No matter how attractive your podcast topic is – a bad sound will make your listeners churn. In this blog post, you will receive six tricks to record a good-sounding podcast and how to edit the best possible way. In the end, I will explain how you can use Borbaki NoEdit to edit your podcast automatically to secure the best podcast experience for your listeners.
1. Use a quiet and peaceful room
It is a common mistake to think that the best way to get high-quality sound on a podcast is by going to a small room, closing the door, and huddling under a blanket.
Please don’t do that.
The reason is that hard and flat surfaces reflect sound like mirrors reflect light. Hiding under the blanket to create ‘room treatment’ actually does the opposite by giving your recording weird respondent buildups caused by the cover’s material or its billowing proximity to the microphone.
So instead. Find a bigger carpeted space, near bookcases, but away from walls and windows. This setup and speaking close to your mic usually engender better sound results.
When recording, make sure to do everything you can to keep the room around you quiet. Almost every mic can pick up any background sound, from the click of a mouse to the whirring of your computer fan. Using headphones to monitor any audio you are recording is a good idea. Find a place to set up far away from any noises you can’t turn off.
If you have scripted your speech, and have to flip a page, do not talk when doing so. Because you maybe want to cut out the sound. We will cover that later.
2. Try indirect microphone placement
The burst of air created when saying ‘P’ or ‘B’ is like giant gusts of wind to a microphone. The best way to fight this is by using a Pop filter, but a pop filter is also impractical, or they muffle the sound to an undesirable degree.
If that is the case, you can try testing diagonally into the mic rather than straight. Doing this will ensure that bursts of air don’t go directly into the diaphragm, resulting in fewer plosives.
Experiment with your microphone placement by recording some test audio to find out what sounds best for your voice. Use headphones, and remember to note which settings, arrangements, placement, and environment gave you the best result.
3. Be conservative with your input levels
To set the best, modest input level: Speak at a normal-to-loud speaking voice and aim to hit around -20dB on the fader of the track you’re using in your recording. Test the levels with laughter or emphatic phrase to ensure that the level never peaks above 0dBFS or goes into ‘red.’
4. Record in high-resolution
Anything less than a 24-bit/48kHz WAV or AIFF file is really annoying to edit. To make the best-sounding podcast, do the recording in a high-quality WAV or AIFF file.
If you have your recording on point and one of the new-fangled interfaces that can capture a 32-bit recording, I recommend you avail yourself of that feature.
5. Record guests and co-hosts separately
Most of the time, having a co-host or interviewing a person gives your podcast a better flow and listening experience. Sometimes the other person can’t be in your studio while recording the podcast.
Then you can turn to VoIP services such as Skype or Zoom.
Recording in Zoom is easy, You just hit the prominent record button, and the video is saved as a QuickTime file that easily can be imported into most DAWs.
Otherwise, you can ask your guest to record a high-quality WAV/AIFF file on their own and send it to you when done. Then you only have to sync the files before uploading them to Borbaki NoEdit.
You have to be aware that most people do not know how to record themselves, so you have to run a trial and error before starting the real recording.
6. Edit your podcast in NoEdit
It usually takes a long time to edit your podcast. But instead of doing the editing manually, I recommend you to use Borbaki NoEdit. NoEdit will automatically cut out silence, compress the sound and insert your intro and outro. Depending on what kind of energy level you want your podcast to have, you can adjust the allowed amount of silence. Borbaki NoEdit is a mp3 audio editor, but you can also import your wav files or m4a files directly to Borbaki NoEdit.
If your recording is recorded as recommended in this post, you can choose the preset ‘podcast’ under the sound compression setting. If your recording contains background noise etc., try to minimize the amount of reverb and speech. So while NoEdit is editing your podcast, you can start recording your next episode.
I wish you all the best of luck with your podcast – and I can’t wait to hear it.
