Affordable Quality Audio for Your Home Podcast Studio | Joe Eftihiou

As the standard expectation of the audio quality of podcasts continues to climb, many independent podcast hosts feel hopeless due to the high costs of microphones and studio equipment. Thankfully, there are budget-friendly options available that will make you sound like a pro! In this episode, Joe Eftihiou shares tips for achieving studio-quality podcast audio without breaking the bank. Get ready to level up how you sound for your podcast listeners so they love your show even more!

MORE ON THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/319

Chapters

00:00 The Importance of High-Quality Audio
06:41 Investing in Audio Equipment
12:16 Setting Up for Success

Takeaways

High-quality audio is essential for podcast growth.
Content alone isn't enough; audio quality matters.
Investing in audio equipment reflects your brand's value.
Dynamic microphones are preferable for clear sound.
Choose recording spaces wisely to minimize echo.
Editing and mastering enhance the listening experience.
Listeners may stop tuning in due to poor audio quality.
A good setup can significantly improve audio quality.
Consistency in quality leads to better audience retention.
Feedback is crucial for continuous improvement in podcasting.

MORE ON THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/319

📊 This month's Independent Podcasters Report is now available! To see podcasting industry insights that matter for indie podcast hosts and podcast guests, please visit https://PodMatch.com/Report!

Chapters

• 0:00 The Importance of High-Quality Audio
• 7:00 Investing in Audio Equipment
• 12:35 Setting Up for Success

