How to Sound like Certified Podcaster Now: Best Tips to Fix Your Recording Environment

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Hey everyone, this is Tom Hazard from Feed you'd Brand and today I'm going to share with you some tech tips for your recording environment. It's something that is too often overlooked for podcasters, even seasoned podcasters who sort of get into their groove and think, hey, everything's working great and don't really think much about it. But especially if you're a new podcaster, there are a lot of things you need to consider about where you're recording, the environment and how it sounds. Everybody always thinks, hey, it's about the tech, it's about the microphone and the equipment, and those are important things. But even with great equipment, your recording may not always sound very good because you haven't considered what's around you in your environment. And this is also true if you're going to record video like I am for this episode. So if you're listening to this as the podcast for some of it, especially toward the end of the episode, you may want to go to the blog post on Feed you'd brand and check out the video which will be there so you can see some of the visual considerations. But anyway, really want to share this with you. I recorded this as a live episode on Facebook and so I'm just recording this little intro so that you, our listeners, have a little context. And now let's go to that live. And at the end of that I'm going to have just a quick little wrap up as well. Here you go.

Well, actually, I wanted to share with you sort of why I'm going to do what I'm going to do today. I recently purchased and reviewed at least 10 different microphones because as we get a lot of new customers at Poditize, there's a lot of questions about, hey, what is the best equipment to use? And I realized, wow, I started podcasting a number of years ago and, you know, half a dozen or so, and microphone technology has probably changed. It's been a while since I've really checked out everything that's available and how well they are, you know, suited to meet today's needs of podcasters and live streamers. So I went through and bought them all and reviewed them all. And in an upcoming feed, you'd brand episode, I review them all, break them all down, the pros and the cons, and then share, you know, my recommendations and what. Why you might choose one microphone over another. It's not that there's ever one that's perfect or one that's terrible. A lot of times it depends on your particular needs and preferences. But as I went through that process, I was reminded about how much your environment plays a role in your recording quality. You know, your actual space that you record in, like I am right now. And there are a lot of things to consider, you know, while having a microphone that's appropriate and you're happy with is very important. I personally believe that your environment plays a very big role in whether your audio quality for your episodes you're recording are good or bad, or maybe, you know, not as good as they could be. And understanding some of those things, preparing ahead of time, can make a huge difference. You can have a very expensive, excellent quality microphone, and if you're not recording in the right environment, you know, you might as well not be using that expensive microphone. So I wanted to share some tips today and things for you to consider in your environment. So here we go. One of the biggest tips I want to share right off the bat, especially for any of you new podcasters out there. A lot of you come and say to us and ask, well, do I need to go into a professional recording studio to record? Well, I want to set aside this myth right away. You know, I know there was a time when microphones were super expensive. You had to plug them into these really big fancy mixing boards and have an actual studio engineer that is adjusting the equalizer and get all that right to produce what's considered to be a good quality audio. Especially people who started in radio decades ago would really believe this or subscribe to this. And while it would be wonderful to have an actual official sound appropriate, I'm not going to say soundproof, but really intentional audio studio to record in. That would be a really nice to have thing. But in all practical reality, most of us don't have access to one or either can't afford it or just don't want to spend the kind of money that it takes to pay someone to go into a recording studio if you want to do it. More power to you. One of our clients, Dustin Matthews of the get well Fit podcast, he has a recording studio that his company has built. And, you know, podcasting is a huge Part of their company's marketing efforts. They had the space, they had the desire and the budget, and they built a recording studio. And I love it. It's fantastic. If you have that opportunity, by all means do it. Most of us are not that way though, and don't have that opportunity. And that's fine. You can still create a tremendously high quality audio recording without going into recording studio. The one exception I might make is if you were intentionally recording an audiobook or an audiobook series. That might be a situation where I decide I might really go and seek a recording studio. Or all of us have some environments that really do perform, much like a recording studio does. I'll get to that in a few minutes. And you know, if you're gonna do a short series and you really need that