Just as there are guidelines for writing LTB content, is it possible to request remote podcast contributors to have a suitable microphone (or environment)? The quality is much better when Adam is with the guest; with some remote guests there's a little too much echoing. It is much harder to listen to them, perhaps more so during ones commute. LTB for the most part has been very good on this and just a suggestion for maintaining and increasing quality.
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microphone quality guideline for contributions
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Posted on July 18, 2014 at 12:28 PM
I had considered creating a topic on this issue also. There is one episode in particular in which I recall the sound being so poor that I had to stop listening and to try again later under better listening conditions. The episode was LTB #111 Building Cathedrals with Cody Wilson & Amir Taaki. The part with Amir wasn't as bad, but Cody Wilson was speaking at Bitcoin Expo Toronto, and that was a challenge to listen to.
@ltbcoin - I agree with your suggestion for maintaining and increasing quality. I was thinking, though, that if there is some really great content but with poor sound, I'd hate to miss out on the content. Perhaps with this ever improving network the audio could be transcribed by someone and presented as a written article instead. The article could be mentioned in an audio episode so that the audience can come and have a look. We could even be offered access here to the poor quality audio, just for completeness and to offer maximum choice for the user. This would avoid putting out a sub-par podcast which could harm the LTB Network.
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Posted on July 18, 2014 at 12:44 PM
Not too much time today so this will be brief, ask anything that needs clarifying
When we started, we used BLUE Yetis which are around $100 on ebay or amazon - This is a condensor mic which means it is essentially an "active listening" mic, it will pick up everything in the room if you have the volume too high and if you're in a space with flat or shiny walls you'll get a lot of echoes.
It comes with a good stand and is very solid, but it picks up vibrations from your desk, your typing, pretty much anything quite loudly and while they sell a shock mount it is pretty worthless. The best solution is to not touch the mic or anything connected to it while recording.
People often speak into the top of the microphone, this is incorrect - you want to speak into the front of it, with the Blue logo facing you. For recording a single person Its best to have it on Cardioid pattern, which looks like a circle with an indentation, a little like a heart without the point. It will pick up directly in front of the mic in a cone.
Ideally you want to speak at a point just slightly above the face of the microphone - If you speak directly into it, your breath will get picked up as "plosives" which are the popping noise you sometimes hear. Some people use pop filters which help ameliorate this issue, I prefer to just use my microphone properly.
You want to have as much gain (or "volume") as is neccesary to make your voice loud and clear without amplifying background noise. You want a solid signal because you'll have to amplify it later and if the recording volume is too low the background noise becomes proportionally very loud. Sometimes this is unavoidable but it's not ideal.
The Yeti runs straight to your comptuer via USB, you plug your headphones into the yeti, select the Yeti as your audio input/output and control the playback volume from the front of the mic and the microphone gain on the back.
NOW
now the main hosts use Electrovoice RE-220 microphones with either a dbx 286s mic pre-amp feeding or into a Cloudlifter 24db passive pre-amp feeding into their computer either through USB interface or via a mixer then into the computer recording audio jack.
the RE220 is a pro radio mic, costs about 4x as much just for the mic plus another few hundred for the supporting equiptment but what you get for that is a very easy to use microphone. You put your face within about 3-6" of it, talk at it and it picks up only your voice and not any background or room ambience or really anything. Used properly, it's almost dead to everything outside of that range - and because it's so focused it picks up a much broader range of frequencies than is possible using the condenser.
I can go into detail about how this is configured but it'll wait til another time since I dont think anyone outside of the main hosts have this.
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Posted on July 19, 2014 at 7:53 AM
I'm no expert, but as someone who has recently attempted to record audio for podcasting, I've seen how much noise was picked up when I did an interview in a deli with my Zoom H4 built-in mics (the quite hum of refrigeration equipment was amazingly loud in the recording). I also found that it was very difficult living in a city (and not having a soundproof room) to record anything that didn't pick up cars driving by, etc. I then bought and tested a Shure SM58 (plugs into my Zoom with XLR connection), and the difference in external noise is night and day.
