The Podcast Engineering Show | Professional Podcast Production - Recording, Mixing, Editing, Mastering

My guest is Jonathan Messinger, producer and host of The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian, and founder of Typedrawer Media producing interactive story podcasts for kids. I loved learning exactly how Jonathan creates the robot voices for the various characters on his show. We also discussed: Jonathan uses a PR30 (not a PR40 like many many others) Background music levels and ducking Panning Hindenburg Journalist Pro Pre-loaded session templates Where to find music: CreativeCommons.org, FreeSound.org, AudioJungle.net, SoundSnap.com "Robot voice" plugins: Waves SoundShifter, and Sound Toys "Little Alter Boy" Pyle-Pro PDMIC58 Microphone Thanks for sharing so much with us, Jonathan! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Business or Have a Career as a Podcast Producer/Engineer? Listen and Subscribe in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, Android, RSS

My guest is Brian Adoff, owner of Riveting FM, and producer of Drink Drank Drunk as well as the upcoming show, Unlocked... We talked about SO much, including: SM7B's Lipsmacks Keyboard shortcuts Using two Audition templates WAV files with 3 channels instead of 2! FX chains Bussing 3-4 voices to a vocal track w/ loudness meter Adding a tiny bit of reverb Waves Silver bundle Cloudlifter dbx 286s Zoom H4 Field shotgun mic: AT 875-R condenser Thanks for being a great guest, Brian! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Business or Have a Career as a Podcast Producer/Engineer? Listen and Subscribe in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, Android, RSS

My guest is Scott Weingart, producer and host of The EMCrit Podcast, as well as a physician (MD, FCCM) and Editor-in-Chief of EMCrit. Scott is not your average podcast producer and we really learned a lot from him about his equipment, workflow and processing. I also got to tell a cool story about a sweet monitoring trick I learned from the immortal audio engineer Andy Wallace from his sessions with (also immortal) singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley at Soundtrack in NYC in 1994. Additionally, I spell out one elaborate method of taming nasty "P's" popping after they've been recorded. Here's some of what Scott and I discussed: Shure 87A microphone Sound Devices USB interface The usefulness of a dog clicker! Noise reduction within Adobe Audition Hi-Pass filter Tube-model compressor Hard limiting Loudness Radar LKFS Thanks a ton for hanging with us, Scott! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Busine

My guest is Cliff Ravenscraft, the Podcast Answer Man! I actually got my start in podcasting by watching his tutorial videos ;) He began podcasting in 2005, and since then he has trained many, many people how to start and produce their podcast. Enjoy this episode! We discussed Cliff's hardware setup and workflow, including: Noise reduction Mackie VLZ4 MDX-4600 Roland R-05 iJingle Pro - app to play sound clips Using the audio from a Snapchat video on an audio podcast Adobe Audition (single track editor, broadcast preset of multiband compressor) Thanks for a great chat, Cliff! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Business or Have a Career as a Podcast Producer/Engineer? Listen and Subscribe in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, Android, RSS

My guest is Cody Boyce - podcaster, podcast producer, and founder of Podcast Masters. Commander Cody is also a cohost on the Rogue Squadron podcast. Some of what we discussed (which Cody uses): Soundflower -to- OBS -to- Twitch AKG C1000S dynamic microphone EQ - hard filter at around 120 Hz on every voice (which he adjusts to taste) Logic Pro How Cody uses Shure 57's Motu Traveler WNS - Waves Noise Supressor WLM - Waves Loudness Meter Side-chaining - Waves C1 We covered a lot in this episode - enjoy listening! Thanks for being a great guest, Cody! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Business or Have a Career as a Podcast Producer/Engineer? Listen and Subscribe in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, Android, RSS

