Podcast Production
Questions posed in the planning stage shape the production process and in particular the audio recording process, for example a talkshow requires a very different production process than a company product marketing podcast. Once completing the planning stage you're ready for step 2 - the production stage, so let's learn more about the key production stages and how Astral Voices can help.
1) AUDIO RECORDING includes:
Recording the vocal track(s): This could be recorded at the client's premises, in a recording studio, by distance using Skype or a telephone hybrid device. Where and how the audio is recorded depends on many factors and will differ from one client to another but in all cases it will be easier if you have the right tools for the job. Astral Voices' philosophy is to capture a clean recording, free from background noise and sound parasites as is possible. This reduces the amount of time spent on post-production, saving us time and our client money.
Creating music & sound effect: George Lucas said, "Sound is 50% of my films". Well in pure audio podcasts its 100% but the point is that music or sound effects can greatly enhance your podcast. They can be used to create atmosphere or to divide segments. At a minimum your show should expect to have an intro and an outro segment, Astral Voices has a huge library of royalty free sound loops and sound effects that when used will provide a professional sounding podcast with its own sonic signature.
2) POST PRODUCTION includes:
Editing: Audio editing involves removing all those oohs & aahs that are invariably caught at the recording stage as well as adding any pre-recorded audio tracks e.g. music, sound effects, intro/outro etc. All tracks will be correctly sequenced and once the editing stage is complete your podcast is ready to be mastered.
Mastering: Audio mastering varies depending on the specific needs of the material to be processed but in general it involves correcting any problems, such as volume level, tonal balance, or undesirable artifacts. We will also utilise noise reduction to eliminate hum and hiss, normalize the tracks, and apply dynamic compression to specific frequencies that generate peaks. This sounds very technical and it is but a well-mastered podcast will sparkle compared to many low quality produced podcasts, which are difficult to listen to for example in a noisy environment. Ultimately it has been proved that listeners rate the audio production of a podcast very highly and will quickly tune out if their ears are not happy.
Once the media is mastered in its original format, the media file must be compressed to a smaller file size in order to distribute it on the web. The process of compression is achieved by encoding the media from its original format to a format that is smaller in size. There are many forms of compression for audio, but for the purpose of podcasting, the adopted industry standard for compression is the mp3.