highest qual, you can certainly do it. I'll let you know what that is. But now, with the way technology is, and the reality is most of us are recording podcasts, and if not all the time, at least some of the time recording guests. And you're going to record them over the computer, much like I'm recording this and broadcasting it over the computer live to Facebook today. That you're already reducing the quality of audio down to what will go through a USB port in a computer. And a USB port and computer has audio limitations. So having a big fancy studio and a very expensive microphone becomes less effective and less noticeable if you're going to be, you know, using a computer like I am here to broadcast, or if you're going to be connecting to interview somebody over Zoom or Squadcast or Skype, any of those tools. So again, you know, the need for recording studio is not there. However, you don't just want to record anywhere that you'd like to record. You really need to think about your environment. So here we go. Getting into some of the tips of your environment. Number one tip of your environment is be cognizant of the noise that's happening outside. Is the room you're recording in on the exterior of your house or your building that you're, if you're at work, that you're recording in, what's going on outside those windows. Know what days of the week your trash gets picked up? This is whether it's home or at business, doesn't matter. Trash gets picked up from everywhere, right? What day of the week does get picked up? Roughly what time of day? I know that where I record most of my podcasts, right here in this studio, that I do not record on Monday mornings. I did not record on Wednesday afternoons. I know it's Wednesday here, about noon time right now on the west coast. But I'm talking in my environment, like 3pm to 5pm I am not going to record on a Wednesday here because on Wednesday afternoon, the trash trucks come. There's two of them. One's picking up trash, one's picking up recycling. It's right outside my window, which is, you know, three feet to my, right here. And it's a horrible noise. And it's distracting to me as much as I think it is to my listeners if they hear that background noise. And of course, if I'm talking while that background noise is happening. Certainly there's some improvement that can be made in audio editing, but you cannot completely eliminate it. Same thing with Monday mornings in our neighborhood. I live in a neighborhood where everybody. All of the outdoor landscaping and lawn mowing is all done on Monday mornings. And I don't live in a neighborhood where everybody does their own. Which that might be actually more difficult because then it'd be kind of random when somebody might be having their lawn mowed. But here it's always Monday mornings from first thing in the morning till about 11 in the morning, close to 12. I am not going to record on Monday mornings. So there you have that first tip. Make sure you're aware of what's going on outside. Now, look, there's always going to be things you cannot anticipate. You don't know that a fire truck is going to drive by your building to help put out a fire in an emergency. And that can happen at any time. Things are going to happen. You either when that happens, if you can, I would pause your recording and wait until it passes to continue. Or if you're on with a guest and you sort of can't help it, you'll just have to go with it in that situation and address the elephant in the room. If it's really that bad, say, sorry, listeners, you know that we couldn't help that ambulance going by. But the content was so important. Sure, you'll appreciate it regardless of that background noise or, you know, let them know, don't pretend that it wasn't there. So, you know, outside forces. That's something that you can try to make sure you don't set yourself up for failure and schedule recordings at times when you know, there might be distractions or interruptions. So there's one tip. Now let's talk about your interior environment. Your office space, right? Your home office, your work office. Maybe it's just your home. It's a passion project podcast. You're doing this from your home. Soft surfaces are your friend. That means wall to wall carpeting. That means drapes on windows, rooms that have maybe sofa and cushions. These are sound absorbing materials and those are generally good for your audio quality. What's generally bad for your audio quality is hard surfaces that reflect a lot of sound. Windows that are uncovered, tabletop surfaces made of glass. Anything hard, really, most tables are made of something hard, but especially the floor. And then your orientation in that room, if you've got a room that is very square, rectilinear and also the smaller the room is, can hurt you and create a lot of echo sound like you're in a box. And you know, you may be thinking, if you're new, well, what does that sound like? Well, the thing that I would always recommend is test, test, test, go and set yourself up in the environment that you would like to record in. Set it up with your equipment, with your good microphone, your computer. You know, if you're going to use zoom to record, then you can start up a zoom session and not connect with anybody and just record yourself. You want to be using the software, the hardware and the environment that you're intending to record in and record some sample audio and then play it back with some good quality headsets and really listen to it. Not don't