Some podcasts simply suck - and not because of the content. There are some podcasts with some really good content out there that are just impossible to listen to because of the audio quality - it's just too low and listening to them for 30 minutes or an hour is just painful. This pseudo-rant is about audio quality in podcasts and a couple ways to improve.
I just put up a mini tutorial on how to get up & started with some basic recording for a podcast. It sure won't make you sound like a million dollars, but it's a start for those that are looking to figure out how to get started recording on their computers.
I hit on one point in there about audio quality in the software, but never got into much about audio quality for hardware.
Last year I wrote a little bit about the new Shure SM58 that I bought. There's an MP3 available there that demos the difference between my old mic and the Shure SM58. It's a MASSIVE difference. The Shure SM58 was double the price of the other mic, but the quality is simply not comparable - they are universes apart.
There certainly are differences in software quality, but they are fairly minor compared to the differences in the hardware that you use. Remember the old adage, "garbage in, garbage out?"
Audio is the same. If you start with garbage quality, you'll end up with garbage no matter how much to try to fix it. Shiny dog poop is still dog poop.
There are 3 basic pieces of hardware that you need to get top-notch quality in your audio recordings:
- Microphone
- Sound card
- Mixer
The last one there, the mixer, is pretty much optional, but is still a very good idea. It acts like a conduit between your microphone and your sound card, and lets you easily control things and maintain quality.
The first, the microphone, is your most important consideration. The Shure SM58 is widely considered the gold standard for vocal microphones, and at about $100 USD, it's very affordable. There are other mics that range well into the 1,000's of dollars, but if you're reading this, it's highly unlikely that you'd ever need one. If you need one like that, at that point, you already have a few mics in the 100's of dollars range at least, and won't learn anything here.
There are other good quality microphones available. A friend in the software and audio industry recently recommended the Audio-Technica AT2020 to me as a well priced mic with unbelievable performance. I'll take his word as he really has golden ears and can be seriously spooky if you send him some audio and ask for comments. He's bang on the money. I'll be looking at mics this weekend and will likely pick one up.
If you know nothing about mics, and nothing about sound cards, the one thing to remember is that you want XLR connections, and NOT regular 1/4" or 1/8" audio jacks. The reason is simple - with an XLR connection, there is a ground, so you don't get that nasty 60 Hz Hum. Instead, you get a nice, clean signal that you can work with without worrying about fixing it afterwards.
One problem with fixing those nasty things after-the-fact, is that you can end up introducing audio artifacts from the "cleaning" that you do on it. These artifacts can add a kind of alien sounding quality to your audio that's in some ways similar to a flange effect. Not nice. Flange may sound cool on a distorted guitar, but for regular speech, it's not the cat's meow...
But back to why some podcasts suck...
Far too many podcasts use substandard hardware, and quite often many use telephony quality audio for interviews with remote interviewees, which is just sounds bad. Others publish at very low bitrates which is almost torture to listen to.
The key to fixing the problems is for everyone to have decent audio equipment. That isn't realistic for many people though. i.e. Why should I spend $800 on audio equipment to do an interview? That problem isn't going to be solved anytime soon, but if you are at least aware of it, you've got a leg up on the problem.
Hopefully this mini-rant has been helpful for a few people.
Peace,
Ryan