My guest is Bryan Orr, independent narrative audio producer and host/producer of the Dialed In podcast. An all-around cool guy who's actually involved in other shows and his own business as well. Fun times discussing Bryan's equipment, processing, and narrative-style production philosophy and workflow. Listen for all the details. (fyi, my written show notes here are always just the tip of the iceberg) Some of what Bryan uses: A cool EQ trick for pushing music to the background AT 8035 shotgun microphone, usually with a Rode shock-mount pistol grip. Zoom H5 EV RE20 through a cloud lifter Roland R-05 Reaper (like me!) ReaDelay plugin to create stereo bounce delays, etc. Vocal Rider Thanks for being a great guest, Bryan! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Business or Have a Career as a Podcast Producer/Engineer? Listen and Subscribe in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, Android, RS

My guest is Ray Ortega, host of The Podcasters’ Studio, and Podcasters’ Roundtable. Ray has been an incredibly helpful force in the world of podcasting since 2007. Enjoy listening to this episode full of tips, equipment and workflow details straight from one of the podcasting masters! Oh, and here's the link to the Vocal Rider plugin we mentioned: Thanks for hanging on the show with us, Ray! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Business or Have a Career as a Podcast Producer/Engineer? Listen and Subscribe in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, Android, RSS

My guest is Joshua Rivers - Owner of Podcast Guy Media and host the Creative Studio Podcast. It was fun hanging with Josh. BTW- he (and his children!) are fans of Barry, too! YEAH OH YEAH Josh's equipment and workflow include: PR40, AT2100USB Behringer Q802USB Sennheiser HD 280 PRO Headphones Adobe Audition iFree Skype Recorder Multiband compressor Hard Limiter We also discussed the production workflow which Josh is using for the narrative style episodes that he is producing now on season 4 of the Creative Studio Podcast. Give it a listen ;) Thank you for having so much fun with us, Josh! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Business or Have a Career as a Podcast Producer/Engineer? Listen and Subscribe in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, Android, RSS

Have you ever recorded a podcast with 16 people in one room - all on the show simultaneously?!?! Liza Miller has. My guest is Liza Miller, host and producer of the Motorcycles & Misfits podcast. She used to do live sound in clubs, many moons ago, and now she is having a blast with so many friends doing Motorcycles & Misfits.  Btw, she found a pretty solid, inexpensive purchase: 3 Behringer XM1800S microphones for $40! When you have 12 mic's open in a room you have to keep costs down ;) Special note: After the outro music, she gives me a microphone challenge - she uses 2 different inexpensive mic's and asks me which one I like better. Listen to the very end to hear if I chose the $30 mic or the $13 mic! We also discussed: Behringer XM8500 microphone Shock mount mic clips Mackie 1642 VLZ Pro Alesis 3630 dual channel compressor Power conditioner Behringer U-control audio interface Adobe Audition HA-400 headphones Soundbooth program Tascam DR-11G (recorder for backups and remote recordings) Thank you f

My guest is Alan Mead, dentist and host of The Dental Hacks Podcast. Don't let the whole dentist thing mislead you - he has a bad ass audio setup and he records multitrack the same way I do!  We talked about a lot of cool tips.  He uses: Rode Broadcaster microphone Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 Four windows laptops Four dbx 286s's iMac running Adobe Audition Backing up original track files Thanks for being a tremendous guest, Alan! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Business or Have a Career as a Podcast Producer/Engineer? Listen and Subscribe in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, Android, RSS

My guest is Chris Saunders, host of Return to Camp Blood - a Friday the 13th fan podcast. Chris has a very practical and low cost setup, and he makes the most of it! (Btw, his show is super niche in that they only talk about Friday the 13th movies...lol) He produces his show from start to finish and regularly has 2-3 other co-hosts who are all in different states. They connect via Skype and record with Pamela call recorder. He pans himself hard left and all other co-hosts hard right. They all use ATR2005's and Chris has a Behringer XENYX X1204USB mic that he uses if his roommate or someone else is hosting with him at his house. Then he brings the raw .WAV file into Adobe Audition, separating the stereo file into two mono tracks. He normalizes the levels for both tracks and removes background noise, and maybe adds a gate if the background noise is still an issue. He also truncates long periods of silence using a preset he made. Any period of silence more than 550 milliseconds long gets truncated to 550 ms. Th

