How to improve your Podcast audio quality (into 4 steps)?
At Vib3s, we believe that podcast shows deserve the best audio quality possible. This is why you should definitely focus on audio quality when recording your podcast contents. It has been widely proven that the audio quality of a recorded content is crucial, as a poor quality recording will inevitably be associated with poor content. Picture this: what would be your perception of a book written on a dirty sheet of paper with a wiggly handwriting- would that sound worth reading it all the way?
The audio recording is your way to convey the messages you want to pass on to your audience. Better groom them to make sure they are heard.
Here at Vib3s, we believe that improving the audio quality of your podcast can drastically enlarge your audience and ultimately your potential revenues. The audio algorithms we designed automatically assess the audio quality of your podcast episode. Spot on, the outcome of this evaluation helps you focus just on potential audio quality hiccups, no more, no less. Now you can take care of that bug before recording/editing, and deliver the ultimate quality podcast.
1 – (DON’T MAKE) NOISE
Learn how to reduce background noise
Noise is everywhere in our daily lives, and unless you record your podcast episode in a quiet studio, it is very likely that your audio recordings will be punctuated by surrounding noise. Whether road traffic, city life, wind, slamming door or microphone background screeches, those are bound to pretty much degrade the overall quality of the interview you long prepared. When too present, the noise level may even discourage your audience from listening to your episode until the end. Too bad.
Vib3s algorithms will automatically compute the noise level of your episodes: upload your file on our website – et voilà! Vib3s’s assessment of your episode’s noise level comes with a score.
Got a 5? Well done, the noise level in your podcast is more than acceptable and will not affect the overall audio quality.
Got a 2? Well, it is time to focus on noise reduction with some basic tips first.
Carefully choose your microphone to reduce surrounding noises, pick the right place to record (a quiet room with acoustic isolation features whenever possible), place yourself and your guests at the appropriate distance from the mic to minimize noise, and play with the volume settings to muffle noises as much as possible.
Specific audio softwares are a must when editing your recordings as they feature functions to reduce or remove disturbing noises. Perfect sound is at hand!
2 – LEVEL UP!
Learn How to improve your podcast audio quality
The overall audio level of your show is another important item to consider for the global audio quality of your show. Your audience is probably among the silent, urban crowds one may encounter every day in city life: listening to your show in a noisy environment (think public transportation, sitting in a car, on a plane…). You can only make an average guess about the type of device they will be playing your podcast on and the possible use of headphones, pods or speakers. Therefore, the audio level matters more than you think as listeners should not need to pump the volume to the max to enjoy your (brilliant) contents.
Likewise, an exaggerated audio level may lead to degrading the quality of your file: clipping, distortions and lack of margins for the louder parts of your podcast.
Thankfully, standardized guidelines are here to help in normalizing the audio level of your shows. This metrics called “Loudness” is commonly used in the movie or the music industries, and embedded in usual audio softwares to level audio streams before publishing your episode.
Same old grading system: Your score is 5 when the average audio level of your episode is within an acceptable range, and your grade will be lower when the audio level is inappropriate (too high or too low).
Check this useful link regarding this topic.
3 – VOLUME VARIATION
Learn How to improve your podcast audio quality
The same Loudness standard (as seen above) guidelines will help you tuning the various audio levels to reach an acceptable, average level, making your podcast ‘Music to the listeners’ ears’, almost literally.
Vib3s is your sidekick in enhancing your audio quality: submit your podcast to our algorithms to receive an assessment of the various audio levels. Get a high five when the average audio levels are in tune and meet an average that is acceptable to listeners, or less – then, you need to get back to work to level the different audio streams and meet a comfortable standard.
Insider’s tips? This issue can be addressed directly at the recording stage by checking your audio recording level, or at the editing stage by using audio software to level this out automatically.
4 – COMPRESSION
Learn How to improve your podcast audio quality
The usual is to export a podcast show as an MP3: this handy format compresses the audio file by removing the audio content that is the most unlikely to be heard. The objective is to considerably downsize the audio file while maintaining a more-than-decent audio quality.
However, one consequence of the MP3 compression is that the operation, when performed at a high rate, may squeeze out the high frequencies (treble).
Our Vib3s algorithms are smart enough to automatically detect how much high frequencies have been removed from your recording, hence giving a hint on how compressed/degraded your audio file is. And guess what? This result comes with a grade to simply and clearly indicate the quality of your rendering.
When finalizing your episode, make sure you choose the appropriate options to balance between audio quality and file size, ultimately honing your MP3 compression for your audience’s benefits.
About us
Vib3s is a fresh team of podcast addicts and audio experts, who ambition to weigh in as the podcasting industry is skyrocketing. Vib3s thrives on the challenge of mixing audio expertise and innovation.
The Podcast-audio-quality tool has been proudly developed by Vib3s in our French headquarters.