processing suggestions for podcasts?

[u/tremendous-machine]

Hi folks, I am by no means a pro engineer, but I did do some engineering vocational school and am an experienced computer music researcher and musician, so I know the basics of using compressors and reverbs and so on.

I am now producing podcasts for my work, and I'm curious to hear if people have go-to processing pipelines they use for that that are different from music, especially with regard to how you handle riding gain, compressors, etc. Naturally some of my guests are not great with their mics.

Currently what I'm doing is:

- getting guests to use a cheap but ok small diaphragm condensor pretty close to the mic

- dereverbing both my track and theirs so I can put a tight dryish room reverb on both to get them sounding closer to the same room, eqing both feeds to get the mics sounding closer

- putting mild saturation on the tracks, followed by an easy-over compressor just reducing the overall dynamic range and another to catch and compress harder any unusually loud parts, plossive pops, etc (using Klanghelm, Soundtoys, FabFilter plugins)

FWIW, so far I seem to like my Shure ksm-9 the best for getting a wee bit of proximity effect, minimal room reverb, and clarity.

I'm particularly curious if there are specific types of compressors or saturators that sound best on spoken dialog for clarity and warmth. (eg. FET vs Tube vs optical, etc)

Any other suggestions or pointers at resources for podcasts/radio style mixing would be most appreciated.

thanks!

[u/variant_of_me]

One of the biggest complaints I have about podcasts is just basic leveling. I'd rather hear someone overly compressed but intelligible than someone who sounds natural but every other word is drowned out because they moved their head or spoke under their breath or something.

Maybe something like vocal rider? I know Waves makes one. And then compression after. Mic choice makes a big difference but in this case it's probably best to just work with what you've got.

[u/hotdogtears → u/variant_of_me]

Omg this!!! It’s soo annoying. That and when people don’t use pop filters and/or are too close to the mic, so you get those really heavy P’s. Ugh..

[u/StudioatSFL]

I use RX revive, a bunch of izotope stuff including their vocal rider, de-bleed if there’s multiple folks in the room talking. A bit of eq and dynamic eq. De-essing. De-plosive if needed. Comprsssion is usually like a distressor.

[u/ItsMetabtw]

I edit a couple podcasts weekly and my processing really depends on the guests and their sound quality. I use accentize dxsplit for background cleanup and de-verbing ugly rooms. I use Pro Q for cleanup and general EQ shaping, and the Pulsar VM compressor just to smooth everyone out

Otherwise on the mixbus I use pro MB to get everything under control, Nuro X Rider (modern vocal rider) to vol fader ride everything so no one is louder than anyone else, and sonible smart limit at the end

[u/Kooky_Guide1721]

Dynamic microphones, pop shields (most use branded wind shields) compressors and Dugan mixers. Give them the it’s a microphone not a magic wand talk before hand. 

No reverbs, etc. possibles a little stereo spread between contributors 

[u/tremendous-machine → u/Kooky_Guide1721]

I'm interested to hear why you prefer dynamics, I would have thought it would be the other way. I notice the clarity of my consonants and so on are, to me, better when I use a small diaphragm condensor over a dynamic. But then, I am also trained at using mics and at speaking, so maybe this is something where a dynamic is less dangerous in the hands of a random guest?

[u/Kooky_Guide1721 → u/tremendous-machine]

Cheaper, more robust, less sensitive, usually tuned for voice anyway. Podcasts are always a bit more rough and ready, intelligibility is most important. Wide EQ’, 90Hz hi pass, try keep the room out of the recording. I’ve noticed a lot  the hosting platforms sound different anyway. 

I have fancy Schoeps mics for music, but I’m usually happy using Beyer M201’s for speech. Particularly because they have very good off axis response, so they don’t get very nasal if the presenter turns to the side or something. 

I’ll add if it’s multiple voices it’s easier because the timbre keeps changing. For one voice like a narrator or something I’d probably think about breaking out the U-89 or something. But I’d always pick a dynamic over a low/mid range condenser. 

[u/tremendous-machine → u/Kooky_Guide1721]

Thanks for the tip. I've been meaning to invest in a better dynamic anyway. How does that compare to an RE20?

[u/Kooky_Guide1721 → u/tremendous-machine]

Added another thought on the previous there… 

Only ever used Re20 for music (Sax, Percussion) , so I can’t really comment on a solo voice. But they have worked well when I used them. 