Transcript

0:20

You're listening to Podcasting Made Simple. There are too many podcasts out there to settle for subpar audio. And if you want your podcast to stand out in today's podcasting landscape, then high quality audio is no longer just a nice to have. Hi, I'm Joe F.D. Hugh. And after listening to this, you'll have a good understanding of why high quality audio is so important for the growth of your show and how to get high quality professional sound recordings from your home or office. without breaking the bank. So before we go into the technical side of things, let's dive into why high quality audio is so important. Yes, the content and your consistency and how well your content is resonating with your audio listener is always gonna be the number one factor in the growth of your podcast. But that's still only half the picture. From the conversations I've had with hundreds of podcasters, what I understand is that a lot of podcasters... probably most of the podcasters, audio quality isn't their number one priority. They believe that as long as their content's good and they're showing up, they're getting their content shared on social media, maybe they're putting some money into ads and things, then people will show up and they'll keep listening and stay subscribed. And they believe that audio quality is maybe something they only need to focus on once they've got subscribers to a certain level, once they've got sponsors, they've got money coming in. But by laying this groundwork early on and you don't have to spend too much on it, like we mentioned, you can elevate your podcast. You can avoid wasting time and money promoting something that sounds subpar. So I'm going to share with you three points in this first section to try and convince you why audio quality is something you should be focusing on. There are millions of podcasts out there and some of them sound great and some of them don't. And that's okay. Some podcasters might not be as interested as others. in getting rapid growth for their show. But for those who do wanna grow their shows, having your listener click on one of your episodes and then being greeted by this warm, intimate, professional sounding recording is gonna capture their attention far easier than an echoey, tinny, unedited, noisy sounding episode. And they might not even know it. They might not be thinking, wow, this podcast, the audio quality sounds amazing, but some of them certainly will. And even those who don't, they'll feel it. And it's easy enough to find negative feedback when you search for, you know, why people don't listen to podcasts or why people stop listening to a certain podcast or you look at negative reviews on iTunes, you will find people who have stopped listening because of the poor audio quality. It's not just about having great content, though obviously that's extremely important. It's about how you're delivering that content as well. Secondly, the research agrees that audio quality plays a big part. in how the listener perceives the speaker who they're listening to. A study titled Good Sound, Good Research by Erin J. Newman and Norbert Schwartz concluded that after listening to the same recording, some listened in high quality, some listening in low quality, they found that the ones listening in the higher quality evaluated the research and the researcher more favorably than those who listened to the recording in lower quality. Now this is relating to scientific topics. but it can be applied to any other topic, especially if you're putting yourself out there as an expert or you're interviewing experts and trying to teach your listener something. And lastly, let's talk about your brand. Your podcast is not an island. It's a representation of your brand and your expertise and your credibility. And for those of you out there who are podcasting to raise your profile or grow your business, your podcast should exemplify your brand. Now I know a lot of business owner podcasters who they'll happily spend thousands, even tens of thousands on their brand, on their logo, on their website, everything like that. But then their podcast, they are reluctant to shell out, know, $100 or whatever to get a high quality microphone so that their podcast has that same level of professionalism. Think of your online content and your podcast as like a digital storefront. And, you know, if somebody's walking into a dimly lit store that's messy and they can't find what they're looking for, even if the front of the store looks flashy and it has a nice logo or something, they're gonna have a bad experience. Investing in high quality audio shows your listeners that you value their experience and that you take your podcast seriously. And speaking of investment, let's now talk about how much this is going to cost you. So you've already established what it could cost you in terms of not getting high quality audio, the reputation and in terms of the speed of the growth of your podcast. but what is it going to cost to, you know, upfront costs and ongoing costs to put together this high quality content. In terms of the upfront costs, to build this home or office studio that's gonna be able to capture you almost studio quality sound, you only need to be spending around a hundred pounds or a hundred dollars upfront. And again, I podcasters who are willing to spend thousands of pounds a month on... professional editing and putting together video clips and things to share on social media, maybe some paid advertising, but they're reluctant to spend that upfront cost on something that is gonna elevate every episode going forward. And then the second consideration is the ongoing production costs. So you can learn all this yourself and do it yourself, which is obviously gonna take a lot more of your time. If you have the budget, you can outsource this. And we're talking about editing, mixing and mastering here. Editing. to make everything sound concise and cutting out all the ums and ahs and everything, but also getting your podcast to the position where you're only delivering the value that your ideal listener is after. And then mixing and mastering is that extra layer of polish on top to secure that studio quality sound, even though you're recording in your home or office. If you outsource this, it could cost you several hundred or even several thousand a month, but it's possible to keep this low if you're working on some aspects of it yourself. or if you only focus on the most important parts. I know some podcasters, they really wanna get their episodes out on YouTube as well, but if you don't have the budget to make them sound and look amazing, then it might be worth considering if you should just stick to making your audio episodes the best they can be before taking the leap into video as well. So hopefully I've convinced you that audio quality is essential. to the growth of your podcast and that it doesn't have to cost you a huge amount of money either. But now let's talk about how you're gonna spend that money in the most efficient way and how to set up your equipment to get the most out of every recording. So let's talk about the gear. So there are five to 10 pieces of equipment that you'll need to set up a home or office studio. And that will vary depending on the kind of podcast, the format of your podcast. For a basic solo setup or for recording remote interviews over the internet, you'll need the following. Firstly, of course, you'll need a computer, Windows or Mac, it doesn't matter. Secondly, a high quality dynamic microphone. And this is possibly the most important part of this list. So something happened a few years ago when podcasts started to gain traction and there were a lot of... blogs coming up about podcasting and recommendations for equipment. Some of them are written by humans. Some of them are written just by AI aggregating reviews and marketing had something to do with it. But it seems like a lot of podcasters have been recommended to use a condenser microphone like the Blue Yeti or some of the other cheaper condenser microphones you'll find on Amazon. And unfortunately, these aren't the best option for most podcasters. And if you already have one of these