How To Give Your Podcast an Instantly Professional Sound

When performing an audio repair job, it’s helpful to break down the overall task into individual components, so let’s pinpoint a few things in the above recording that aren’t good enough. 

Fortunately, in the scheme of bad audio, this isn’t an extreme case. Condenser mics do a good job with the human voice, so from an equipment standpoint there’s a solid foundation. It’s not an overly unpleasant recording to listen to, and doesn’t feature any distortion or clipping, but it is not in ideal shape, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, there is a very audible hiss in the background, which is probably a combination of air ambience and the mic preamp. This type of background noise can be distracting for the listener, or lead to ear fatigue when they’ve been listening for too long.

Aside from this, there’s an over-abundance of mouth sounds, meaning we’re capturing unwanted detail in the podcast host’s voice. Because he was speaking a little too closely into the mic, you can hear a lot of sibilance, which combines with the room noise to make for a harsh recording. Thankfully, the use of a pop shield has meant we don’t have to deal with plosives.