How to Record In-Person Podcast Interviews Without Audio Bleed
Idelle Erickson nearly gave up when she first started producing the the Girl Talk podcast for the Girl Scouts. The audio bleed and reverb were out of control.
“The sound quality was so bad and I just couldn't figure out how to fix it,” she says. “I just felt like, what have I done? I bought all this great equipment. I did all this research. What is going wrong?”
She explained how she conquered her audio issues on Podcasting Step by Step.
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Why her first podcast recordings sounded bad
“We were recording in the development conference room, and, you know, it seemed like a really good idea. It seemed like a small room with a drop ceiling and had carpet. But we were on this big hard table. There was an empty bookshelf next to us. The walls were concrete cinder block. It wasn't good.”
She was also premixing everyone’s audio during the recording session.
How she fixed it
“I figured out we needed to record separate tracks,” Idelle says.
She also moved the podcast recordings out of the conference room and into a room in her home with lots of sound absorbing material, which makes for a good recording environment.
“I just happened to have a finished basement that has a low drop ceiling and fluffy carpet. There’s a big couch down here. There's just a lot of poofy things around, to dampen the sound. And it turns out to be a perfect recording studio.”
Idelle and her co-hosts and guests sit around a square card table covered with a tablecloth.
“We're actually not very far apart from each other, but since the mics just pick up what's in front of them, it ends up working out really well. I pay a lot of attention to where cables are. That's a big thing. The mic cables, if they're crossed, can affect the sound. So I have everything draped really strategically around corners of the table.”
Idelle also makes sure all cellphones are on airplane mode to avoid any interference.
Idelle’s podcast gear in her sweet, fluffy basement. Get the gear by clicking one of my affiliate links below. This is a great way to support Podcasting Step by Step.
Idelle’s in-person recording suggestions
4 XLR cables (should come with mic)
Top tip: Idelle makes sure the pop filters are exactly where she wants the speaker to talk.
“Being as close as possible is the key to great sound,” she says. Also, having guests wear headphones makes them less likely to sit back and drift away from the mic.
“We sound like we're on NPR, but if you get three inches away from those mics, all of a sudden it all gets lost.”
Notes from Idelle on how she created the perfect set up for in-person podcast interviews
My table is just a standard card table (the one my parents got for their wedding in 1982). The table cloth lends a tiny bit of sound dampening but is also just a cheap way to look professional for interview guests.
The drop ceiling, carpet, and couch help dampen sound. I have to watch how close we sit to the stairway, which can cause some slight echoing.
I set up in the middle of the room and we all sit in chairs on each side. I use an Amazon Basics headphone splitter with five ports for monitoring headphones.
I sit in front of the Zoom H6 to watch sound levels and make sure everything’s recording. If we’re especially excitable that day or getting passionate, or just laughing too much, I turn the gain knob down if someone is peaking too often (meaning, they get so loud their audio can sound distorted), or turn someone up if they’re getting serious and quiet or are having a hard time staying close enough to the mic.
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