Influential Introvert: Communication Coaching for Professionals with Performance Anxiety - How to Record In-Person Podcast Interviews Without Audio Bleed

Episode Date: April 16, 2020

On the last episode, I spoke with Idelle Erickson, producer of the Girl Talk podcast for the Girl Scouts. We talked about the mission of the show and about the role of a podcast producer, and Idelle mentioned that she and her colleagues and guests usually record their episodes in person.   Today Idelle explains the set up she creates in her basement to capture studio-like sound for her podcast. This information is incredibly valuable because most people do not record good audio when they’re in the same room with someone. I hear a lot of audio bleed and reverb on shows I’ve edited, but never on Idelle’s.   Of course, recording in person might not always be possible. Your guest could be 1,000 miles away or maybe the entire globe is on lock down due to a pandemic. But one day, when you do record an episode in person, you will be happy to have this knowledge.    Idelle and I recorded this remotely using Squadcast, which is how I usually record my interviews. If you’d like to support this show, you can do so by testing out Squadcast via my affiliate link. Go to sarahmikutel.com/squadcast to check it out.  *** Hello. I’m Sarah, your host and founder of Podcast Launch Academy. Are you ready to launch a podcast that builds your brand and business, connects you to your global community, and grows your influence? Visit sarahmikutel.com to see how we can work together. Here’s a special treat for you: Use my Buzzsprout affiliate link to sign up for their podcast media hosting and get a $20 Amazon gift certificate. I’ve gotten to know the Buzzsprout team over this last year and love their customer service so much, I moved my shows over there.Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Have you been wanting to start a podcast for a while now, but something's holding you back? Maybe it's fear of putting yourself out there or confusion about the technology. I'm Sarah Mikital and on podcasting step by step, I'll break down how to podcast with a little loving motivation to give you the skills and the confidence you need to finally launch that show of your dreams. Let's get started. On the last episode, I spoke with Idae Erickson, producer of the Girl Talk podcast for the Girl Scouts. And we talked about the mission of the show and about the role that a podcast producer plays. And Idael mentioned that she and her colleagues and guests usually record their episodes

in person. Today, Ida explains the setup that she creates in her basement to capture studio-like sound for her podcast. And this information is incredibly valuable because most people who do in-person recordings, they just don't get very good sound quality. I hear a lot of audio bleed on these shows, a lot of reverb. They're just not able to catch that studio sound that they're looking for, but I have never had this problem with Idle's show. Of course, recording in person might not always be possible. Your guess could be a thousand miles away or maybe the entire globe is on lockdown due to a pandemic. But one day when you do record an episode in person, you're going to be very happy to have this knowledge. Idle and I recorded this remotely using squadcast, which is how

I usually record my interviews these days, my remote interviews. And if you would like to support this show, you can do so by testing out Squadcast via my affiliate link. Go to sarahmicatel.com slash squadcast to check it out. Let me give you this remote record warning though, or not even remote record warning. Recording warning in general. Don't record using wireless headphones with a mic as your microphone. I dealted this and it caused all sorts of weird audio drift, which required me to manually cut up our interview so that I could move what I said closer to what she said. Adele doesn't usually use a mic that plugs into her computer, so she just threw on these wireless headphones and neither of us were just thinking enough.

We both realized later, ah, she shouldn't have done that. We know better anyway. Now this serves as a good lesson, so it all worked out because now we can warn you, don't record. wireless headphones and a wireless mic, don't do it. It ended up sounding okay, but Idle was like, oh, I'm just talking about how much I like pristine audio quality. And this isn't where I wanted it to be, but it's good enough, a good enough recording. So anyway, let's jump back into my conversation with Idle. And I know that you record in your basement. You guys typically like to do your recordings in person, like your basement at your house. So tell me a little bit about your recording setup. Yeah. So I'm a little bit obsessed with having really good sound. That was something

right off the bat that I knew, you know, I had read all these articles that were like, it doesn't matter. You got to just, you got to just get your stuff out there and buy a cheap lav mic that plugs into your computer and just like get started. But I knew that when I hear a podcast that has bad sound, I do not give it the time of day. Like I. There's too many options out there. There's too many options, and I grew up listening to public radio. And like, you know, like I said before, I, like, I listened to This American Life and fresh air. And, like, you know, they're recording in professional studios and they sound really good. So I had really high standards for myself.

And I was like, if this doesn't sound good, nobody's going to listen to our awesome content that I know is going to be excellent. So it is. So we made a lot of, like, I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning and had to learn a lot. We started recording in a small conference room at my office where I would like set up chairs in the hallway with signs on them that said, don't walk down this hallway. We're recording in the development conference room. And, you know, it seemed like a really good idea. It seemed like a small room with a drop ceiling and had carpet, but we were on this big hard table. there was an empty bookshelf next to us. The walls were like concrete cinder block and like it wasn't good. So we actually had to scrap like our first couple. I mean we've a total we've probably scrapped three whole episodes, but we had two at the beginning, one in particular where the sound like the sound quality was so bad and I just couldn't figure out how to fix it. And I almost gave up. I just felt like,

what have I done? Like I bought all this great equipment. I did all this research. What is going wrong? So I figured out we needed to record separate tracks. That was really helpful. I was recording everything just like pre-mixed together. And it was like all echoey and all the mics were picking each other's sound up.

