Brain Candy, Tips From TCF Members – How To Make Your Podcast Sound Great with Jason Mundok

On our first episode of Brain Candy, Candy Factory Member, Jason Mundok, fills us in on how to make your podcast sound great. See video below.

Three Podcasting Tips

1. Record separate audio tracks

2. Use good microphones

3 Consider the room you’re recording in

Jason is the founder of So Good Media, a new audio/video production company located in Lancaster, PA at The Candy Factory.

Equipment

Click here to see a full list of audio equipment mentioned in this video.

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TRANSCRIPT
ANNE
Hi, I’m Anne, welcome to Brain Candy here at the candy factory. Today we have Jason Mundok. Jason, thanks for joining us.

JASON
Thanks for having me on brain candy. Excellent. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I’m a co-founder of a new media company called so good media along with and we are an in-house media production company right here at the candy factory.

Personally, I have a background in audio production and music composition and recording. And I’m also a software developer, I develop custom business applications.

ANNE
Excellent. So today, you’re gonna be talking about podcasting, which I think is a great topic because we have a lot of members who are dabbling in podcasting, I know that there’s a lot of people in my network who are also considering starting a podcast.
So we’re going to be talking about three things that you need to consider before you start a podcast.

JASON
Absolutely. Or if you have a podcast, and you just want to take it to the next level. Consider these three tips. The three tips are:

TIP ONE
Make sure that you’re recording your audio separately, we’ll get into that in a second.

TIP TWO
Make sure you have good quality microphones.

TWO THREE
Consider your environment that the third tip just make sure you’re recording in a space that’s conducive to audio recording. Excellent.

JASON

You’re ready to get started. Yeah, please. Yeah. Step number one. Step number one is recording your audio on separate tracks. So you want to use a recording device that allows you to record each voice separately so that you can mix those later if the volume is too low, or the volumes too high. After the fact you can make those adjustments in what we call post production. So what I recommend is the zoom h6, the zoom h6 is a handheld device, it allows up to four microphones to record at one time, you can plug the microphones into these inputs right here, you can turn on whichever microphone that you want to record. You put an SD card in, you hit record. And that’s it. That’s it. It’s simple. Make your adjustments, make sure that your levels are good. Make sure that you can hear everything with a set of headphones, I use these Lux or licks pro headphones. We’re going to link to all this stuff in the show notes.

ANNE
And the great thing about the Zoom recorder is how portable it is super portable.

JASON
A lot of field recorders use this these are folks who got in Capture found sound in the community or or in nature. It’s a great device runs about $350. But the the takeaway is that when you take the SD card, put it in your computer, you’ll have a separate audio track for each of these microphones. And I’m using the equipment that I’m talking about today. So you can hear it so you can hear how good it sounds excellent. Tip number two is good microphones. Now, there are a plethora of microphones on the market. What I like to use in podcasting in a big room is a standard shore sm 58 vocal mic.

This is an industry standard music vocal mic. So if you’ve any concert that you’ve been to in the last 50 years, chances are the vocalist was singing through a Shure SM 50. rock concert, right? A lot of wireless mics and stuff like that, of course now but you know, when you think of a classic rock band, the Shure SM 50, it’s been around forever. It’s a workhorse microphone. And the thing about it is it’s very directional. So that’s why I say if you’re in a big room, you want to use a microphone like this, because it’s not going to capture the whole room. It’s just going to capture what you’re speaking, you know, the voice that’s closest to it.

ANNE
And what would this run?

JASON
What’s that, like this microphone is about 100 bucks, okay, you can usually buy packs like two or three packs, and they might give you a little bit of a discount. Standard XLR cable goes into our h six. And these wind screens are separate. But wind screens are super important for P pops. Okay, you want to avoid P pops as you put on a windscreen.

And then these tabletop mic stands work really great, you can actually raise it up to about right here. They’re perfect for podcasting. The other thing I warn you about if you’re using tabletop mic stands is setting cups down. So you have to be conscious of that you can also use this boom mics and that are mics isn’t a thing. But for this purpose tabletops work just fine. Again, standard headphones plugged right into the h6. Here’s your microphones. Check it out. So what’s the third third tip is your room the environment that you’re recording in? Right? So a lot of times people just pop microphones down on a table and that’s it. But if you if you walk into a room and you speak to somebody or you talk to yourself, like I do often.

If you can hear an echo if you if the room sounds alive, if you can hear reverb, guess what your microphones also going to hear that. So you need to be very well aware of it. Now here it’s so good media studio, we have a sound treated ISO room, it’s great for voiceovers not everybody has that luxury, right? Find a room that feels quiet to you find a room that when you say something you don’t hear your voice bouncing back. Again, while I like to use these directional mics as we can be in a big space like our studio here. And when the sound quality is still excellent, because the microphone is only picking up right so don’t be afraid of the mic. Right? So if I’m going to throw a bonus tip in, advise your guests and take this advice, be up on the mic. Don’t be afraid of it. Don’t be back like this because the further back you are, the more the audio is going to bounce off the walls and that audio is going to come to the mic as well. So you want to avoid that. Three tips. Excellent three easy tips, techniques.

The zoom recorder will cost around 350 For this, the mics are about 100 bucks each for some of the accessories. So you’re talking about between six and $700. And you’ve got a really good-sounding podcast. Now if you come to the candy factory, you gain access to all this kind of equipment, right? That’s right. So this is the exact same equipment that we use and our members get to access when they come and join the candy factory, so you don’t have to buy anything.

ANNE
Excellent. Well, thanks for sharing your tips today. It’s great to be here. Thanks, Jason.

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