just listen to what you're saying, listen to everything else, because that's going to tell you a lot. And if you record in a few different locations within your building or your home, you can listen to how differently they sound. Now, let's say you don't have a lot of options. You have an environment that is not ideal. It's got a lot of hard surfaces. It's got a lot of parallel walls close together with a lot of reflection. Well, I would say try to really think about that and decide, is there anything I can do either permanently or even temporarily to improve that environment? And I'm going to tell you there are a few things you can do. Let's say, like my table here that I'm using, my computer is on and my microphone is in front of. If it's a very hard surface, and especially if I've got a hardwood floor, you can take a blanket and drape it over the this desk, a blanket or a towel, whatever you've got, put it under the computer, drape it over it, even in front of you and maybe into your lap so that some of your sound doesn't just go down to the floor and reflect back Up. It may sound a little extreme, like, wow, do I really need to do that? Well, if you've got a pretty bad environment with a lot of hard surfaces and a lot of echo, you may very well want to do that. I think that once you set that up temporarily a couple times, you might be thinking, I'd really like to make some improvements to my space so I don't have to go through this every time I record. And that might mean, okay, let's say you don't have wall to wall carpeting in your room. Maybe you might go out and, you know, if you have don't have a big budget, that's fine. But you can go out even to an Ikea or something and get an area rug. And you know, make sure you measure the size of your room. It doesn't have to go wall to wall, but it hopefully maybe 8 foot by 10 foot at least or even bigger. That would cover the majority of the floor in your environment and go underneath you, your chair and the table that you're sitting at or working at. You will find doing something like that will improve your audio quality tremendously and it will absorb more sound and reflect it less. Same thing with windows. Maybe you have, you know, in California we have a lot of these sort of shutters to close our windows. We don't use drapes a lot, but you might actually want to install a curtain rod and have a drape that you can pull across the window before you record to help absorb some of that sound and keep it from getting directly to the glass and reflecting right back at you. That's going to help reduce that echo. And some people also ask, hey, what about on the road? I'm going to be traveling for a couple weeks on business and I need to record some episodes. I'm not going to be in my normal environment. Is that that okay? Well, it can be okay. In fact, I would suggest that hotel rooms are really not the worst environment to record with a few caveats, but there are things you can control. For example, hotel rooms, usually you have one or two beds with pillows. In the environment, the windows always have curtains of some kind that you can pull across so that, you know, then they're usually very thick because they are made to block out light a couple of layers. Pull those across. Do not have the window open. Even if you like the view, just while you're recording, pull it closed. Those curtains are going to do a lot to help you. And also remember your environmental factors you can control. Think about the thermostat in that room, the air conditioner. A lot of times those hotel in room heaters or air conditioners make quite a lot of noise when they're blowing air into your room. And the humming of an air conditioner, you obviously don't want that noise in your background. So just for the time that you're recording, turn it off. You usually have control of those things to be able to turn them completely off for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, whatever amount of time you're going to record, just turn it off so it doesn't become an issue. And then, you know, when you're sitting in that hotel room, if you're sitting at a desk, usually there's a wall very close right in front of you at a desk. And I would change your orientation of that wall. You know, turn yourself at an angle, back away from it a little bit. Don't just sit speaking right into that desk in that wall and have that sound reflect back at you. But certainly, I mean, I've recorded many episodes in a hotel room. Now, if you're going to record a guest in a hotel room over Zoom or Squadcast, Skype, whatever, make sure you go and pay for. And a lot of times they charge for it. I wish it was getting to the point where they don't charge for Internet at all the hotels. And usually basic Internet, most of the time you can get for free, but they usually have a nominal day charge, you know, 6, 7, $10, usually at most. If you're going to pay for premium Internet, which is just faster speed, and I would highly recommend you do that if you're gonna record guest interviews from a hotel room, don't be too cheap. Pay that little fee. As frustrated as it may make you to have to pay for Internet, you wanna have a high quality audio recording for your guests, you wanna have a high quality show. So pay for that Internet, get that increased bandwidth and make sure that you don't have some of those Internet interruptions or glitches just because of low bandwidth. Because that just frustrates your listeners and hurts the quality of your show.

