And I guess I start it.
Welcome to Podcast Insider. I'm Mike Dell, VP
of customer relations here at Blueberry.
And I'm Todd Cochran, CEO of Blueberry Podcasting.
Today,
we're diving into a topic every podcaster can
benefit from,
how to sound your absolute best behind the
microphone.
Yeah. We're talking about microphone technique,
setup basics, a few, simple confidence boosters,
and,
you know, that can make a big difference
in how you come across to your audience.
And, of course, we're gonna cover a Blueberry
hosting feature that can polish your audio automatically.
It's perfect for creators who want that pro
level sound without doing all the mastering themselves.
Yeah. Whether you're brand new or hundreds of
episodes in, these tips will help you tighten
up your sound and deliver, you know, better
podcast. So let's jump in.
You're listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike
Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the
Blueberry team,
bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips
and tricks to help you start, grow, and
thrive through podcasting.
With all the support of your team here
at Blueberry Podcasting.
Welcome. Let's dive in.
We're gonna talk about
using the right mic. And, of course, I'm
kind of the oddball in this. I used
a condenser
for years and years and years, but I
highly do not recommend it to probably 95%
of podcasters out there. Yeah. You you you
really have to have a good spot
to to record, you know, real quiet.
Yeah. Yeah. Condenser with a dynamic, you can
you know, like this room here, I got,
helicopters flying over and all sorts of things
going on and, you you probably don't hear
any of that.
Now I've got a, dynamic
mic, and I have the air conditioner turned
up
on absolute
whole micro blast right now because it's it's
hot here.
So I'm using, the Shure SM
seven b. It's a
it's a dynamic mic, quite nice one. And,
of course, there's other ones on the market
out there like the Samsung q two u,
and it's great for voice and podcasting.
And as long as you're speaking into the
correct side, usually the front up the top,
you're you're okay.
Yeah. So make sure, you know, whatever microphone
you have, make sure you know,
you know, if it's a side address or
an end in address or whatever. You know?
So many people with the Blue Yetis,
you know, because it looks like this SM7B
that both Todd and I are using. Well,
we're not using the same one. We're using
two different ones. But
if if you look at it, you look
at the s m 7B and you look
at a Blue Yeti, they look kinda similar
in shape,
but the Blue Yeti is a side address,
and that's also a condenser, so don't use
that.
Well, you know, that my favorite saying is,
podcasters
don't let other podcasters
use
Blue Yeti mic, so we'll just start there.
You know, in in all honesty, the the
mic positioning
matters.
Yeah. And I have a a challenge at
times. I get a little too close to
the mic, but, really, you need to be
two to three inches away.
And, of course, using a pop filter or
windscreen to help
reduce the plosives, and I I'm real bad
at this hard p's and b sounds,
and or a slightly angle.
Having the mic a little bit off center
from your mouth to avoid breath noises. So
it's kind of like turning your head and,
like,
pretend you're whispering someone's ear
Yeah. Versus talking directly into the, to the
microphone. Well well, like where I'm at right
now, I'm about three inches from the microphone,
and I have it 45 degrees
off. You know? So I'm still talking into
the end, but I'm talking past at 45
degrees.
And that seems to work the best for
me. You know, your mileage will vary, but,
you know, this this way, I could still
see straight ahead, look at my show notes
here and all that, look at,
anybody that I'm doing video with, whatever. And
it also
keeps the,
breath sounds from hitting the microphone head on.
So And I'm kinda doing the opposite. I'm
kind of turning my head a little bit,
but it really depends on the situation. If
I'm doing video, I'm usually head on to
the mic.
So it's you know, I think your mileage
is gonna
vary there. But
unlike me right now, record in a quiet
carpeted room,
and that will help. I I have hard
floors here.
I do have a green screen behind me
that helps a little bit with echo.
Again, turn off the AC and silence notifications.
And
when I'm in, my studio in Michigan, I've
actually got a noise gate.