My guest is Georg Holzmann, founder of Auphonic. He lives in Austria. We went deeper than usual into audio processing including: Machine learning Compression Noise reduction Loudness levels Handling multiple voices Crossgating We spent time going line by line through the fascinating Audio Processing Statistics that Auphonic provides after you process a piece of audio. During the show we discussed the screenshot shown here, which contains these data: Programme Loudness Max Peak Level Loudness Range (LRA) Max Momentary Loudness Max Shortterm Loudness Leveler Gain mean Leveler Gain min Leveler Gain max SNR mean Background Level mean Signal Level mean I also asked him about how voices with different EQ appear different in loudness, as well as if there are cases for which I should process the audio a bit first before using Auphonic. We appreciate you hanging with us, Georg! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening!

My guest is Mary Mazurek - audio engineer with 25 years experience, radio producer at WFMT Chicago including the “Live from WFMT” show, and instructor in the Department of Audio Arts and Acoustics at Columbia College in Chicago.  Because she's doesn't host her own podcast show yet (coming soon!), she joined the show from her makeshift studio in her closet including a homemade pop filter using a knitting hoop and panty hose!  We had an awesome conversation about many vital topics:  Trying out her new microphone - Shure MV-51 USB EQ frequency bands and how they affect the sound Fletcher–Munson curves Compression philosophy and tips Microphone choice Microphone placement Proximity effect Thank you for being a wonderful guest, Mary! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Business or Have a Career as a Podcast Producer/Engineer? Listen and Subscribe in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, 

My guest is Max Flight, host of Airplane Geeks Podcast, co-host and producer of The UAV Digest and the #PaxEx Podcast. We talked about all phases of his podcast production. This is an overview of what Max's engineering in his own words from an email he sent me: I'm involved with 3 podcasts, all aviation-related:   Airplane Geeks: Co-founder (2008), host, and producer (since 2009). The UAV Digest: A spinoff from Airplane Geeks. I co-host and produce. The PaxEx Podcast: Co-host and I produce it up to the MP3, after which I hand it off. All shows are over Skype with co-host(s) and guest. Mix-minus, 2 laptops, record into both hardware and software, soundboard on iPad. I record in my home studio, in hotel rooms, at conferences and public events (annually at the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum). So depending on the situation, I use the Heil PR40, Sennheiser e835, AudioTechnica ATR2100, and a Sennheiser MD 46 interview mic.   Other gear: TritonAudio FetHead, Marantz PMD620 and Zoom H4n recorders, Focusrite

My pal from New Jersey, Ralph M. Rivera, hangs with me in this session. A bit of fun was had by all. He is the cofounder of Podcaster's Toolbox, host of the Web.Search.Social podcast, and a wonderful marketing guru. He and his beautiful wife, Carol Lynn, had a booth at Podcast Movement encouraging folks to get on the "Beta train" for Podcaster's Toolbox. You can too. We discuss many of the questions I got from folks in my Q&A session on audio engineering at Podcast Movement. Listen for all the answers and tips! Here are some of my notes: What to do when you compress an already-kind-of-noisy signal and the noise becomes really loud? (try smashing it on top using high threshold with high ratio!) Multitrack software programs are just tools, and for podcasting it’s more important HOW you use the tool than having the most expensive, feature-rich program. Marc Johanssen’s Podcast Gear Group on Facebook Video tutorials: Dave Jackson, Carey Green, Fixing things…..The golden rule of audio engineering: Record it

