How to Make Your Podcast Sound Better

[Animous]

Improving the quality of your podcast vocals isn't rocket science, but it does require paying attention to some aspects of the recording process that you might be ignoring. After all, sound engineers and producers spend years honing their craft, and voice-over artists and radio personalities need to develop at least a modicum of mic technique. Understanding the basics of a microphone's characteristics, be it a USB mic or an XLR mic, will help you approach your recordings with more confidence.

Understanding Microphone Polar Patterns

We're not going to dive deep into the magic of how sound leaving your mouth is converted into accurate audio in your recording platform of choice. It's thoroughly interesting if you like understanding the nitty-gritty of how things work, but for the purposes of this story, we're going to focus on the first aspect of microphone operation that is crucial intel for anyone hoping to make a quality recording: polar patterns.

Simply put, a mic's polar pattern refers to how its diaphragm accepts or rejects audio. For instance, does it reject audio that occurs off to the sides? Does it reject audio that occurs behind it? Many mics today feature more than one pattern—often employing multiple capsules inside one mic enclosure. But typically, XLR (and plenty of USB) mics have a fixed pattern. There are several patterns out there, but here we'll focus on the most common options.

In diagrams, polarity is expressed in the form of a circle. A full circle represents the entire 360-degree field of possible sound, and the parts of the circle that are eliminated in the diagram represent areas in the surrounding audio field that the mic rejects or can't pick up sound from very well. Obviously, this is a gradual measurement—the mic doesn't cut off suddenly, it will typically fade in or out of an area where it picks up sound or rejects it, and so the resulting shape of a polar pattern will typically have rounded, bubble-like areas to represent these fades.

Cardioid

This is easily the most common pattern you'll find. It looks a little bit like an upside-down, weirdly drawn heart shape. The valley between the two rounded parts of the heart shape represents an area that the mic rejects audio from—and since this area is at the bottom of the diagram, it refers to the space behind the mic capsule.

So a cardioid mic accepts audio primarily from dead-on, addressing the capsule by speaking directly into it. Move to the sides a bit, and the signal gets somewhat weaker. Move to the opposite end of the mic (as someone facing the person speaking into the mic's front side would be), and the audio from that area will be primarily rejected. It's gradual, of course—the capsule will pick up sound from this area, it just doesn't pick up nearly as much.

Directly recorded audio will typically sound closer to the mic, and audio in the rejected areas of a mic's signal, or near them, will sound different; from these areas, you'll hear more reflections off of walls and other surfaces than direct signal into the capsule itself.

Cardioid is therefore ideal for recording a single speaker (or musician) and picking up a little bit less of the room's reflections or any other audio behind the mic. Super and Hypercardioid patterns are more directional versions of cardioid patterns—they can offer somewhat better isolation for your sound source in a room crowded with other speakers, musicians, or sounds.

Figure Eight

Some mics can pick up roughly the same levels of direct audio when addressed from the front or back. Their diagrams look more or less like a figure eight. These mics are popular for a variety of applications, but two obvious choices are when you have two speakers or singers that you wish to have on the same channel or track when you mix. If two people are facing each other, like for an interview or a two-person podcast, a single figure eight mic properly placed between them can record the conversation onto a single mono track.

Figure eight mics are also useful for picking up a direct signal—a person singing or speaking—and its reflections in a space, such as the slight echo in a large room. In a room with high ceilings or highly reflective surfaces—that has been chosen for these characteristics—a figure eight mic can often capture a bit of that room's magic along with the direct signal from the sound source, be it a person speaking or an acoustic guitar.

Omnidirectional

As the name implies, this pattern's diagram looks more or less like a full circle—it can pick up audio in fairly equal measure whether it's addressed from the front, back, or sides. The advantages here are many. Want to record the bustling sounds of a busy restaurant or subway station? Omnis are ideal for recording mono environmental sounds (don't confuse them with stereo mics or stereo field recording devices, which use two closely placed capsules to get a true stereo representation of an environment that will record onto dual tracks). Or perhaps a roundtable discussion? If the table is literally round, and not too large, having each speaker within a foot or so of the mic could theoretically get a fairly even-sounding podcast onto one track.

However, the more speakers you're recording, the more likely it is you'll want a multi-mic setup to capture the audio. Since USB mics aren't really made for multi-mic scenarios (most recording systems can only use one USB mic at a time), this is a way to record multiple speakers via USB. It may not be ideal, but it's your best typical mic pattern for a single mic scenario if you have a group of people talking. The challenge, of course, will be getting each person to match the other's levels so that certain speakers don't stand out while others seem faint. And that brings us to mic technique.

