Are you wondering why your podcast doesn’t as good as the popular podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify? These tips will help!
#1 – Record Great Sounding Audio
We’re starting with the most important one first, because if you do not do this, the rest won’t be much use. You really need a solid foundation. Record great sounding audio.
You may be thinking, thanks captain obvious! But for many people, it’s not so obvious. They may be new to podcasting and have no experience with audio.
We’ll sometimes get inquiries from people who recorded their podcast using an iPhone and are asking for it to be turned into professional broadcast quality. Unfortunately, that won’t happen.
Audio engineers are not magicians, there are only so many things that can be done. While some promising AI options are being developed to improve poor audio like never before, they’re not perfect. So whether it’s background noise, echo, distortion, or any other issue with your audio, it’s always going to sound better if you fix it at the source. To ensure a pristine finished product, we need to pay careful attention right from the very beginning.
#2 – Each Guest Gets A Microphone
This is mostly applicable for podcasts where multiple guests are sitting in the same room. Unless each guest has their own microphone, you’re going to be challenged to get a quality sound. Putting one microphone in the center of the room, whether it’s a portable recorder or a mic connected to your computer, simply won’t provide broadcast-quality audio. You’re going to get a lot of noise and echo, and it simply doesn’t sound as nice as if you’re talking into a mic closely. Do note, however, that when it comes to multiple microphones, USB is typically not the right choice.
#3 – Wear Headphones for Remote Interviews
This applies to podcasts where a host is in one location, interviewing a guest in another location, using a service like Zoom or Riverside.fm.
Conducting remote podcast interviews without wearing headphones can cause a variety of problems. When your guest is speaking, your microphone can pick up their voice coming from your speakers which creates a delay. Software tries to prevent this, but it’s not perfect. There are other issues that arise then such as if both people speak at once, it will jumble the audio and one of the others will experience a dropout.
#4 – Your Recording Platform Can Degrade Audio
This one, again, relates to doing remote recordings with the host in one location and guest in another.
To capture audio in these cases, some podcasters do what’s called a double-ender. This is where the host records their audio on their computer, and the guest records their audio on their computer. The two recordings are then stitched together in editing. This is ok, but generally guests will have an unpredictable amount of tech knowledge, so this method may not always be possible.
The most ideal solution is to use an online solution like SquadCast or Riverside. These give you most of the benefits of a double-ender but without any synchronization issues. Zoom is also widely used already, and has recently added a High Fidelity Audio option which makes it easier to recommend, since by default its audio quality is not the best.
What’s Your Weakest Link?
Podcast audio will only be as good as the weakest link in the chain. If you have a great microphone but are recording on a platform that provides poor quality audio, you will get poor quality audio. Conversely, if you choose a quality recording platform but use your computer’s built-in microphone, your audio will still be poor.
Quality audio requires close attention at every single step. A good microphone, headphones, proper recording, and possibly even acoustic treatment depending on where you record. Being aware of loud computer fans, pets, and other causes of noise is important as well.
To read more about getting great guest audio for remote interviews, check out our article here.
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