Of course, there's suppression plug ins as well
that you can use. And but what I
have found is because
I don't have little kids running around no
more,
and I have control over my
sound environment unless someone decides to start the
lawnmower up that's in in the I live
in a loft above a garage. Unless someone
starts a lawnmower, I'm usually pretty good
in keeping the noise down. But that noise
gate, if you have
kind of a traditional system where you have
something that allows you to set a noise
gate, especially on the Roadcaster and other types
of devices,
it can really kinda just cut out
that,
that, you know, that that noise that may
show up. You know, have someone come and,
you know, maybe the spouse comes in the
room and say something, you wave her down.
You may not even hear her,
with a noise gate.
Yep. That and,
again, just make sure that, you know, you've
got a quiet environment and just let everybody
know that's around that you know, hey. I'm
recording now. Like, right now,
on my office door, I've got a little,
little like, a hotel
sign that you'd have for do not disturb.
I've got one of those that says podcasting
in progress. And, you know, everybody knows to
not knock on my door here, so
it's all good. And, of course, you can
also let Blueberry master your audio
audio automatically.
Yeah. Hosting customers can use media mastering by
Auphonic. Auphonic's kind of a used to be
a standalone tool, and I loved it when
it was that way. But now it's all
online, and we've integrated it with Blueberry. So
for a little extra charge, we can, master
your audio. That really helps if you're doing
interviews
or doing something, you know, where maybe the
the two hosts are not exactly the same
level. So that really does that, and it
cleans up some of that background noise. It's
not gonna do,
not gonna do miracles, but it's pretty good.
Well, I've been using Auphonic
for literally
more than ten, fifteen years. I mean, I
absolutely love the product,
the mastering of the audio.
I don't have to worry about having the
levels perfect.
You know, and and that really kinda goes
into,
you know, one of the key things is
watch your levels. You can always be low
and and fix when the audio is low,
but you can never fix it when you're
overdriven.
So you should always aim for that minus
12 to minus six, dB when recording, and
that really
is gonna help you avoid,
peaking.
It's gonna be able to,
allow you to have some headroom in fixing
that. And speaking of background noises, Mike.
Yes.
Somebody didn't mute their phone when they were
supposed to. Uh-huh. So that's one of those
little example. Good good example.
You know, and, you know, using headphones to
monitor while recording,
that really helps catch Yeah. Issues early as
well.
But make sure you are actually listening to
the master in
and not something that's adjusted because I've made
a mistake in being plugged into the wrong
monitoring port and then at the end, have
some audio that was very hard to fix,
and,
it really makes you look bad. So better
to be too low than to be too
hot. Yeah. You can always boost it. Yeah.
Don't,
don't do it. And, also, when you record,
you know, most
recording software has different formats you can select
from, like, you know, Adobe Audition or off
Audacity or whatever.
Record and save your original recording in WAV,
and that's the highest quality because it's uncompressed.
And then once you're done editing, whatever you're
gonna do, clipping the ends, leveling, all that
stuff, at that point, turn it into an
m p three.
But, you know, while you're working with the
raw audio, do it in WAV.
And and and, also, don't upload WAV to,
to your podcast host.
It's well, with our,
with our,
a phonic leveling, though, it will convert it
to an m p three for you. But,
in most cases, you do not wanna try
to distribute a WAV file as a podcast.
You know, dumb it down to m p
three. If you are using the media mastering,
you do want to upload a WAV file.
Correct. Correct. That'll be mastered, then they'll deliver
it in m p three.
You know, one thing I found is being
where I'm at currently, I've been recording in
the morning. So I've been waking up,
spending maybe thirty, forty five minutes doing prep
and getting ready to record, but you know
how it is in the morning. Your voice
can be, you know, it can be bad.
So I'm doing,
short warm up sessions here. I'm, like, you
know, reading in the first paragraph of my
open, drinking water,
and trying to get that morning voice,
under control.
And then that can be the case too
when anytime the day that you're recording, do
a little bit of a warm up session.
You know, practice your intro. Don't wing it
unless you're a seasoned pro. But even me,
all these years later, I I do a
little bit of a warm up as what
invariably happens is if I don't,
two minutes in, all of a sudden,
the bottom of my throat starts itching, and
then it's like, okay. I have to start
this over anyway because,
you know, that that's the last thing people
wanna hear is, some throat action.
