Secrets from the editing room

It was a pleasure to host two friends of mine for a webinar about podcasts. Omer Senesh is a radio announcer on “galgalatz” israeli music radio and a sound expert and Ido Kenan is a content master with over 20 years of experience in journalism, radio and blogging. They co-founded Podcastico several years ago to create and produce podcasts.?

We all consume podcasts, but just a few of us remember their origins. This form of media was introduced to the general public by Apple in 2005 as a means of bringing audio/radio content to their “pod” family of devices (which, until then, were used to consume music). The name itself is a mashup of the words “Pod” (as in iPod) and “cast” (as in broadcast, to hint these will be distributed).?

The concept evolved to creating audio shows that are available on the Internet instead of the radio, are accessible “on demand” at any time, not tethered to scheduled programming. The actual episodes are distributed by RSS.

Today, there are millions of podcasts available. This is due to the relevant simplicity of production - just about anyone with a digital recording device (laptop, smartphone), a microphone and an editing program can produce a podcast.

Audio is not as rich a format as video, but it is more intimate, and can be very emotionally powerful. By means of efficient editing, using music and effects, we can create a rather immersive experience for our audience - in contradiction to video, which is way more complicated to create. We literally listen to “the voices in our head”, and voices are a strong trigger for emotions (for example, the sound of a siren or the cry of a baby can immediately make us alert and uncomfortable). On the other hand, it is easier to create special effects – wind, shutting doors, phone calls, etc.

Although podcasting is fairly new, its roots go way back to the first days of commercial radio production, when early creators like Orson Welles adopted the novel “War of the Worlds” to radiophonic format. The resulting radio-play shocked the audience and caused real-world panic, demonstrating the power of this medium.

The tools stayed largely the same (people talking, music, effects), but technology has evolved, and now anyone can create “radio-like content” and distribute it. There is no need for radio studios and state-sanctioned radio frequencies. Anyone can produce audio for everyone to consume. Being unregulated means that all styles and formats are acceptable. Podcasts don’t need to be an hour long like radio shows, such as in FM radio. They can be, and often are, much shorter. They can be recorded in a studio or outdoors, and cover any topic, from wide appeal to extremely niche.?

But - just because you can produce a podcast, doesn’t mean you have to, and it certainly doesn’t mean you have to record a boring, standard (2 guys and a mic) format podcast. The reason this “talk radio” format is so popular is because it mimics an older medium (radio talk shows) and because it is the easiest one to produce. Here is a piece by RadioLab (of American National Public Radio network) demonstrating a brilliant way to talk about colors - in audio only. This exhibits masterful and creative editing and writing and is a highly recommended listen for inspiration.

Production - where to start?

Create a skeleton of what you are going to talk about. Don’t write a script and never record yourself reading from paper. Unless you’re a voice over artist or a great actor, you will never get it to sound authentic. A producer can help you with “live editing” (i.e., letting you know when to move on to the next subject, to repeat a question or to skip one) - this will not be broadcast live so you can leave notes, claps and other sound queues that will help you edit later. Some recording devices let you leave a visible “marker” on the audio to be later picked up by your editing software.?

Some technical background and tips:?

Audio quality is key. People will consume podcasts mostly to be entertained or educated, so the audio quality should be at least better than Zoom calls, which they are often forced to join nowadays. Also, you should expect people to listen to the content in a noisy environment, while driving, doing the dishes and even through the miniature speakers of their smartphones or laptops - all degrading the audio quality evern further. So the initial quality should be as good as possible. A 2018 research shows that audio quality influences whether people believe what they hear — and whether they trust the source of information.?

Let's talk a bit about equipment: Generally speaking, there are two types of microphones - condenser and dynamic. A condenser is very popular among musicians and audio recordists for recording singing or neunanced musical instruments, as it’s much more sensitive than the dynamic mic.So usually, if you walk into an audio store and ask for a “good microphone” you will be offered a condenser. Most Blue brand mics, including the very popular Yeti model, are condensers, but many of the podcasts created by them have inferior audio quality. A condenser microphone is not neccesarily the best option for podcasters.

