The Podcast Engineering Show

This show focuses on the technical production of audio podcasts. Chris Curran chats with podcasters about their audio equipment, software and workflow to help you learn how to produce better sounding podcasts. You’ll also learn solutions to common audio issues as well as plenty of tips and tricks. By listening to this show you will gain a TON of knowledge and skills that will make a HUGE difference in your sound quality _and_ save you time! Subscribe/Follow today and start listening! Your host Chris Curran has a background in podcast production (Forbes, Dun & Bradstreet, J&J, etc) as well as music production (Sarah McLachlan, Jeff Buckley, Foreigner, etc). When he entered podcasting in 2012, he noticed that most podcasters (and producers) do not have a good understanding of fundamental audio engineering concepts, which sabotages the quality of their sound from the very beginning. This show, as well as Podcast Engineering School, helps podcasters and producers reach professional levels of podcast audio production.

248: Eight Lessons in Podcast Audio Production 01/18/2024

247: Nine Teaching Points To Expand Your Audio Production Knowledge 09/07/2023

246: Tom Pink on Sound Design for Podcasts 06/09/2023

245: Normalization vs Compression vs Limiting (With Audio Examples) 03/28/2023

244: Ten Terrific Tips for Podcast Production 02/14/2023

243: Ten Advanced Podcast Production Tips 12/20/2022

242: Nine More Production Tips For You 11/21/2022

241: Barry Gary Providing Top-Notch Production Services to Organizations 11/04/2022

240: Running a Successful Podcast Production Studio with Zack Hanni 10/13/2022

239: Mistakes I’ve Made Producing Podcasts 09/21/2022

239: Mistakes I’ve Made Producing Podcasts Today I’m going to discuss some mistakes I’ve made producing podcasts. Microphone: In this episode I’m using my Electro-Voice RE320 microphone plugged into my Neve Portico II channel strip (using compression, EQ and a bit of saturation). The same microphone you see in my daily short videos . I mention a recent hiking experience I had where a guy who saw my shirt (which says Ask Me About My Podcast) and asked, "What's your podcast?" And then immediately added, "JUST KIDDING!” We all laughed and he didn’t ask again so I didn’t mention my podcast at all. HA Mistakes I’ve Made Producing Podcasts: I published one of my client’s episodes with 30 seconds of silence at the beginning. The client alerted me and I fixed it immediately. During an online recording session, after a participant dropped off and then returned, I forgot to press record again in Squadcast, but of course I was recording a local backup which I ended up using (though it was a bit of a pain because all participants were mixed together in the backup recording). NOTE: Squadcast fixed this issue a long time ago. On an in-person recording session I forgot to hit record and realized it after about 5 minutes so we had to start the episode over again and sort of feign authentic enthusiasm when redoing the intro. I've mixed audio on my monitor speakers while mistakenly using the calibration profile for my headphones. Untold inaccuracies using processors too aggressively, or not aggressively enough — Compression, de-noise, de-plosive, EQ, etc. Other Notes: If you ever have questions please ! You can to receive Daily Goody’s in your email a few times per week or a weekly roundup. . The start date for the next semester is January 10, 2023! (fyi, the course is delivered once per quarter) If you’d like to share this show with any of your podcaster friends, feel free to send them a message saying, “Btw, here’s a show about podcast audio production you may find helpful” with this link: ) if you have any questions or need any help with anything, ~Chris /episode/index/show/podcastengineering/id/24453438

238: How To Handle Loudness Properly in All Stages of Your Podcast Production Workflow 09/08/2022