So let's see, environmental tips. Now, if you're recording as video, then just a couple more tips for recording for your environment. And actually, let me first tell you, at Politize, about 30% of our customers are recording and distributing video as well as audio. And we're seeing those percentages increase over time. More and more people are doing video because some of them are going live like I am today, but others, even if they're not live, they're recording the video and we're editing it and putting it out on YouTube for them, embedding it in their website, repurposing it a number of different ways. And if you're going to do that, you also need to think about your visual environment. So what does your environment look like? What's in the background? Look behind me. Right here. I have an intentional backdrop. Not very expensive. I think this is maybe $100 or something. It's a large print. It's hanging from the ceiling, and it gives you an intentional backdrop. Because I don't particularly like the look of the environment that would be here behind me. If I rolled that up and you saw what was here, it just looks cluttered. It's not intentional. But you don't have to use a backdrop like that. You can also have a. Maybe you have a particularly beautiful home, or you have these really nice bookcases behind you, you know, and you have a lot of cool books in there, and people can't always read what they are, but that collage of bookbinding edges there can look really cool. Now, we see a lot of people have nice sort of desk or credenza setups behind them. And, you know, if you ever see a live stream that Tracy does from her desk, she's got sort of a corner of the room. Her desk is ang. Like kind of at an odd angle, which is actually really good for recording, where you see sort of a corner of a room behind her with art on the walls. And, you know, some things that are intentionally set there. It's not completely random. And I guess that's really the big tip here is make it intentional, don't make it random. And then also, if you're going to record video, you want to think about what you're wearing. I mean, quite honestly, you're only seeing a very little bit of my shirt, but it's a collared shirt. But the biggest tip here is if you're going to record several episodes back to back, like I will in a day, record three or four episodes in an afternoon and go back to back. And if I'm recording video, I'm going and changing my shirt between each video because they're going to come out on different days. And I don't want it to always look on video like I wear the same clothes over and over and over again. And even if you do record episodes in a batch, you don't necessarily want your audience to know that you're recording them in a batch. So again, just a simple little tip, go Change that shirt between each recording that you do if you're going to use the video. Personally, I prefer audio only, but the way the world is going, we do a lot more video. So lighting. If you're going to do video, make sure your lighting is decent. Now, I'm going to admit to you, I didn't have as much prep time before this live as I normally take. And I do have an intentional light that would be in front of me over there, shining back on my backdrop. You see, I have kind of this hot spot above the D there, and potatoes. While there's a light in the ceiling shining right down on there. I have another specific. Sometimes it's called a diva light or a vanity light. That is this ring. And I mount it over here and project it when I'm being specific and intentional about my environment. And it lights me, and it lights the backdrop so that the video quality is better. Now, shame on me. I didn't do that today. So call myself out on that. Now, it's also a little difficult with my glasses. So one more visual environmental thing you want to be careful of. Everything reflects off my glasses. So I have to take that diva light. It's on a tripod and a pole, and I put it up very, very high. Now, one of my assistants is going to actually show you. I think this is a good idea. Let's turn that on here. You want to turn it on and show everybody the difference. Let's do that. So that's happening while we're talking here, but we have to raise that up very high so it lights that backdrop. And a lot of this is way over my head. I mean, the top of my head on that backdrop is actually way down here. So the light can go above me and light that backdrop and not reflect in my eyes. But we'll also show you when we have it low, you will see the light ring in my glasses. And that's no fun. So what we do is, in that situation, you have a couple options. I recorded some video recently where we couldn't get the light out of my eyes. And so I took off my glasses and I wore contacts. I have contacts. I usually only use them for sports, but that way I could take the contacts up. But here we go. Look here, you see? Unless I really look up, you'll see it, which I'm very careful not to do. So here we've got the lighting, and we're putting it on the space. It's lighting me up better, lighting the background up a little better. So think about that and be intentional about your visual environment as well. Another thing that is being pointed out to me is that my backdrop is not exactly centered on where I'm sitting. And I have sort of this situation where I am, where it's not ideal to see the whole logo and center it and center me without making it a little crooked. Honestly, that has more to do with the background backdrop that I printed and its position and relative to my space than actually my positioning because I can only stretch my microphone so far away from where it's mounted. I have this boom mount here, and if I was using a tabletop mount, that would be no big deal. But I use a boom mount because I swing it out of the way when I'm not recording and swing it back. So those are some other dynamics you want to think about now. Is it the end of the world? No. I mean, I certainly think the background here is just fine. Also, quality of background. As long as we're talking visual, I'll give you one more thing. This is one of the first backgrounds I printed for us here at Paddletize. And at first I thought, yeah, it's decent, it's intentional, better than nothing. And then I went and had another one printed for a trade show that we were exhibiting at. And wow, the colors are so much more vibrant and the quality of the print was so much better. And I learned that not all these printers that print backgrounds like this are created equal. So I found, wow, there's this. These new large format printers that use latex inks and wow, those colors are more vibrant and that's what I'm using now. And I'm having a new one printed. So in an upcoming episode, you'll hopefully