I also learned in my deli interview, that putting a mic directly on a table when you're talking to people can have problems. While I kept everyone from touching the table to avoid that noise, I didn't realize that the phone on the table was set to vibrate, and that vibration was really loud on the recording. If I were to do that again, I'd try some foam padding to see if that would help isolate the mic from the table.
For recording a conference, a cardioid mic that's great for podcasting probably wouldn't be good, unless the mic was right next to a speaker (proximity of the mic relative to the audio source is a huge factor in a quality recording).
I'll also mention that Adobe Audition has noise filters, and filters that really improve vocal audio, and these can help rescue a horrible recording to some degree. The noise filters did a great job of reducing the hums in the deli, and a vocal filter hugely improved an iPhone recording I made at a public hearing.
Again, I'm speaking as a non-expert, based on my limited experience.
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Posted on July 19, 2014 at 8:54 AM
I haven't talked about remote recording, but its a good point. You can filter audio directly on the device but I don't bother with stuff like this.
I use a ZOOM h4n, and everybody I tell to get remote field recording equiptment tends to go with that. It has two XLR inputs on the bottom, so actually the way you want to record conferences is bring an XLR cable with you, go up to the guy at the sound board and ask if you can take a line out of the monitor mix.
This will record ONLY what the microphone on the stage (or elsewhere) hears, not any of the ambient. Conference audio is so awful because you are recording an amplified audio in a large room so you get tons of echos and refractions, a direct line out is the cleanest easiest way.
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Posted on July 21, 2014 at 6:49 PM
I'm listening to the Bitcoins & Gravy interview with @adam right now, and I'm struck by how amazing the remote interview sounds. Aside from wanting to know the particulars of why that particular interview sounds so great, I wondered if you could share general tips on recording Skype interviews, or any other ways you do remote interviews. I'm also curious, do you tent to include video when you interview someone over Skype?
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Posted on July 21, 2014 at 9:35 PM
@Spengler I recall that episode with Cody Wilson and also missed out on it since it was far too difficult to listen to. That might have been one case where LTB had less control over quality and possibly used audio that was provided by Bitcoin Expo Toronto. It would have been nice to have a transcript of it.
@adam Great audio tips for all! They would be good to share with guest contributors. Thanks.
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Posted on July 21, 2014 at 9:55 PM
@ltbcoin @Spengler I recall that episode with Cody Wilson and also missed out on it since it was far too difficult to listen to. That might have been one case where LTB had less control over quality and possibly used audio that was provided by Bitcoin Expo Toronto. It would have been nice to have a transcript of it.
@adam Great audio tips for all! They would be good to share with guest contributors. Thanks.
Actually we continue to make that mistake with conferences. People tell us they are recording and that we don't need to bother, and then stuff happens and the recordings are very very difficult to get. Toronto was ALL filmed. I've been poking them for the footage for months, at this point I doubt I will ever get it which makes me a bit upset as I thought my fireside chat was damn good.
But yeah thats why the audio was so terrible, and why so little content came out of that awesome conference. All we got were a couple of from-the-audience-in-a-chair recordings, damn shame.
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Posted on July 23, 2014 at 9:26 AM
@adam What file type is necessary for the audio recording? MP3? WAV? and AIFF?
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Posted on July 23, 2014 at 10:05 AM
The majority of the audio recordings that are difficult to hear are usually from the guest that is being interviewed, at least from what I recall. It sounds like they're using speaker phone because there's either two people in the same room as guests that are being interviewed, or they are just using speakerphone for some reason. I think this accounts a lot of bad audio since even normal phone interviews are way better in quality.
I know it cannot be helped on some of the conference recordings because there could be technical issues that exist when the talk is about to begin, but the interview issues seem like they could mitigated substantially by requesting they use a land line connection if possible or at least make sure they are not using speaker phone. I'm not sure if you've tried this already but if two people are in the same location, maybe try having then in separate rooms and call in. They'll be able to hear each other through the conference call and have better quality overall. Just a suggestion.
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Posted on July 23, 2014 at 10:05 AM0 likes
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