then you should place your feet on padding or a carpet.
This way, there will be no distracting sounds caused by small movements you might make while creating your audio recording.
Record Guests Separately
Another piece of advice is to come up with several tracks to provide each person with a separate recording. In the event of a two-person interview, it is not difficult to place the guest and the host on different tracks. The guest might join you with the help of a video chat, so employing a different track for their local recording can be the right solution.
Also, you should stay quiet while your guest speaks. It is definitely tempting to add some small phrases, and they can be removed during editing, but why do unnecessary work? Train yourself to respect your guests until they finish their thoughts.
Create a ‘Test’ Version of Audio
The last piece of advice is to create a sample audio recording with all the equipment you are planning to employ. After that, your task is to go through it to check how good it is. In this case, you can solve the possible issues, such as distracting sounds, before the actual recording starts. We would advise you to record up to 20 seconds of what the environment sounds like when it is quiet before you start. This audio can be utilized later during the editing process, and you can put in a noise removal effect to it. All the major issues will not be solved this way, but it will surely help you enhance the quality of the sound.