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Welcome to Help Me podcast, a show designed to help

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you launch and grow your podcast. I am your host, Gino. And twice

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a week, I will release a new episode with different tips and

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trick for launching and growing your podcast. From audio engineering

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to planning intentionally to growth tactics, each episode will be a

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bite sized tip to help you podcast.

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Hey. Good morning, and welcome back to Help Me podcast. Thank you for being

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here. Today, we're gonna talk about noise removal

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and how noise removal can help your podcast audio sound better.

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So first off, what is noise removal? Well,

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noise removal is, you know, just like it sounds. It

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removes noise from your audio recordings.

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And the way in which you use it mostly is it's a software download

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that you can either use inside of your digital

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audio workstation, the program that you're using to record and

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edit audio, or some of them you can actually use as a

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stand alone application on your computer. And we'll go into a couple

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of the different ones that I use and talk more

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specifically about how I use them. But I think it's important to

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first note that noise removal is not really

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like a magic button or like a

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fix all sort of thing. Like, I think having some intention in how

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you're using noise removal can help you get more out of

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it and can also help you record a little bit better as

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well. Because at the end of the day, with all these noise removal plug

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ins, most of it is really just kinda masking

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some noise or for lessening the effect of some noise. It's

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really hard to completely remove everything. And I think, you know, I

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always say it's always best to record the best that you can and to have

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a really good recording. Because if you have a really good recording, then it makes

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everything else easier. You'll have to spend less time editing, less time using

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noise removal, and it's just easier overall for you.

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But when you do run into a jam and you do have a

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recording that you you know, it's really important or there was maybe a big guest

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that you interviewed and you really wanna save it and try to make it

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sound as good as possible. This is where you can then use noise removal

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plug ins and help that recording the best you

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can. There's different types of noise removal plug ins out there, and there's different

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third parties that make these plug ins. I use Reaper for my digital

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audio workstation, my DAW. And you may use a different

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one out there, but most of them accept third party plug

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ins. And Reaper even comes with a few noise

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removal plug ins that come with the program itself. One of them

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is called r e a f I r, and you can use that to

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remove some noise. It's a little cumbersome and it's not always great.

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So I mostly use a lot of third party plug ins, and

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these are ones made by Waves and by Isotope.

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Izotope makes a pretty industry standard noise removal

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software package that comes with multiple different types of

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software tools. Is called the RX package, and I

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believe they're up to 10 now. I use RX 7, which

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is a package full of these noise removal plug

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ins. So we have declick, declip,

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dcrackle, d s, d d plosive,

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de reverb. And there's some other ones in there, like voice

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denoise and spectral denoise, mouth declick.

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But, basically, these are specific tools to

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target a specific type of noise. You know, a lot of times, you'll have, like,

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a clicking sound in your recording, and the d click

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will help you with that. De plosive is, for when you're trying

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to remove plosives. If somebody's not using a pop filter, that

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could be helpful. And then the one that I use the

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most is D Reverb, which, really is

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removing echo. The name's a little little misleading. But, really, what

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you're removing is echo in a recording. So sometimes if I'm working

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on a client's recording and they're in a big room with a

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lot of reflections and there's a lot echo that's present in the recording.

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I will throw that de reverb on to try to minimize some of

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that echo and reverberation sound from the

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recording. And it can be very helpful. Waves also make some plug

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ins. Z noise, x noise, x Crackle is

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one that I use a lot. And and the simplest one of all time that

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I've seen anywhere is the n s one noise

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suppressor. And it's literally 1 slider that you

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can slide from 0 to all the way up. And

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it's basically just, you know, using the amount of noise

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removal. And I found that it actually works pretty good. There's obviously

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some limitations to it. But as a easy to use noise removal plug

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in that's definitely the go to and and the first one to use. Some of

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the ones from Isotope, can be a little bit harder to

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use and take a little bit more time to be able to dial them in.

