What is Audio Engineering?

If you have a podcast then audio engineering can help you to transform your show into a professional one by creating an evocative sound landscape. This is not to be confused with audio editing, which can be an individual that edits the actual content in the podcast, not the sound. Listeners can tell the difference between a show that was hacked together and one that is seamless. An audio engineer’s job is to make podcast creators sound their best.

The success of your podcast depends on the quality of content and audio. Audio engineering can ensure that your audience always listens to high-quality audio. Listeners don’t enjoy disrupted podcast experiences, it can turn them off from listening to your show and distract them from hearing your messaging.

The role of audio engineering is to capture audio and then reproduce it with edits. Audio engineers complete three main tasks to polish your podcast episode:

1. Recording audio
2. Mixing audio
3. Mastering audio

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Recording Audio

When an audio engineer helps with recording a podcast episode they are responsible for connecting all of the devices, setting up equipment, and testing all sound recording devices such as microphones and mixing devices. It can be beneficial to hire an audio engineer even once and shadow them. That way you can learn as much as possible to incorporate what they do into your future shows.

Here are three things anyone interested in audio engineering should consider for optimizing microphone audio during the podcast recording:

1. Finding the optimal distance for speakers to be from the microphone for best voice quality.
2. If a podcast has multiple microphones being used for hosts and guests, they will ensure that they are oriented in a way where one microphone doesn’t pick up any sound from another.
3. While microphone volume is how loud the output of the sound is, microphone gain is the input sound to the microphone. An audio engineer will set the microphone gain during the recording.

Once all devices are set up and tested by the audio engineer then the show can be recorded. The best way to decrease the chance of audio problems is to prevent them from happening in the first place by getting clear recordings.

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Mixing Audio 

The next step that an audio engineer can assist with is mixing the audio. Mixing is the process of adjusting and combining individual audio tracks into one show. If each of your podcast hosts recorded individually then you may need to mix the tracks together. Consider free audio editor options for podcasts.

Anyone who wants to do audio engineering must have a strong instinct for pacing and editing. Since sound has as much character as any voice, they will be responsible for creating dynamic sound landscapes.

The mixing could involve checking sound levels of all audio tracks, adding a theme song, and including advertisements within the podcast episode.

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Mastering Audio

Mastering the audio is the final step to transform your audio recording into a polished episode. This can be one of the more challenging steps since it requires technical expertise.

Audio engineering requires you do a few things to master podcast audio:

1. Equalizer (EQ) – gives you the ability to boost or cut frequencies, compensating for excessive volume in particular ranges. This can improve your audio, by fixing harsh tones such as “boomy” and “shrill” sound inconsistencies.
2. Compression – helps you tame the highs and lows of the audio. It helps to smooth it out and narrows the range between the loudest and softest parts of the audio.
3. Limiting – closely related to compression is limiting. This sets a ceiling for the overall audio track volume. Running the audio through a limiter will lift the volume of each episode without distorting it.

Ready to hire?

An audio engineer can be an asset to your podcast production team. They’ll produce consistently high-quality audio for your episodes. Consider hiring a freelancer audio engineer to take your podcast audio to the next level and create the best experience for your listeners.