Can You Use Processing Effects While Recording Your Podcast Episode?

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I'm Danny Brown and you're listening to One Minute Podcast Tips, the show that helps you be a better

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podcaster in just a minute a week. If you want more specific tips just for you and your podcast,

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check out the Magic Mic membership at oneminutepodcasttips.com forward slash support.

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And now, this week's episode.

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I saw an interesting post over on Reddit the other day that was asking whether you can use

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processing effects during recording, or if it should all be left to post-production and after

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recording. So I thought that would make a great topic for an episode of One Minute Podcast Tips.

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Now, quick disclaimer, this is going to be a slightly longer episode than one minute because

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I do want to go over a few things with you. And two, I'm not an audio engineer, I'm not an audio

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expert. It's just my own preferences and what I tend to do and what I've sort of learned over the

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last few years watching a bunch of videos, etc. regarding editing and post-production, etc.

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So, to the topic itself. There's pros and cons to doing a lot of processing pre-recording or during recording.

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The main pro is obviously you've got your voice and everything sounding just like you want it,

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and you don't have to do a lot of post-processing afterwards, it's mainly editing.

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However, the main downside to that is, if there's anything wrong with the audio,

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so let's say you've gone a little bit too crazy with the compression or the noise gate, or anything like that,

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it's harder to fix that afterwards than it is to fix raw audio that might have some issues on it.

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So in this episode, I'm just going to give you some examples of what processing sounds like during recording for both condenser and dynamic mics.

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And it'll give you an idea as to whether you want to use it or not.

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Now at the moment, I'm using a condenser mic.

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It's the TZ Audio Stellar X2 large diaphragm condenser.

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Really nice mic, I like it a lot.

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I'm running it through my Rodecaster Pro 2.

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Now the cool thing with the Rodecaster Pro 2 is it has a bunch of presets for you based on what microphone you're using.

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But it also has a lot of advanced processing that you can do afterwards.

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So at the moment, I've got zero processing on the condenser.

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I'm just going to add some basic processing.

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And this is it with basic processing.

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What Rode does is add some depth, sparkle, and punch to the recording.

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And this is just some really basic presets.

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So the depth one, as the name suggests, adds depth to the vocals.

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Sparkle is for some more brightness and more detail to your voice.

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So it helps your voice be a bit clearer.

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And then punch helps the vocals stay consistent across the recording.

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So as I mentioned, it's really, really basic processing.

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Now normally when you're adding processing after a recording

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There's three or four main ones that you would use

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So there'd be EQ or equalization,

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and that helps you manage the frequencies.

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So if you want a deeper tone, a lighter or a higher tone, etc,

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you can adjust the frequencies for lows, mids and highs

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to get to the kind of vocal that you want to come across.

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There's de-essing which as the name suggests

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Helps remove s's

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If your voice is a more sibilant one

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Where it highlights like the hissing sound on an s

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Then de-essing can help you with that.

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You've also got compression

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and compression reduces the loudest parts while increasing the softest parts of recording, and that

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helps make it sound clearer louder and more natural without any distortion coming through.

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You can also use a noise gate, so if your recording environment isn't the best and you've got say a

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fan in the background or ac or outside noise etc you can use a noise gate. You would then set that

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noise gate to a level that stops anything above that level coming through and recording - but if

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you're too aggressive with a noise gate it can actually make the recording worse, because basically

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what's going to happen is as soon as you stop speaking all the noise that you're knocking out

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is now going to come charging back in, and it's really distracting. So these are the main ones

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you would normally use. So as I say I've got basic processing on with the the Rodecaster Pro

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but what the Rodecaster Pro 2 also has is three other presets. So neutral, podcast studio and

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broadcast. Neutral, as the name suggests, adds a little bit more advanced processing so it will

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add some de-esser, EQ, compression etc but not too much. So if I hit the neutral button now

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and this is me on the neutral - still on the condenser, i'm not changing anything except

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going through the presets, so this is what the roadcaster pro 2 neutral processing sounds like

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when running it through the condenser mic setting. I'm now going to go to the podcast studio

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and this is a podcast studio, you should hear the deeper parts or the lower parts of the recording

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get a bit more emphasis now and really with the podcast studio it is adding that bit more

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processing to it,  and giving that more polish slightly deeper sound that you'd expect maybe

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at a recording studio. The last one is broadcast and should be a lot more boomier. So let's do

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that one now. And this is switched over to broadcast and you should be able to hear a lot

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deeper, a lot more like the old classic radio recording sounds. So that's a broadcast and let's

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just go back to the non-processed. So I've taken all the processing off again and I'm back purely

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on the microphone. So that's what you can do during recording, whether you want to do it or not,

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It's entirely up to yourself.

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That's on a condenser mic.

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Let's switch over to a dynamic mic.

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So I'm now on the dynamic mic, and this is the Shure SM7B,

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and I'm running it through the SM7B setting on the Rodecaster Pro 2.

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There's no other processing on it, just the SM7B setting itself.

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Processing is completely switched off,

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so this is exactly what the mic would sound like out of the box.

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If I switch the processing on,

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again, it's adding a little bit of the spark, depth, and punch to the vocals

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that you had on the condenser.

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You should hear a bit of a difference between condenser and dynamic

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because with the condenser you don't have to put as much gain through it

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because you're powering it with 48 volts phantom power.

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With a dynamic mic you do need more gain so you do have to push it a bit more

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so you may hear a bit of a difference between the two mics

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when going through the different settings.

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But again this is just purely on the SM7B setting

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with a little bit of depth, sparkle and punch.

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Now let's go to the SM7B neutral setting.

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So this is the neutral setting.

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So again, this is adding a bit more processing.

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So a bit of de-essing, a bit of high-pass filter,

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a bit of noise gate and compression and equalizer to the vocals.

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Not too much because it is still fairly neutral,

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but it does give you an idea of what the actual effects are.

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Now I go to Podcast Studio,

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and this is the Podcast Studio on the SM7B setting.

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So again, you should start to hear the bass

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and the lower frequencies being pushed more to the fore,

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and it cleans up the vocals a little bit more around the mid-range, etc.

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It's trying to highlight the vocals while giving it a bit more polish and a bit more depth to the tone.

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And finally, let's go to the Broadcast Studio.

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And this is the Broadcast Studio preset.

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Once more, you should hear a lot more boominess, a lot more like grand sound, if you like.

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Going for that old classic radio vocals of the 70s and 80s for the Broadcast Studio.

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A lot more processing on this and a lot more effects from the previous examples.

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But if I go back to knocking the processing off.

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And this is it back to the SM7B.

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Purely SM7B out of the box.

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It is on the SM7B setting on the Rodecaster Pro 2,

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but I've knocked the processing off.

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So this is just purely the microphone sound.

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So that should give you an idea

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of what the different processing features are

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and what they bring to the recording.

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It is entirely up to you

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whether you add the processing pre-recording

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and save time editing afterwards,

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or if you leave everything neutral

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and then go in afterwards

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with the post-production editing process

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and then add your De-Ess, your EQ, your compression,

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whatever else you want to add to the recording. As I mentioned, there's pros and cons to each.

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It's really down to you and your recording process and how comfortable you feel recording with

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processing on versus recording with processing off and having a bit more flexibility afterwards

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when it comes to repairing the audio. So I hope this has helped in giving you a bit of an idea

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about using processing pre-recording as opposed to in post-production. Until the next time, happy

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podcasting. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy One Minute Podcast Tips, be sure to share with

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your friends and other podcasters so they can enjoy it too. Until the next time, happy podcasting.

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