One of our more popular services is podcast audio clean-up and editing. In this day-a-age, you can record your podcast on your cellphone, over zoom, or via a handheld digital recorder…but then you need that audio cleaned up for the listeners benefit. At Zenith Exhibits we use a low, Per Minute of Finished Audio (PMFA) flat fee pricing model that is very small business and non-profit organization friendly. Here is how the service works and some examples of our work.
We go through your audio and remove (or greatly diminish) hums, wind, or other mechanical noises that were present when you recorded you audio. We then remove all the human mouth noises we make, like lip smacks, pops, extra ess’s, and hard plosives. We’ll balance voices to fix any volume discrepancy between speakers, and then remove un-necessary words, pauses, and stutters.
Here is an example of some audio we received that was recorded on a Zoom H1N Handheld Digital Recorder (great device). Notice the machine noise, pops, reverb, um’s, ah’s, and heavy breadth sounds of the speakers.
Here is the same passage that has been edited.
In this clip the podcast episode was recorded via zoom and sent to me for editing. Zoom recorded from a computer, as this clip, cuts off a large chunk of the upper and lower frequencies. Using our audio editing tool we are able to re-create much of that missed audio sparkle. There were surprisingly few pops and clicks, but there were a few ums and long pauses we edited out. Here is the audio before we edited:
We recalculated the missing upper and lower frequencies to improve the depth and vocal sparkle, ran a de-esser and de-plosive filter, and tried out the extra um and vocal pauses. Here is the clip after editing:
I should state here, some audio can not be fixed. Out tools are good, but they can not work miracles. You should always try to record in a quiet space. However, if you need to record in a public place, try to shield the mic from as much outside noise as possible.
Why do this? Because your listener does not like to hear the pops, whirls, hisses, explosive P’s and concussive consonants. They are not keen on loud breath sounds that are high pitched or the on-going air-conditioner sound that is under everything…Audio with lots of noise is subliminally uncomfortable to listen to.
Before you ask your friends why people don’t download your podcast or YouTube video, take a listen to the audio quality and see if the noise is turning people off. At Zenith Exhibits we can help clean up you Podcast or YouTube audio and make your production sound clean and professional.
Contact us today to schedule a free consultation to see how we can help grow your production.