And then the first one we did that sounded really good was in that room. But we were like, okay, we're going to just like pad this room. like crazy. So we hung sheets over the bookshelf. We put like multiple tablecloths on the table, set everybody up as far apart as possible. And we literally had two like rolled up sleeping bags sitting in the middle of the table in between us. That's amazing. I love how you just DIYed and just made it sound good because conference rooms usually, yeah, they sound like garbage. Yeah. So good for you. That's awesome. So tell me about the equipment you're using. So the equipment I'm using, I use sure brand, Cardioid vocal mics, and I could get you the, like, the model number if you need it. But they were a recommendation from my friend Mike who does Twin Cities podcast. He sort of had started from scratch like me, just like doing a lot of research on the internet. And he had found this recommendation for these mics. And they're not that expensive. I think they were a little over $100 each on Amazon. And their, their vocal mics for.

singing. So they're cardio, like, mics and they really only, like, pick up what's right in front of them. So they sound awesome, and I'm super pleased with them. I have just really cheap pop filters and really cheap mic stands. I sort of had, like, a shoestring to medium budget that I had finagled for myself. I had, like, $800 to spend. So, like, I spent most of it on the mics and on the, like, recorder or the mixer. So I have a Zoom 6 recorder. So it's, It's portable, but also really solid. And you can plug four mics into it. And it also has its own mics that comes with.

So if you want to do like a group interview where everybody is recorded on the same mic and has sort of like, like if you want to pick up some of the ambient sound like birds singing or kids in the background, like it's got those options too. But I record straight on to an SD card instead of going into my computer. That just, I don't know, it just works out for me. I honestly don't know that recorder has so many settings and so much cool stuff it does

that I don't understand but I know how to plug in those mics and I just pay attention to levels and and try to keep everybody really close to the mics because then we sound like we're awesome like we sound like we're on NPR but if you get three inches away from those mics

all of a sudden it all gets lost So we did some mic technique work. And yeah, that's amazing. So, yeah, I think you're talking about the SHR SM58 mics. And then you plug those into cable. They have cables. You just plug it right into the Zoom H6 digital recorder. I have that one as well.

And I really like that one. Yeah. And you guys all have like little stands for the mics, presumably. Yep. Yeah, they were like $6 stands. And we have pot filters so that our P's and Bs don't poop. on us. The plosives, the popping peas. The plosives. Tell me more about the mic technique. What did you guys learn? So you have to be really close to the mic, like right up in its business. So I

position the pop filters so they're just like, you know, like a quarter inch away from the front of the mic. And then you just got to be up close and personal. So you have to get used to that because it It makes it really hard to, like, gesture with your hands and all that kind of stuff. But just, like, sitting at the front of your chair, getting right up in that mic. And you can hear it. Like, if you've got monitoring headphones on, you can hear exactly when you sort of lose that closeness and that quality. And it can be hard with a guest especially because they want to, like, sit back and laugh.

And they're bumping everything. And it's all making noises. So just, like, when we have a guest. We, Hannah and I do like a little tutorial with them if they've never done any sort of mic work. Yeah, but just like being as close as possible is the key to great sound. And also, well, so you mentioned that I record in my basement now. We don't record in that conference room anymore. But I just happen to have a finished basement that's like has a really low ceiling.

So it has a low drop ceiling and fluffy carpet. There's like a big couch down here. there's just a lot of poofy things around to dampen the sound. And it turns out to be like a perfect recording studio. So we all sit around. I have a card table that I put a tablecloth on. And it's just a square table. We're actually not very far apart from each other. But it ends up, since those mics just pick up what's in front of them, it ends up working out really well. And I pay a lot of attention to where our cables are. That's a big thing. Like the mic cables, if they're crossed, that can affect the sound. So I I have everything draped really strategically around corners of the table. Everybody's got monitoring headphones on except for Hannah because it freaks her out to hear her voice. So she doesn't wear them. But I just sort of pay attention to everything. Yeah, those headphones will help prevent people from straying from the microphone.

So that's really helpful. Yeah. Where is every, so your audio quality is fantastic, the way you record it in that room. I edit for other people and they've really struggled with in-person recordings and they tend to bleed into each other's tracks, but not you guys. So tell me where everybody's positioned at the table. We're all just on a side. So it's a square table. It's just a standard card table. And everyone's in the middle of a side and I just put the mic stands right up to the edge and have the recorder in the middle sort of in front of me. And then I draped the cables over the corners and run them under the

stands. So nobody's touching them. And we all put our phones on airplane mode because you can get kind of a little wah-wah like interruption if phones are too close to the cables or too close to the bikes. And yeah, I mean, we all just sit around the table literally. Like we just have, we each have a side usually because I have four setups. And then we usually have, we usually have three of us, but sometimes we have four. Okay, so now you know how to record a quality sounding podcast in person. For a list of the equipment that I tell uses, you can check out the show notes at sarah micotel.com. And again, if you want to support this podcast by checking out squadcast, you can check out my affiliate link at sarahigatel.com slash squadcast.

Thank you for listening to podcasting step by step. are now one step closer to launching that podcast you've been dreaming about, but I want to get you even closer. I created a free guidebook for you with actionable worksheets called eight mistakes new podcasters make and how to fix them. To find that, head on over to sarahmicatel.com slash fix. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.