Quick Guide to Mastering Your Podcast using Audacity
28 Jul 2006
I am not an Audio Engineer. There are better tools and techniques available. I suggest these because they’re fast, free and easy.
Steps
- Open the uncompressed version of your recording (try not to start with an mp3 or similar)
- Select All (
Ctrl/Cmd + A) - Effect > Normalize…
- Tick
Remove any DC offset
only. - Press Enter
- Tick
- Effect > EQ…
- Add one point just before the 100Hz marker and one at the 100Hz marker. Drag the left-most point all the way down to -24dB.
- Add one point at 1000Hz, one at 2000Hz and one at 3000Hz. Drag the 2000Hz point up slightly.
- Add one point at the 10,000Hz marker and one just after. Drag the right-most point down to -24dB.
- Press Enter
- Effect > Amplify…
- If the audio was recorded at a low volume, you will want to run the Amplify effect over it to bring up the overall volume.
- Set the
New Peak Amplitude
to -0.3dB and allow theAmplification
slider to adjust itself automatically. - Press Enter
- Effect > Compressor…
- Threshold: -10dB
- ratio: 4:1
- attack and release times: 0.1s
- Press Enter
To provide an example, Stephanie was kind enough to send me a sample of a direct-to-PC recording she had made for her own podcast. Have a listen to the short before and after snippets to hear the difference for yourself.
Stephanie Booth:
So what quality mp3 and other settings did you do?
Ben Buchanan:
*jumps* yikes! you posted!
Here’s me thinking the way to improve a podcast was to remix it into a song or two…
Jay:
Get ‘em Andrew!
Stephanie Booth:
You know what? I’ve started using GarageBand now