The new SE dynamics are turning up more often also, might be worth a look. 

[u/AssGasorGrassroots → u/tremendous-machine]

I used to record a podcast with condensers. It was hell mixing, what with the proximity effect, and dealing with the room. It was so much easier when we all switched to 58s

[u/Financial-Koala6995]

I'd deal with the plosive pops before the compressors. Lowering just the pop with clip gain, or briefly filtering its low end, avoids making the whole word duck when that second compressor catches it. For the normal speech, the attack and release settings would concern me more than whether the model says FET or tube.

[u/tremendous-machine → u/Financial-Koala6995]

Thanks! so just manually gain riding any bad ones you mean?

[u/Financial-Koala6995 → u/tremendous-machine]

Yes, but just the brief pop rather than riding the whole phrase. A clip-gain dip before compression can do that. If it also makes the vowel too quiet, a short low-frequency cut over the burst is more selective.

[u/NBC-Hotline-1975]

I use HP and LP filters to split the mic into two tracks. One has only the low frequencies including plosives. The other has no low frequencies. Then I run the LF track through some fast limiting, with a threshold set to ONLY limit the plosives. Finally I recombine the two tracks into a new track which has all the plosives already treated.

[u/tremendous-machine → u/NBC-Hotline-1975]

Do you find that better than just using a multi-band compressor? And if you don't mind sharing how, that would be great.

[u/NBC-Hotline-1975 → u/tremendous-machine]

Yes, better, because I don't want to compress anything, except to really hard compress/limit the plosives.

I analyze a little bit of file with the plosives, to see how low they are in frequency. I make a new file using fairly sharp HPF so it goes down to where the plosives lie, but does not have the high-energy part of the plosives. Then I subtract that HPF file from the full-range file. This leaves me just the LF information, from the plosive frequency on down.

Then I examine this LP file, and find what the LF level is in areas that do NOT have plosives. I set my limiter to that threshold. and process the LF file. The resulting LF content will be essentially untouched, except that all the plosives will be greatly reduced in level. Finally I recombine the LP file with the HPF file, to get one file with complete frequency content.

Then you process the result with whatever you need to keep the levels consistent for your mix.

[u/lidsonsideways → u/NBC-Hotline-1975]

I would love to see a video of this in action if you ever feel so inspired.

[u/alijamieson]

I recorded an audiobook last year

Used an RE20 into an Avalon some compression.

The processing was mostly some RX, gating, EQ, compression and limiting, nothing crazy. Had to do a small amount of clip gain.

[u/tremendous-machine → u/alijamieson]

RE20's are great eh? I might have to get one, I've been using a KSM-9 which is a small diaphragm condensor meant for live vocals and comes out pretty similar to an RE20, with a bit more clarity, but I should get an RE20 too. Intersting tip: those are both fantastic live sax mics for jazz. :-)

[u/alijamieson → u/tremendous-machine]

RE20s have nice proximity and have nice bottom end for speaking voice

[u/GreatScottCreates]

I don’t do this kind of work often but Dynassist or VoiceAssist is massive for leveling. Someone else mention dxSplit, which is amazing, as is Acon Extract Dialogue. Beyond that I do pretty heavy multiband processing (and maybe a simple compressor or limiter in addition), EQ and then limiting on the 2 bus (I’m usually dealing with a music bed, fx, and tight loudness specs). No reverbs for me, ever, or any other special tricks. VoiceAssist + multiband is most of the sound.

[u/Mo_Steins_Ghost]

When you say you are producing the podcasts, do you own or at least control the recording location/environment/studio and hardware?

Or are you getting the Wild West of stuff and being asked only to do post on it?

[u/tremendous-machine → u/Mo_Steins_Ghost]

I'm recording my half in my home studio, but the other guest is remote (sometimes very remote). For the other guests I am able to coach them on mic placement and get them to use a better mic than the computer mic, but that's about the extent of it. So bit of column a, bit of columb b, really.

That said, the dereverbing and denoising plugins are so good now that it's pleasantly surprising how well I can get them to sound not terribly disimilar to my end. I'm using FarPlay for the recording process, so I do start from two separate tracks with good isolation.

[u/weedywet]

Saturation is completely unnecessary.

I highly recommend Noiseworks VoiceAssist.
It saves a load of time

[u/Electronic_Street606]

Check out Soap Voice Cleaner. Made specifically for this issue.