Podcast mixing

As you all know I have been working on a podcast that is in the making to be a continuous production. earlier this year I recorded a really cool Brisbane band called Bad Sext and you have probably had a listen to the mixes I did some some intimate acoustic songs they performed while in the studio with me. The whole process was really smooth which makes me excited to recored some more podcasts and further my podcast editing skills. I am also keen to really hone into the aesthetic of this production in further episodes. This first episode is now I completed product bad some introduction music which is something I will be working on shortly. I have some references for what I envision this to sound like. I shall share then with you later. Here is a little that I learnt about editing a podcast while I was in the process.

I had never had to editing anything so long before which was one of my main challenges. There was a lot to listen to a really tuning my ears into the over all sound was hard to stay focused some times. The final cut of the podcast goes for 32 minutes not including the songs at the end. There were a few problems with the audio at times and as well as a lot of content that I needed to edit out. As this podcast was really casual feeling to me myself and the band ended up just laughing a fair bit which was a nice touch to the vibe of the podcast but a little breathy. Another issue that was really evident was a fair few plosives where myself particularly was getting a bit to close to the mic. I think that this was due to maybe not having enough of my voice in my headphone mix and therefore as I was speaking not being able to hear the pops. This is something that could have been easily avoided with a pop filter and taking an extra few minutes to make sure I could hear myself clearly as well as the band could. I was really focused on making sure they were comfortable. Apart form these few things the overall sound was really great considering I had never tried recording a podcast style production before. I think that the research I did regarding microphone choices and techniques payed off heaps. If you missed my blog about the microphones I used and my techniques about voice differentiation for broad casting check it out HERE.

While I was reasrching how to best capture female voices for podcast and looking at a heap of podcasts that had visual aspects as well. I came a cross a technique I thought would be worth trying. As myself, Meg and Ella all have very similar voice tones I wanted to make sure that the difference between the girls answers and conversation was clear to the listener. The technique involved one of the girls to be further away from the microphone. at the begging of the session I set them both up with the microphones slightly different distances apart and then recorded them chatting while I went and checked the tone in the control room. I took the advice from a blog I read that if someone is around 6 inches further from the mic it should be a nice clear tone but just add a little difference. I tried this out and it worked pretty well. I could hear that there was defiantly a different space and tone in the voices as they were chatting. There was a little loss of volume to I just added a little more gain (about 2bd) to Ella's voice to make up for this. I also didn't want them to feel restricted like they couldn't move so I also just ever so slightly tipped Megs mic slightly off axis so there was alway two points of difference between them while maintaining a consistence and clear tone. My mic was a different mic to theirs I used A Heil PR40 and they Rode RE20's. The microphones had different frequency responses here is a comparison.

As you can see the PR40 has a boost from around 2-10K. This could also explain why polosive sounds were a lot more evident in my voice recording. However this mic defiantly captures a lot more high end that the RE20. This gave my voice a different tone that was less rounded and more bouncy sounding I'd say which I think captured some more tone to my voice as the interviewer.

Okay so editing wise I looked up a few videos for the most efficient way I could edit this huge thing. The most important thing I did was put the session in Shuffle mode.

This is only effective if you group ALL THE TRACKS TOGETHER.

If you don't the tracks will be pout of time and it will sound shit. I worked this out the hard way event hough I watched the video of I got so invested into trying to get rid of the plosive sounds in my track and cut out sections that I forgot I had taken off the group track setting and it really heals me back. good thing was I had only been editing for half an hour when I realised this and just closed my session and started again. But yeah really helpful. Shuffle mode will shift any clips after a section you delete to the edge of the next clip. All you need to do then is add a crosse fade. This made my work flow really quick in getting rid of laughter and 'Um and arrs' that I didn't want in there.

I next compressed and Eq'd all the voices tracks. I compresses them very similarly. I just adjusted the ratios mostly. I really just wanted to amore sure the level was even over all and balanced. Here is the compression I used on the over all bounce.

As you can see I EQ'd the girls voices pretty differently. I found where their voices sounded most clear and gave it a little boost then cut the very and low ends slightly to clear up the tone. This also helped with the difference in their voice!

Something that saved my life was the RX de plosive plug in. I used this on all three tracks to get rid of any plosives. I had never used this before so I was intrigued as to how it would work. Sure enough this amazing thing got rid of juts about every plosive in my voice track! I didn't play around with the settings to much. I found that it was crushing the tone of the audio a little bit so I took the sensitivity back.

Over all I think this project turned out really great as as first try at making a podcast. I really want to make some introduction music for the next episode. I want to make something weird kinda like the introduction 'Last Podcast on the Left' but more fun and less dark. I like the mash up idea that is involved with the vibe of this intro. I will include some laughter and random noises and things we say. I will compose maybe something weird and synthy to go underneath the weird sample mash up.

I am super excited to improve my podcasting skills and get better at recording bands in the same session as doing the podcasts. I think that this project really has potential for me to expand the vibe and make it something that people will really want to listen to and be apart of. Over the next two weeks I have a band coming in to do another recording in preparation for next trimester!

Take a listen to the finished product and final mixes of the acoustic tracks!

REFERENCES:

McLean, M., & McLean, M. (2019). Podcast Editing: The Ultimate Guide - How & Where to Edit Your Podcast. Retrieved from https://www.thepodcasthost.com/editing-production/podcast-editing/

How To Edit Your Podcast in 5 Minutes. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FXHN_hO-OM

iZotope RX 6: De-Bleed, Breath Control, Spectral De-Esser & De-Plosive on Vocals | Reverb Demo Video. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JphEIAnmdbQ