237: Max Flight and Your Mid-summer Podcast Re-evaluation 08/09/2022

237: Max Flight and Your Mid-summer Podcast Re-evaluation Returning all-star guest helps me cover 17 ways to re-evaluate your podcast this summer, and we also discuss Max's latest podcast production workflow, equipment, software and more. Max has been producing aviation podcasts since 2008: (now over 700 episodes!) (looking at unmanned aircraft or drones) Check out his main site — He was previously on episodes and of this show Check out his equipment, software, services and more below... We discuss these 17 ways in which you can re-evaluate and improve your show this summer: Update your goals Change the format Start using chapters Personal focus on eliminating verbal crutches. (A short duration of intense focus will provide years of good results) Change and/or add equipment Sell old equipment Treat yourself to that mic you've always wanted Sound absorption and diffusers Add a new segment Cover new yet pertinent subject matter topics Publish in video format as well Publish better shownotes Revamp your marketing Evaluate the shows overall effectiveness Hire a VA Bring on a cohost Decide to end your show??? Perhaps decide you want to become a professional podcast engineer/producer and earn a great living producing podcasts for clients - from home?! And here's a lot more detail on Max's production: Big changes since PES 20 and PES 39 mostly involve a simplification of the signal path: Skype and cohost multi-enders replaced by Riverside.fm Behringer mixer (still going strong since 2009!) replaced with MixPre The MixPre handles all mic pre-amplification Sound clips and pre-recorded segments played through Riverside, replacing an iOS soundboard Backup recording is handled by the MixPre Current equipment: Sound Devices MixPre-6 Also use a MixPre-3 Gen 2 for field recordings Zoom H5 for field recordings, too Heil PR40 Sennheiser MD46 interview mic Dell XPS 16 and MacBook Pro 15-inch, 2018 model, 2.9GHz i9 32 GB laptops Audio Technica ATH-M50x headphones Yamaha HS5 monitors Software: Riverside.fm (was Skype then Squadcast) Hindenburg Journalist Pro Audacity (yep!) iZotope RX 8 Advanced ID3 Editor for tagging Services: Media hosting: Blubrry and Libsyn Website hosting: Bluehost and SiteGround Notes from Max: I'm retired and traveling more which makes weekly podcast production a bit more difficult. Biggest current problem: At the home studio I mix/master with my Yamaha monitors, which I love. I can't master properly with the Audio Technica headphones when traveling. Other Notes: If you ever have questions please ! You can to receive Daily Goody’s in your email a few times per week or a weekly roundup. . The start date for the next semester is Sep. 13, 2022! (fyi, the course is delivered once per quarter) If you’d like to share this show with any of your podcaster friends, feel free to send them a message saying, “Btw, here’s a show about podcast audio production you may find helpful” with this link: ) if you have any questions or need any help with anything, ~Chris /episode/index/show/podcastengineering/id/24009324

236: Nine Tips for Podcast Audio Production 06/30/2022

235: My Experience at Podfest 2022 06/10/2022

235: My Experience at Podfest 2022 I've attended every single since 2014. And this year it was great to see so many friends and colleagues in person again! Here are some of my experiences, notes and highlights of the event: MY TALK: "How to Use Compression & Normalization (Mandatory for Creating Professional Grade Audio)" ---> The full presentation will be published soon! Outline what I covered: Normalization (Peak and Loudness) (When and where to normalize audio) Compression (Why, controls) (Demonstrations of compressors, upward compression, vocal riding, limiter, and a great sounding plugin chain) *Audio Production Challenge for my listeners: Compress in my presentation and send me your processed audio file! Links to on “Compression and Normalization” Link to 4 recent overview posts: PODCASTING 2.0, CRYPTO, BLOCKCHAIN, ETC.: Spoke with several podcast industry pro's about Podcasting 22.0, crypto integrations into podcast feeds and websites, etc. Hardly anyone was talking about this. It's still VERY early. PRESENTATIONS I SAW: Seth Silvers, CEO of Story On Media --- "The Roadmap To Using NFTs To Engage Your Podcast Audience and Increase Revenue" Focus on "how can NFTs help build my community, instead of how can NFTs make me money." Think of an NFT as an access card. "Gratitude" NFTs just for people to support the show. (offer NFTs of every episode, etc.) Never-ending tickets. "Collect NFTs from your favorite podcasts" TikTok presentation by *Mindset when creating TikTok posts: Document instead of create. WHAT I WAS INSPIRED TO CHANGE/DO: Create a new short course?? TikTok posting for marketing purposes? (Am I really going to commit to this?!?!) Join a songwriting group (which I discussed w/) Other interesting things I learned about: : AI-generated images ( told me about this) "Dream 100", gatekeepers, (from my conversation with Seth Silvers) -- The Dream 100 are relationships with people and/or companies who can help me market my business to their audiences. Instead of focusing on marketing, focus on building these 100 relationships. MY OVERALL EVALUATION OF THE ENTIRE EVENT: All in all very good Perhaps too many speakers and tracks, etc. Felt a bit too spread out I should have bought groceries PEOPLE I HUNG OUT WITH: Seth Silvers Jennie Wren Steve Stewart and Mark Deal Glenn the Geek Mike Helms Marc Johanssen Roy Stegman Harry Duran Natalie Champa Jennings Ashley Lehmann Paul Desmond Adams Gordon Firemark Bryan Entzminger Julia Levine Ross Brand Dave Jackson Dan Hughley Daniel Abendroth MANY OTHERS! NOTE: The starts on June 28, 2022. /episode/index/show/podcastengineering/id/23393054