see, you know, wow. Not only am I refreshing and updating a lot of the COVID art with a lot of new people that started working with us since we printed this, but the colors will be much more vibrant and dramatic. And I think that's always is great visually too. So I hope you're finding these tips helpful about your environment. Whether you're just recording audio or you're recording video, really it's all about preparation, thinking about it and being intentional, being very intentional about it. I think that's the biggest takeaway is don't let it just be random and test, test, test. Doesn't take much time to set up, record, experience it, and then listen to it and, or watch it. And, you know, things appear a little different when you're recording in zoom. And maybe when you're listening to yourself, I'm not using headset to listen right now because I'm not having a conversation with somebody. I'm just speaking. So I didn't put my headset on. But when you're listening or you're speaking, you're not paying attention to all those details. And so you may not really be able to see it or hear it. So record it, play it back, listen to it, think about it, give it to somebody else to listen, see what they think, and then listen to it and compare to what you hear listening to some other podcasts or some other live videos. Do some comparison. Just be intentional about it. Make it the best that it can be. You're going to take the time to spend to intentionally record some great content. May as well make the audio quality the best that it can be and the visual experience the best that it can be. So that's it for today's tech call. I don't think I have anybody on live for any questions. Do we have any questions from Facebook? No. Okay, then we're going to wrap this up. If you do have any questions, you can always comment on this video on the Facebook page. We will reply to it. We do monitor this, so it may not be immediate, but within a day or so we will reply. And you have any questions or suggestions. Oh, one more. You know what, I'm going to add one more thing here about your environment. Actually, maybe two. There are some people that teach you can record a podcast on your cell phone and in your car. They think, well, the car is one of those environments. There's a lot of soft surfaces, a lot of fabric and no parallel surfaces. Everything's at angles. And while that's true and you can record a podcast in your car, I don't recommend it. Remember we talked about those outside environmental issues. You cannot control those. They're completely random. Cars are gonna drive by, firetrucks are gonna drive by, people talking outside your car. You can hear it. I really don't recommend that, although I know some teach. Yeah, you can do that. Second thing, let's say you're gonna record your intro, pre recorded intro and pre recorded outro for your show. And you really want that audio quality to be the absolute best it can be and even a little better maybe than the audio quality you're going to record for your regular shows. Every home has an environment that you can use that's an ideal audio chamber where it's not going to reflect any sound. It's a closet. Now, some homes have larger closets than others and you may need, you know, if it's a very small one and you're claustrophobic, you may not want to do this. If you have any kind of a walk in closet, it's really, really ideal. Whenever we've been in our home environment and we've wanted to produce some high quality audio recordings and to whether it's to a computer or a digital audio recorder, it doesn't matter. All the clothing in a closet is ideal sound absorbing material and it becomes the closest thing you can get to, to what they call an anechoic chamber, meaning it will not echo anything, no sound will bounce, it all gets absorbed. And so very, very high quality audio recording environment. So if you want to record something special, maybe it's a promotion, a commercial, you're going to put in some of your episodes. I'm not suggesting you use a closet as the place where you record all the time because that would really be no fun. And you know what, are you going to put a chair in there? You're going to hold stuff in your lap? It's not ideal for short recordings. It can work very well. Long ones, regular ones, take care of your major environment and make it the best it can be for the best quality. But a closet, especially a walk in closet, is a fabulous environment in terms of sound. Don't recommend you record any videos in there. I think that'd be a little weird. But anyway, so that's it. Sorry, I forgot those last two tips wanted to throw in there. So there you go. So we're going to be doing this on a regular basis with these tech tips, tech calls we're going to do monthly here on Potitize in a part of our series with some other client only coaching calls. And if you're able to participate live, I recommend you do. I think you get a lot out of it and then I would actually be happy to bring you on to ask any questions you might have live and otherwise. Definitely, you know, you can watch the recordings here in this private Facebook group. It is private. It's not open to the public. You need to be a client to get this information. So that's that. Hope you enjoyed it and thanks very much. This has been Tom Hazard from Poditize signing off for today. Bye.

Well, I hope you enjoyed listening to that live stream and watching it. For those of you watching the video, maybe on the blog Post or on YouTube, if you're just listening to the audio as the podcast on itunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts, I really do recommend you go to the blog post@feedyourbrand.co to check out the video because there are some of these visual things we talked about regarding reflections, my glasses, the lighting you'll actually notice at the beginning of the episode I was not using the lighting I probably should have been, and we turned it on partway through so you can see the difference. In any case, it's a really important issue all too often overlooked. Consider your environment, make it intentional, and if you have a particularly challenging issue in your environment, please reach out to us either on Facebook or you know. You can of course send an email to us, but all that information is on the blog post@feedyourbrand.co. i hope this was useful to you. Thanks so much. We'll be back in the near future for another tech tip. Talk to you soon. This has been Tom on Feed your Brand.

You've been listening to the Feed you'd Brand podcast. We'd love to hear your comments on today's as well as suggestions for future topics and guests. Visit us online at feedyourbrand.co or on social @feedyourbrand. Thanks for exploring content marketing and podcast influence with us.