Mic Technique

Just as stage acting requires a particular style of vocal projection compared with acting on camera, speaking into a microphone requires techniques that will differ more radically than you might guess from speaking in your daily life. To understand why this is, let's discuss some of the most obvious factors that can impact a vocal recording.

Plosives

P sounds, along with F sounds and a variety of other consonant combinations, create a varying degree of air movement. The less experience a speaker is, the more their plosives will likely send an unwelcome breeze through the microphone. This can often cause distortion in a recording, but even if it doesn't, it almost never sounds good.

How do you prevent plosives from ruining recordings? Well, even pros will let some pops fly into the mic once in a while, but the two keys to eliminating plosives are pop filters and better mic technique.

A pop filter clips on to a mic stand and places a thin layer of usually nylon or perforated metal (through which sound passes easily) between the speaker and the mic. Ideally, when a plosive hits the filter, the gust of air is dispersed relatively silently and doesn't reach the mic itself, but the vocal sound—the word with the P or F—still does. In other words, it takes a plosive and makes it a far more palatable sound.

But filters can't do it alone—mic technique is indispensable for plosives. I recorded professional voice-over actors in my former career, and was amazed to see some of these skilled speakers refuse to use a pop filter. They didn't want the barrier between them and the mic—and so they honed their mic technique to the point that it was unnecessary. Mere mortals (likely most of the people you will record) are not advised to go sans pop filter, but by subtly angling your mouth away from the diaphragm on plosive sounds, you can avoid much of the issues for which pop filters were created. It's also about limiting lip movement on plosives, and it takes lots of practice to get a natural sound while doing this. But everyone can try a little bit and hear some results. Combining mic technique like this with a pop filter? That's a solid combo.

Sibilance

Pop filters will help less with sibilance, which is usually the result of too much EQ in the high-mids and highs. Too little sibilance in a recording is going to make it far less intelligible for the listener—you need a certain degree of it to understand language.

A pure signal from a mic worth its weight won't add much sibilance to the equation and, generally speaking, most people aren't going to be overly sibilant on their own. There are exceptions, of course, but if things sound too "ess"-heavy, try adjusting the EQ between 4kHz-8kHz. Sibilance is most often going to be in that range, but it can vary. You want to zero in on a narrow range of frequencies here and then lower the levels a bit, which typically means using a peak-style EQ and not a shelf-style EQ (which will raise or lower every frequency above or below it, depending on what type of shelf it is). You can usually see which type you're using in any decent EQ plug-in.

Unless the sibilance is impossible to tolerate, it's probably best to make EQ adjustments after you record so you have more flexibility.

Proximity Effect

This mic technique comes into play particularly for speakers who have deep, baritone voices (though it's true for all voices). The closer a speaker (or any sound, really) is to the mic, the louder the lower, bass-like frequencies in that speaker's voice will sound in the recording. The difference between being eight inches away from the mic and four inches away will be pretty dramatic. Not only will it be a louder recording in general, but the bass levels on the closer vocals will sound more intense. Perhaps that sounds like a good thing, but it rarely is for vocals, unless you're going for a deep-voice effect.

Typically, someone with a deep voice needs no extra help from the mic to sound like they do—what they need is the clarity the mic's crisp response can provide, and adding bass to the equation often makes things sound boomy or muddy. If your recording subject is sounding too bass-heavy or rich in the lows, tell them to move their head back a few inches, or take a small step backward from the mic, and play with distances between the speaker's mouth and the mic's capsule until those low frequencies are tamed.

Recording Environment

This one is pretty obvious, but where you record is going to have a huge impact on the recording—and I'm not just talking about whether you hear car horns in the background. A room with lots of glass or tiled surfaces is going to have a very live, echo-like sound to it, like most bathrooms or stairwells. A room covered floor-to-ceiling in carpet and sound-absorption materials will have a dead sound, and although this may be advantageous, the most natural sound will likely be somewhere in between, leaning toward the dead-sounding end of the spectrum.

You can record in a live-sounding, reflective room without the speaker sounding like they're in an echo chamber—try surrounding the speaker with non-reflective materials, and get creative. Recording studios with large live rooms might use shields covered in cloth, called gobos, to isolate instruments in the same room, and it works to a large extent. Not only does it block out some outside surrounding sounds, but it can cut down on reflections, too. You can make your own gobo, or you can drape some quilts over whatever is the proper height, or move the speaker near a set of curtains. Some people record in a closet full of coats.

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Experiment, with this in mind: Hard, shiny, or polished surfaces are often the most reflective (tile, glass, some metals) and soft, cloth-like surfaces tend to absorb reflections (pillows, blankets, curtains, foam, you get the idea). Wooden surfaces fall somewhere in between (depending on the finish and type of wood), and can be desirable for creating a natural sound when combined with some sound-absorbing materials nearby.

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