microphones, I'm not saying you need to go out and buy a new one necessarily. There are ways of making the best of what you have and some of them are no means terrible, but it is harder with these condenser microphones to get that warm, intimate recording. So the thing with condenser microphones, they're really simple to use. They're very sensitive and you can just kind of plonk them anywhere on the desk and they'll pick up just about anything in the room. So it's very easy to capture your voice or the voice of two people if you're in the same room together. But the thing is the way that they work, being sensitive, they pick up all the reverb in the room as well, the echo and a lot of the background noise that's in your room, the background noise that's going on next door. And this is why I don't recommend condenser microphones like the Blue Yeti to podcasters. And this is why if you're recording in an untreated, as in no acoustic panels or anything in the room, an untreated space, this is why I don't recommend condenser microphones for podcasters. If you're just setting up in your home, or your office, I recommend picking up a dynamic microphone. And the two recommendations I'd make are the Audio Technica ATR2100X or the Samsung Q2U. These are both under a hundred dollars and they're much less sensitive. And if they're positioned right, they can give you that nice, warm, intimate recording. If you've got a little bit more of a budget, I recommend picking up a Shure MV7 Plus. The third item on the list is a pair of headphones or earphones. This is especially important. if you're recording remote interviews. If you're using your speakers, then the sound from your speakers is gonna go back into your microphone. And this is especially something to make guests aware of. Often you might have guests that will turn up to a recording. They don't have any headphones or earphones and their side of the audio could get completely ruined. So it's just something to make them aware of before the day. Fourth on the list is using the right recording software. for your podcast. So if you're recording remote interviews, I recommend a locally recording software like Riverside or Zencaster. What these do is they record the audio locally on each participant's computer and then upload it, which means that your recording quality isn't gonna be affected by any network issues or anything. If you must use Zoom, then just keep an eye on the settings you're using. You wanna be turning on original sound for musicians and you wanna make sure that record a separate track for each participant is turned on so that they can be edited separately. If you're not recording an online interview though, if you're recording locally, you can just use something like Audacity or GarageBand, both free pieces of software and then record directly onto your computer. And this way you're be avoiding any kind of network issues and you don't have to pay for it. Then next, I recommend picking up a boom arm or desk clamp for your microphone. rather than using the little desk stands that you get with your microphone, which can pick up taps on your desk, and they also make it very hard to position the microphone correctly, you want one of those arms, which can set you back around 20 pounds, $25 or so. And this will allow you to position that dynamic microphone directly in front of your mouth. We'll talk a little bit more about the setup in just a moment. And if your microphone has a thick foam cover built into it, you can just use that, but if it doesn't, you'll need to pick up a windshield or pop filter, either one of those foam balls that you can stick on the end of the microphone or a mesh that you can connect to your microphone arm. And this stops those nasty plosives, those puh and buh sounds from ruining your recordings. If you're planning on recording more than one person in the same room, or you just want a boost in audio quality and flexibility, I recommend picking up an audio interface or mixer. Now, what this does is allow you to plug in two XLR connected microphones into your computer. Because the microphones you've already mentioned so far, they're all USB microphones. So you can just plug in one at a time directly into your computer. But with an audio interface like the Focusrite Vocaster 2 or the Zoom H6, you can plug in multiple microphones at once. You'll also be able to use the XLR connection on your mic instead of the USB connection, which is gonna boost the quality a little bit more. Now we've gone over the equipment and software. We're gonna talk about how to get these set up. to get the best possible result from them. The first thing to consider is which room you're gonna be recording in. And this may not seem overly important, but it does make a huge difference. Not quite such a big difference as if you're using a condenser microphone, but it's still important. So whichever room you choose to record in, I recommend choosing a room that has soft furnishings if possible, or if you can get some acoustic panels to stick onto the walls. that's gonna help, especially the wall behind you. What these soft furnishings or acoustic panels do is they absorb those reflections, stop them from bouncing back into the microphone and reduce that echo-y, reverb-y sound. Ideally, it'd be a room without any foot traffic or appliances as well. So maybe a small private room, a bedroom or a small office, as opposed to an open plan office or kitchen diner. And once you've found the right spot to record in, you're wanna set your mic up on the boom arm. with the pop filter between your mouth and the microphone. And you wanna keep that microphone at no more than around four to six inches from your mouth. This is especially important in the case of if you do have a condenser microphone like the Blue Yeti, I find that a lot of podcasters, they'll sit them somewhere on the desk and because they're picking it up, that's fine. But really, if you wanna avoid that reverb, the closer you have it to your mouth, as long as you've got a pop filter on it, it's gonna get you a warmer, more professional recording. And then when it comes to the recording yourself, when you're checking the level, which will be a little meter that goes from green to red on your microphone itself or in your recording software, make sure that the meter's hovering around the middle when you're talking normally. If it's hovering in the red area or pushing up to the top of that volume meter, you need to turn your volume down because that's gonna cause nasty digital distortion, which can't really be fixed very well in post-production. You can always turn things up, but you can't remove. the distortion as easily. And then turn off your phone sound and vibrate. Make sure a guest is doing the same. Remove any jingly jewelry or anything else that's gonna make noise in your vicinity. And if you do all these things, then you'll be able to take your recordings from one that sounds like it's been recorded by an amateur to one that sounds like it's been recorded in a studio. It may take some tweaks to get things sounding just right. But even if you can get things 80 % of the way there, it's gonna... give you a huge boost and help you stand out from the other podcasts in your niche. And as we discussed after recording, you'll want to get this edited, mixed and mastered to get your listener the best experience possible, which you can learn to do yourself, or I recommend outsourcing it if you can. But if you stay consistent, keep listening to feedback and improve week on week, I'm confident that it's gonna take your podcast to new heights. I'm Joe F. DeHue, thanks for listening. For more episodes, please visit podmatch.com forward slash episodes. Thank you so much for listening. Hey, Alex here. I wanted to give you a gift as a way of saying thank you for staying around till the end of this episode. I put together a list of five things that you can read in less than five minutes that will help you level up as a podcast host, guest, or agency. To see the five things with no email address required, please visit podmatch.com forward slash free. Thanks again for listening. I hope these five things serve you well.