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But this waves one is just super simple. So if you're if you're new to

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noise removal and you've never really used any plug ins before,

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I would definitely start with the NS one because I mean, you can get that

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thing on sale for, like, 30 or $40, and I pretty much use

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it on most of my recordings. So, that that's a really good one

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to use. So we talked about what these plug ins and software can

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do, but But now I wanna talk about the limitations of these. So a

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lot of times, if you're using too much noise removal software, it'll

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actually start to degrade the signal that you want to keep. It'll

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degrade, like, the voice in your podcast recording. So if you're trying

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to use too much noise removal, it'll actually take out parts of the voice that

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you're trying to hear. And that's the danger with using some of these noise removal

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plug ins is that you have to be able to use enough

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of it to remove some of the noise, but not too much of it to

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where it starts removing some of the voice that you're trying to keep and you

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and you want to hear. Because a lot of times, like, especially you

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know, the voice is very dynamic and sometimes people are talking really loud

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and pronunciating a lot. And then sometimes people kinda get really quiet and then they,

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you know, they kinda, like, whisper something or they trail off at the end of

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whatever they're saying. And that's the that's the part where you wanna look

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to see if your noise removal plug in is taking taking away something that you

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don't wanna be taking away, really. Because when the voice does get quieter

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like that, the noise removal could be removing the voice that you

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want to keep. And again, I think it's really important to be

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understanding the role of noise removal. And it's like that common

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phrase you you might hear in, like, if you're ever in the film industry or

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the music industry, it's like, oh, we'll fix it in post. Right? We'll fix it

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later. We'll we'll record it now. And if it doesn't sound that great, that's

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fine. We'll just fix it later. And I think that if you're thinking about it

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in that way because you're like, oh, I have noise removal later, whatever, I'll just

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fix it later, that's, you know, not the way to be thinking

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about recording. I think you always wanna try to capture and record the best

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sound that you can. And then these noise removal tools and other

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tools that you use to manipulate audio can be used to enhance

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what you already have. But at the end of the day, you know, you

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can't polish a turret, as they say. And if your recording is

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really, really terrible and you try to just put a bunch of noise removal on

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it, it's probably not gonna sound good anyways. So really, you're just using

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it as like an enhancement tool. Or if there's a mistake or

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something, you know, you can try to get rid of that. For example, one time

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I had a client who literally left the metronome on as they

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were recording. So throughout the entire recording, there was just this, like,

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click, click click click click. And it was

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obviously super distracting and annoying, but it was a recording that they

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wanted to heaps, so I ended up using the DeClick

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software, and it removes I was actually kinda surprised. It

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removes probably, like, 85% of the noise. And

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you can only hear the click every once in a while if she was speaking

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in a way that, like, didn't allow the software to recognize

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the click. So that actually worked really well. But at the end of the day,

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you know, you could still hear a little bit of clicking in the background. And

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although it wasn't like you you couldn't tell it was a metronome if you didn't

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know that's what it was, but you definitely heard something and, you know, I'm sure

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the listeners are probably like, I wonder what that is. But it wasn't as distracting

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as it was originally. So, you know, that story is a perfect example of why

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you would wanna use noise removal and why it's important to have it

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on hand. But you don't wanna be recording every single interview like

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that. Right? You don't wanna think like, oh, I'll just leave the metronome on because

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I'll just fix it later. Like, no. Obviously, it's easier to

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shut that off, make sure there's no noise present when you're

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recording and then record and try to record the cleanest sound that you

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can. Because the better your original recordings are, the better your

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podcast is gonna sound no matter how much you try

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to add noise removal or other sorts of EQ

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or compression to fix your already recorded

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audio. Not to mention that, you know, if you have to do a lot of

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stuff in post production when you're editing. You know, it's it's a huge

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time suck. So, you know, not only the fact that you wanna try to get

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it right at the recording for the best overall sound in

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the end, but also just time wise and efficiency. Like,

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it takes a lot more time to go and fix something that's you

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know, there's an issue with your audio instead of setting things up

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and making sure that you're recording properly. It's just it saves you way more time

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on the recording properly. It's just it saves you way more time

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on the on the back end of things. And you don't wanna have to be

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using noise removal plug ins every single time you're recording your podcast.

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So it's it's more of an emergency situation or maybe something happened

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and, you know, it was an accident or something like that. But the less you

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can use the noise removal, the better. But, you know, the reason of

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this episode is to explain to you how to use noise removal and

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that the option does exist in case you ever need it. So I

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hope this was helpful in describing and explaining what noise removal

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is. And hopefully, you can use it when you need it and not have to

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use it on every single podcast recording. So thank you for listening

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as always. I appreciate it, and I will see you on the next episode.

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We've reached the end of the episode. And if you enjoyed this

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podcast or you got something from it, you might be interested in

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my weekly newsletter that I send out every Monday morning full

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of podcasting tips, tricks, and news. So if you

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like this show, you might like this newsletter. To sign up. Just go to the

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show notes and click the link. Thanks for listening, and happy

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podcasting.