A dynamic microphone usually offers lower sound quality than condensers, but it is more directional, meaning the audio it’s picking-up is more “focused” towards the speaker. This is crucial in preventing unwanted echoes, room noises and other disturbances. The fact that dynamic microphones are less sensitive makes them less desirable for high resolution HiFi music projects in the studio, but at the same time makes them ideal for recording voice over, radio, or podcasting projects in less-than-great conditions at our home or office.

The best way to record with such a mic is to have the foam windshield on and set the mic 3-4 fingers from your mouth, directed exactly towards your mouth. If you are further away, the ratio between your voice and the room tone and echoes changes, i.e., the microphone will capture more of the echoes and noises in the room and less of your clean voice sound. Headphones help you by letting you monitor how your voice degrades, enabling you to keep in front of the mic at the right distance. This becomes natural after a while. Here is a recommended model for voice recording with natural balanced sound for self monitoring. Bluetooth headphones are not recommended as the introduce delay and some other unwanted artefacts.

Both dynamic and condenser mics can be used with a professional audio device (here is a recommended model), or by means of a direct USB connection to a computer, such as this model. A USB mic is far more simple, as it connects to the laptop directly via USB connection, and doesn’t require special interfaces, drivers, cables or any expert knowledge. But it can only record one speaker/sound source at a time, because it is actually a microphone and small audio interface rolled into one, inseparable device.

The room in which you record does not need to be a soundproof studio. But you do need to be as far from outside noises as possible. The moast important part of a pristine recording is having as little echoes, “reverbrations” as possible, as those impair the intelligibility of our content. If we can treat our room to be echo free like a professional studio, we need to opt for a room packed with sound absorbing objects, such as shelves with books, tapestry, curtains, or couches. Try to anticipate where the soundwaves radiated from your mouth will hit first, and do your best to pad that spot. If need be, place a large pillow directly in front of you, right behind where the microphone is positions. This can help absorb the “first hit” of soundwaves before they spread further into the room. This is harder to do, of course, when recording more that one person. As you can probably guess, a room with concrete or glass walls is probably the worst setting for any type of audio recording, which makes office spaces less than optimal in many cases.

After recording, a sound technician can easily remove continuous sounds (like fans and air condition), but echoes are almost impossible to remove.?

Editing

A lot of people use Audacity for editing - it is fairly simple, free to use and considered “the MS Word of sound editing”. Many good online video tutorials were created in order to introduce you to the world of audio editing. Even the simplest recording can be enhanced by adding pauses, background music, and simple sound effects. But remember to always keep a copy of your original, unedited voice files, in case you decide to move forward with a professional audio engineer, he will thank you for providing him with the original, unaltered recordings to work with. Our suggestion is to stay away from more advanced audio editing software as those provide the user with hundreds or thousands of options and controls that are mostly irrelevant for podcasters (such as musical notation tools), and a beginner might be intimidated by all the plethora of options, and can easily ruin the sound.

Distribution?

Once done editing, you will need to convert the full, lossless audio files into a format you can easily share on the web - MP3 in the de-facto standard. The files are stored on one of the podcast platforms and can? be distributed from there. To allow people to subscribe to your podcast and listen easily using their mobile devices, register your podcast feed with Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Deezer, Amazon-Audible etc. You need to verify the RSS feed with these platforms, and adhere to some technical standards, such as cover image format and size, caption lengeg, marking of explicit content and more. The best way to do it is to submit it to the Apple Podcast platform, as they are the most stringent. For more information you can consult the Spotify technical guide for podcast delivery, which is pretty extensive.

Promotion

In order to make it easy for people to find your podcast you must think like an SEO expert. For instance, having a full transcript of the podcast on your blog will help Google indexing what is otherwise a big chunk of audio. For social media, create a snippet audio file with some visuals (such as a photo taken while recording, or something relevant from an royalty free photo bank) and turn it into a short video clip, including the link to your recent podcast.?

You can even create a QR code leading back to that specific episode.?

A unique name for your podcast is essential. Make it discoverable. If you dont have a personal website or blog, consider starting a dedicated site or mini-site that shows all the episodes and provides additional details - some place that will serve as a “home” for your audience. Podcast streaming platforms display a very small version of podcast logos and metadata. so make sure your cover image is clear and easily identifiable (Oh, and please please PLEASE avoid the visual cliché of using a microphone as the logo of your podcast) , and that the captions and text provided to the platform by your RSS is interesting and compelling.?

If you want to watch the recorded session- please follow this link