234: Into the Goody Bag With Chris and Barry 05/06/2022

233: Eight Fat Nuggets 04/07/2022

232: Chris’s Goody Bag 03/18/2022

231: Back Into the Goody Bag 02/16/2022

230: My Experience Opening and Operating a Brick and Mortar Podcast Studio for 3 Years 01/20/2022

230: My Experience Opening and Operating a Brick and Mortar Podcast Studio for 3 Years I discuss my experience opening and operating a brick and mortar podcast studio for 3 years, including: Discovering podcasting in late 2011 Starting my own show in my apartment solely for the experience of starting a podcast – ! Why I decided to open a physical podcast studio in June 2012 Economics: I had no idea if this kind of business could be profitable, but I was so energized to do it that I took the leap. I’ll talk more later about the monetary success or failure of the studio ;) History: Before Serial hit in the fall of 2014 the podcasting space was still relatively small and unknown. I don’t know anyone who ran a physical podcast studio back when I did, but I’m sure at least a few people must have. What were my competitive advantages? My audio experience My local networking experience I was fortunate that: I found a space very close to my apartment. I had previously been a member of the largest Chamber of Commerce in that area, so I knew a bunch of people already. i signed a 3 year lease, but it wasn’t overly expensive because it was in an older building and the space was unique (perhaps difficult to sell to most average businesses). was born in June 2012. Equipment setup: 4 mics (Sennheiser e835’s) 4 Heil boom arms 4 channels of dbx 166xs Headphone amp Digital hybrid to take actual phone calls iPad for playing music and sound clips Bought my first Mac for the studio Focusrite interface (stereo!) Bought a couch, chairs, and a round table Started several shows to jumpstart the content coming out of my studio. I did this to generate as much buzz as possible around my studio. Attending Chamber of Commerce networking events to promote my studio and invite local business people to be interviewed on my local business podcast. *Back then most people didn’t even know what podcasts were! I met Barry the maintenance guy and got to know him. Trying to partner with 2 different people – both were going to be in charge of marketing and sales (obviously because I wanted to focus on the audio production!) – and both ended up in tragedy. The studio not being soundproof… UGH. THE END: Deciding to NOT sign up for another 3 years, which happened to coincide with my move to Colorado (where I would start doing all client recordings virtually). To sum up my experience having the studio for 3 years: Overall, I absolutely loved it. I learned so much and had so much fun. Got tons of experience hosting shows. Made some good friends. I paid my dues for what was to come next. The painful aspects of that experience have completely dissolved into nothingness. Was the studio profitable? Barely. It took a lot of effort and technically the studio was profitable but not by much. If I had a good salesperson it could have been more profitable. The Universe is funny – as soon as we moved to Colorado I got a call from a NJ business (who lived close to my old studio) who wanted to hire me to produce their podcast, but they did NOT want to come into my studio, and I said GREAT that works out nicely! I started on-boarding additional remote production clients and within 5 months I got a huge contract with Forbes to produce their podcast network remotely. What Did I Learn: When you know you can be successful at something, you just have to be bold and keep working hard and adapt when you need to. Eventually you will arrive in a place where you are making a good living doing something you love, though that place will definitely NOT be the place you originally had in mind. Hope you enjoyed that. Other Notes: If you ever have questions please ! The start date for the next semester is April 19, 2022! If you’d like to share this show with any of your podcaster friends, feel free to send them a message saying, “Btw, here’s a show about podcast audio production you may find helpful” with this link: ) if you have any questions or need any help with anything, ~Chris /episode/index/show/podcastengineering/id/21843755