Podcast Recording Studio Considerations

Thursday, December 30, 2010 at 11:04AM When it comes to a recording studio, I think many podcasters are forced to take when they can get. The studio is often some convenient room: a home office, study, bedroom, dorm room anything but a real recording studio. Thats fine, but you should consider how your recording place (which Im going to call your recording studio from now on) affects the sound of your podcast. Think about the acoustics of a movie theatre, or a road tunnel. Theyre not the same, are they? Sing a song in an attic and then in a basement again, they dont sound the same, do they? If you compare the characteristics of your podcast studio with those of a professional recording studio, most likely there are some differences. A professional studio is acoustically isolated and free from the noises of the outside environment. There is no sound from traffic going by or TV noise from the other room. In a professional studio you wont hear kids playing upstairs and pounding on the floor, and there is no background hiss from the air conditioner. The acoustics within the professional studio are highly controlled. The studio doesnt produce undue echo as sounds bounce off hard walls. It doesnt have features that cause lower frequencies to get caught in corners and between objects to create boom. If you want to produce a quality podcast, you should do what you can to give your home recording studio as many of the qualities of a professional studio as you can. Start with room selection. Look for a space that is acoustically damped. If you can, chose a room with carpeting, heavy drapes, and objects like bookcases that break up flat walls. You want to avoid hard flat surfaces that create reflections. If you dont have such a space, try and create one by modifying what you do have. Re-arrange furniture and place objects around that break up the flat surfaces. Orient yourself to minimize reflections. Your podcast might sound better if you dont place your mic on that table next to the wall. Instead, face in a different direction so you dont create an echo. An interior or basement room is probably the best way to keep outdoor sounds from getting into your podcast. Otherwise, close the drapes to try and reduce the noise coming through the windows. Another thing you can do is consider the time of day you record. Evenings are usually quieter than during the day, but I suppose it depends on where you live! Avoid locations with air conditioning or heating ducts that produce noise. If you are on the road and recording from a hotel room, you may have to turn off the heat/AC since those units tend to be very loud. It may not be comfortable, but it eliminates a significant noise source.

If youre really stuck for a good recording studio location, here are a couple of suggestions. One: plop yourself down in a closet. Really! All that junk in there absorbs sound and makes for a great recording space. A walk-in closet is very good if you have one. Two: Inside your car. No kidding. You have to figure out a power source, but auto interiors are usually very sound absorbent. Hopefully you can find a recording place thats a bit more convenient, and just as acoustically desirable. A few comments on recordings you might make outside the studio field recordings. These can be a real challenge. Once I interviewed a CEO outdoors at an airshow, and another time I recorded conversations with conference participants in a crowded hall during a very noisy networking session. Heres a tip I picked up from Cliff Ravenscraft, the Podcast Answer Man: In situations like these, dont try to move to an out of the way, quiet spot to record, because you probably wont find anything with other than marginal sound quality. Instead, your recording will actually sound better if you embrace the environmental sounds of the location and include them as part of the audio imagery. Mic close to lower the environmental noise, but let it be part of the interview. Many factors affect the ultimate quality of your audio recordings, including the space you set up as your studio. Dont neglect to carefully consider the sonic characteristics of your podcast recording location.

Max Flight | Post a Comment | Share Article tagged field recording, noise floor, studio in Podcast recording studio Saturday Dec252010

Mix-Minus Setup
Saturday, December 25, 2010 at 08:46PM Lets walk through an example of setting up your equipment to record your podcast with Skype callers through a mixer using the mix-minus technique. (Be sure to read Mix-Minus Basics first!)

Step 1. Connect your microphone to a mixer channel. Set the auxiliary send for that channel to some volume level. Set all the other aux sends to zero. This will send the mic signal out the auxiliary send, as well as through the rest of the mixer.

Step 2. Connect your Skype computer to another mixer channel. Worst case, connect the headphone out jack on the computer to a stereo channel jack on the mixer. Much better would be to connect via a USB port on the computer through an audio interface (into an analog mixer). Turn the aux send on this channel all the way down. Thus, the incoming Skype signal is not going out the aux send, but it is going through the rest of the mixer.

Step 3. Run a cable from the auxiliary sends on the mixer (probably a pair of jacks, right and left channel) to the Skype computer. This could be into the mic jack on the computer, but much better would be to use the same USB port as above.

Thats it. You have achieved mix-minus. Your Skype computer now receives what you say through the mic so it can send that audio out to the others on Skype. Actually, weve just talked about the minus part. You still need to capture the entire mix into the digital recorder. Step 4. Connect your digital recorder to the tape output (or equivalent) jacks on the mixer. That signal will contain the complete mix: the signal from Skype and your voice from your mic.

What about other sound sources? You might have another device with pre-recorded podcast segments or special sound effects or your intro and outro music. I use an iPod Touch with the Resounder app for this.

Step 5. Connect any other device providing audio content to an appropriate mixer channel, and treat it just like your microphone: Turn up the auxiliary send volume knob so the signal flows out the aux send.

Now the aux send signal going to your Skype computer contains everything except the incoming signal from Skype. All the signals, including the incoming Skype signal, continue to flow through your mixer into your digital audio recorder.

Max Flight | Post a Comment | Share Article tagged mix-minus in Podcasting Equipment Saturday Dec252010

Mix-Minus Basics
Saturday, December 25, 2010 at 08:32PM Mix-minus is a technique you need to employ when you are recording through a mixer and you are using Skype. In principle, its pretty simple, especially if you think about the audio from Skypes standpoint.

Follow this simple case where your podcast is just your voice and that of others on Skype: Coming into your mixer from your computer is the audio of the Skype callers. Your microphone is also feeding the mixer with your voice. You want to record both of those sound sources, but you want to send only your voice back to Skype, not the incoming voices of the Skype callers. If you sent back to Skype all the audio youre recording, then the people on Skype would hear themselves as an echo that might even generate feedback. So how do you get two different sound signals out of one mixer? With mix-minus. One of the signals is the total audio mix, and the other one is that same mix minus what came in from Skype. Mix-minus. OK, how does a mixer do that? The key is to use a mixer that has an auxiliary send for each channel. The auxiliary send is intended to divert the signals from the selected channels to some sort of outboard sound processing device, then return the processed signal back into the mixer. A processing device might be a graphic equalizer, a compressor, a reverb, or something else, but thats not what were going to do for mix-minus. Instead, were going to send all the audio channels except the folks on Skype out through the auxiliary sends and into the computer running Skype, never to return to the mixer.

You, the Skype callers, and any other audio you introduce into the mixer (sound clips, intro music, whatever) go to the recorder, while only you and the audio you introduce go out to Skype via the aux sends. Next: Detailed instructions on how to setup mix-minus on your mixer.