Ensure High Quality Audio on Your Podcast: Focus On The Fundamentals

Ensuring that your podcast has high quality is not as easy as it may seem, but it’s conversely not as hard, either. Before we dive into the details, it’s essential to remember that audio is the most important aspect to any podcast. Without clear, decipherable audio, the listeners that tune in are going to tune out quickly. We can conduct interviews with visitors from anywhere in the world thanks to remote recording technology. The problem with remote recording is that the quality of the podcast guest audio might be influenced by a variety of factors that are beyond your immediate control. Also today obtaining quality audio is easier and cheaper than it’s ever been, so you can take care of it even if you only have basic equipment.

What Determines Your Audio Quality?

1. Your Equipment: You microphone, headphones and even your wireless network. Your sound quality will be influenced by everything that goes into your recording setup.
2. You Surroundings: Not just the space around you, but the building and neighborhood you are in has an impact. Anything that might cause having background noise.
3. YOU: How you speak, breath and the way you are holding the microphone. Even you body movements can effect your audio quality. 

How To Decide What To Do?

Audio is something subjective, so, quality audio can be defined in one word: natural.  Your audio should be so natural that it should be like inviting the listener in for a conversation. The first step is realizing what should be improved and what is the problem with your audio. You can tell your audio needs to be improved when you hear: Hum, buzz, echo, microphone handling, other foreign sounds: animals, lawnmowers, keyboard clicks, etc. These problems might not be covered just by improving your software or equipment.  How can you reach the perfect natural audio? What can you do to increase the quality of your audio without changing your software or your equipment? Let’s have a look at a few easy strategies to boost your audio right now!

4 Easy Strategies To Have A High-Quality Audio Podcast:

1. Set Acoustics:

Acoustics are all about how the sound travels through a given space. So when you’re picking a room and you want a high quality podcast recording (unless you’re doing it outside), there are certain factors you must take into account

1. Silence everything you don’t want your microphone to record. For example turn off your notifications.
2. Eliminate background noise: minimize echo, be aware of the reflective surfaces, size of the room.
3. Take a sample recording: Capture about 30 seconds of what the room is going to sound like when it’s quiet.

2. Practice Before You Strat Recording:

Spend a few moments practicing before you sit down to speak for 30 minutes to an hour. You will be talking for a long time and if you don’t want to do many mistakes you should prepare your environment but also your mind and body.

1. Spend a few moments warming up your voice: When your mouth, throat, and vocal cords are heated, they function better. You won’t have to repeat yourself if you don’t mispronounce words.
2. Keep yourself well hydrated: Water will calm your tensions, relax your tongue and throat, and help you in concentrating.

3. Be Aware Of “YOU”:

You might not be aware of this, but you can create background noise while you are recording. Even you have a noise check with a sample before starting, you might create noice yourself during the recording without noticing it. Be careful of these while you are recording:

1. Watch your breath: Sit up straight and do some breathing exercises. Loud breaths might block the sound and create noise.
2. Keep your body still: While recording, moving your body around creates background noise. Try to remain as still as possible in your chair.
3. Speak Near The Microphone: It will help you avoid the echo.

4. Remove Filler Words From Your Vocabulary:

When we are speaking in a regular discussion, we tend to insert statements like “yeah,” “right,” and “uh-huh.” These interruptions can be disturbing and confusing to podcast listeners. So while you are recording a podcast you should be careful the way you talk and how you act while the other person is talking.

1. Stay silent while the other person is speaking: Don’t talk over each other if you can help it mute the person who is not talking.
2. Use as few filler words as possible, such as “em”, “like” and phrases such as “you know”.
3. Don’t be afraid to take a break. It’s a great time to check the tone in question, bring in more water, stretch and relax throughout the recording session.

Keep in mind, high quality sound shouldn’t be something to strive towards, it should be the standard. High quality audio recording requires the right kind of equipment and editing but also it depends on how you act or how you prepare yourself before recording. Your podcast will be high quality if you have “natural” audio. The advice in this article is based on the “best-case scenario.” This guide assumes you’ll follow the above-mentioned recording methods and strategies in addition to the other relevant advice. However, there are situations when you lose control of the recording process and end up with poor audio. For those cases we will share more suggestions and informations so stay tuned to Damn Gina Academy.