Early throat action. You guys know what that
is since gross enough just saying it,
worse hearing it.
But,
you know, as you're as you're getting ready
to do your show, definitely,
I I found bullet points have helped a
lot.
I don't have scripts per se.
One thing to I always do is I,
make sure that I
realize who I'm talking to. So I have
a little picture on my computer of
the audience, the size of the audience that
I have so I realize who I'm talking
to.
That's just one of the things I do.
What what's some of the stuff you do,
Mike, when you're Well, this may sound completely
silly,
but
smile when you speak. You know? It it
makes your tone sound warm, more confident, and,
you know, it it actually makes you sound
like you're enjoying yourself instead of just reading
into a script, you know, that kind of
thing. But, yeah, we use bullet points here.
We I use bullet points on my show,
you know, that kind of thing. And but,
you know, I know it sounds silly, but,
you know, smile, be happy when you're doing
your podcast.
And, of course, those pauses with purpose where
you take a breath
and
let the thought that you just said ring
out. Those are always good. Silence is powerful.
Don't rush.
Yeah. It gets listeners time to really absorb
and nothing to it gives you time to
breathe. Yep. Yep. Well, coming from radio, you
know, silence was deadly,
and it took a really long time for
me to quit doing that, you know, where
that's where the umms and ahs and stuff
come in because you gotta fill that blank
space. Don't.
Just make a little silence instead of an
or an ah or, you know, some other
filler noise, and that'll help you out a
lot. I've always saw the umms and ahs
come from lack of preparation. So as long
as you're prepared, there should not be
as much,
umms and ahs that,
that happen. Of course, I always imagine that
I'm
talking to my audience, that they're sitting right
there with me at the table.
Some people say talk to one person,
but
podcasting is a very intimate,
medium, so you're definitely
want to come across as one to one.
You wanna make that person feel as if
you're talking to them so that talking to
one person
metaphor really, really is important. And, of course,
most of us don't like listening to our
episodes.
But one of the things that will help
you get
better quicker
yes. Is that a right way to say
that? Yeah.
Review your episodes.
And know Aries very strong sound strong as
I know now when I'm coming in to
record if I have
had a long day and I'm out of
gas or if I,
had a a Red Bull and I've got
enough energy to cover me for forty minutes
or if it's probably better not even to
pull up the mic. So you that energy
level
is really, really important,
For sure. If it comes across real clear.
Yeah. And also confidence. You know, sound like
your confidence even if you're not. You know?
Fake it till you make it is the
old saying, and,
you know,
it really
grows.
The more you do it and the more,
you know, the more you pretend to be
confident, the more you're actually gonna become confident.
And don't be nervous. This is a recording.
You don't have to be perfect the first
time. You can do it over and over
and over if you have to, so don't
ever worry about that. Just
be confident.
And even if you're not, sound confident.
And I always say that for a new
podcast, it's gonna take you ten, twenty, thirty,
forty, fifty episodes before you really truly find
your voice.
And don't be worried about how episode one
sound is compared to episode five. We all
know that the podcast get better over time,
and that's the most important thing is to
be able to hit record, get that episode
in the can,
and learn from it and be able to
move on. I hope these
tips have helped you.
And, really, that's pretty much a wrap on
this episode about Mike technique and on mic
confidence.
And I guess we hope that you picked
up a few ideas to, really to level
up your sound.
Then, of course, don't forget, if you're hosting
with Blueberry, you can always add the, media
mastering BioPhonic feature.
That'll clean up and optimize your audio.
You know, after you've uploaded it, we process
it, and, it does a pretty darn good
job. I I'm very impressed with it.
And some other folks use Ophonic in the
podcasting space, but they don't
acknowledge them. And the reason we do is
because we have a long history and we
really trust the tool. But, of course, for
more podcasting tips and tools, head over to
blueberry.com. And, of course, if you need help,
the support team is there to help you.
And, Mike or Dave or Sean will be
the one that you communicate with,
and, of course, I'm always available for consulting
as well.
Yeah. So thanks for tuning in. And as
always, keep podcasting. And if, you wanna read
the full show notes of this episode, go
over to podcastinsider.com.
Thanks for joining us. Come back next week.
And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com
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