My guest is Jason Bryant, founder of Mat Talk Online and the Mat Talk Podcast Network. We had a great chat - listen to get the full effect ;) Here's an overview of Jason's equipment and workflow (taken from an email he previously sent me): I host 10 different shows (of the 14 on the network) Using a MacBook Pro with an AT2005 microphone for my home set up. Routed through a Yamaha MG102C and a FocusRite 2i2. I use the AT2005 based on it’s sound and flexibility. I record for triple redundancy. I use Adobe Audition as my main recording option, but also record externally out of the Yamaha board into a Zoom H5 (my audio in one channel, caller’s audio in the other). I also use ECamm Call recorder as a backup. The ECamm/Skype is using the USB portion of the AT2005, while the mixer and Focusrite are using the XLR portion of it — so if any channel goes out, I don’t have to stop the interview, I can keep going with three relatively clean copies of the recording. With the Skype setup, I’m running a mix-minus from the a

My guest is Daniel J. Lewis who is one of the four individuals on my personal "Mt. Rushmore of Podcast experts and educators." (see his full bio and links below) We talked in depth about his personal podcast production workflow and equipment, including his: Microphone choice (he recently switched over to an RE-320, which I think might be the next mic that I try) Behringer mixer (X1832 USB) MDX4600 (4-Channel Expander/Gate/Compressor/Peak Limiter with Dynamic Enhancer and Low Contour Filter) Zoom H4N Fast SD card Audition (DAW) Cool way to use Overcast PowerPress (including the "Feed Episode Maximizer" feature) Libsyn More about Daniel: As an award-winning podcaster, Daniel J. Lewis help others launch and improve their own podcasts for sharing their passions and finding success. Daniel creates training resources (like SEO for Podcasters) and podcasting tools (like My Podcast Reviews); he offers one-on-one consulting and a premium podcasting community (Podcasters' Society); he is a keynote speaker on podcast

My guest is Drew Smith, host of the Under Ten Fitness podcast, Radio DJ and producer, personal trainer and power lifter. In this episode, Drew tried to stump your host by playing 3 different pre-recorded sound clips recorded with 3 different microphones, and then asking which sound clip was which mic. The 3 mic's are a Sennheiser e835, an EV RE-20, and an EV Cobalt Co9. Play along - listen and guess for yourself! Pause the podcast right before I make my guesses. We discussed Drew's podcast equipment and workflow in depth, including his MXL 990 condenser microphone, PreSonus AudioBox, Adobe Audition, and more. We also briefly discussed (and I got to check out in person!) a new piece of equipment Drew recently purchased, the Zoom R16. Thank you for being a great guest, Drew! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Business or Have a Career as a Podcast Producer/Engineer? Listen and Subscribe in iT

My guest is Steve Savanyu, Director of Educational Services at Audio-Technica U.S. Steve has over 40 years of professional audio experience in live sound, studio and broadcast applications. He has worked on large live and broadcast events including the Presidential/Vice Presidential Debates (2008 & 2012), and the 2008 New York City Papal Visit. Steve schooled us (in deep detail) on the technical differences between these types of microphones: Dynamic Condenser Ribbon Carbon Ceramic Crystal We also talked about: Diaphragm sizes Pickup patterns (and how phase cancellation is manipulated) Mic output levels Preamps What XLR actually stands for! Do YOU know? Listen for the answer. Also the difference between the famed ATR2100-USB and the ATR2500-USB. I also asked a selfish question about a super small mic that I want for a specific application. Steve suggested the BP8-96 or AT8-99. Thank you for being a great guest, Steve! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment belo

My guest is Kevin Farkas, Founder and Executive Producer of Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Oral History Initiative, and Founder of The Social Voice Podcast Network (TSVPN). We discussed his podcasting equipment and workflow, including Zoom F8, RE 320, Internet Archive, digital recorders, Blubrry, Presonus V2 Tube Preamp, and more. I also went DEEP into the weeds regarding sample rates, bit depth, precision EQ'ing, frequencies and more. Thank you for being a great guest, Kevin! DID YOU KNOW........We exist for the purpose of helping you, so please comment below with any questions or remarks. Thanks for listening! Want to Start a Business or Have a Career as a Podcast Producer/Engineer? Listen and Subscribe in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, Android, RSS