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Welcome to Help Me Podcast, a show designed to help you

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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 tricks

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for launching and growing your podcast. From audio engineering to planning

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intentionally to growth tactics, each episode will a bite sized

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tip to help you podcast.

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Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. Today I got a

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little bit more of an advanced editing talk for you.

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And this may not be for everybody, but I kind of just wanted to

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dive into the aspect of EQ

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and compression when you're editing your audio. And

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this isn't a necessary thing, but EQ and compression are two tools that

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you can use to have more, clearer and

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better sounding audio. So maybe if you're a beginner

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podcaster, maybe this episode isn't for you. Or maybe it is. So

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EQ and compression are two of the most common tools

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in editing podcast audio that can help you

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improve your clarity and your presence of your audio. We're

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going to talk about these two tools separately. And let's first talk about

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EQ. So EQ is equalization. I'm

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sure most of you are familiar with some sort of EQ, whether on

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a home stereo or maybe in your car where you can kind

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of like turn up the bass or you can turn down the treble or

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something like that. That is a form of EQ. And when you're

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working with audio and you're in your audio recording program, your

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daw, your digital audio workstation. Mine is

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Reaper. But if you're in any other of them, they all probably have

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some sort of EQ plugin or piece of software

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that you can use to edit your recorded

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audio. So I will tell you how I use EQ because I think it'll be

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the best way to describe how you can use it practically on a podcast.

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But I just wanted to talk about it kind of theoretically first.

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So EQ, basically all it's doing is it's

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turning the volume up and down at certain frequencies.

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So think back to your car stereo when you're turning up the bass. All

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that's doing is turning up the volume of the lower end

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frequencies. So it sounds like there's more bass in the audio

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or the radio wherever you're using the EQ. You

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can also do this to different frequency bands and using

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it on your podcast audio. When you're editing podcasts, you can

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pick different frequency ranges that sound good and turn them

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up. And then you can listen for bad sounding frequency ranges

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and turn them down. That's basically as simple as it can get with

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EQ. The idea is that you're adjusting the curve

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of the EQ to bring out the good parts of the

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vocal recording and just to bring down the bad parts of it. So

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things like harshness or thinness. In a

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vocal recording, you can use an EQ to kind of

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lessen that harshness or lessen that thinness. A lot

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of times what I'll do is I'll add an EQ to my vocal or

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to my podcast audio. And the first thing that

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I do is I grab one band of EQ

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and I just turn it up all the way. And then I sweep it through

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the different frequency ranges. And usually, at least on the

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EQ that I have, there's a visual graphic representation

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of the EQ. So you can kind of like see, to the left side

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it's low frequencies, to the right side, it's high frequencies. And

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you basically just sweep through the different bands.

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So, like, I'll turn it all the way up, increasing the volume by maybe ten

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DB. And you can hear that specific

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frequency when you sweep it through the different frequency ranges.

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So when it's in the low end, you hear all the low end voices, and

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then you sweep it to the mid range, and then you hear all those mid

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ranges, and then you sweep it up into the high end, and that's usually where

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that harshness and that fitness comes through. So it'll give you

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an idea of which frequency ranges sound like what.

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So then what I'll do is I'll take the ranges that I like and

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I'll boost those a little bit. Not all the way to the top, that was

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just for listening purposes, but I'll boost them a little bit, maybe three

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or four DBS, maybe five. And then I'll listen

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to the nasally sounding frequencies or the thin

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sounding frequencies, and then I'll lower those frequencies

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and I'll subtract by four or five DB.

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And what this does, when you put it all together is it'll help

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the vocal sound better. And a lot of times what I like to do to

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see if I'm even making it better at all is to toggle on and

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off the entire EQ. Because if you

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have the whole thing on and you're listening to it, then you click a button

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and it shuts the EQ off. And then you can hear the original sounding

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audio track. Sometimes it'll even sound worse

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and you made it worse and it's like, all right, well, let me start over.

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Or maybe it doesn't need the EQ. Maybe it was fine the way it was.

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This is the sort of workflow that I use when I'm putting an EQ on

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a track to help improve the sound of the audio. So

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I hope that was clear. In describing what an EQ

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actually is, you're really just increasing the volume

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of good sounding frequencies and then you're lowering the volume of bad

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sounding frequencies. So now let's talk about a compression and what

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a compressor is. A compressor is I like to think of it

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as like an auto leveling, right? So sometimes you're listening to

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a podcast recording and somebody's talking really

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loud, and then they get really quiet, and then maybe they talk

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like this, where the T is really loud and the rest

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of it isn't and just the inconsistencies in the

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vocals. And really what a compressor does is it helps

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you control those dynamics, it helps you control the

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highs and then it helps you control the lows. And the way

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that I think about compression is it's like an

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auto learning. It's like somebody sitting there on the

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volume level, right, and turning it up and down quickly.

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When the volume gets too loud, they turn it down a little bit and then

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when it gets too quiet, they turn it up a little bit. And that's kind

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of a simple way to describe what compression is.

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There's other sorts of variables that go into it and

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how fast you turn it up and how fast you turn it down and things

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like that. But I think to get a basic understanding of what compression is, is

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it helps to even out and level out the audio

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peaks and valleys. So this could be helpful in podcasting

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because you want a consistent sound, right? You want your audio

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to stay at a consistent level and you don't want it to get super loud

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and you don't want it to get super quiet. The whole idea of editing a

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podcast that sounds good is it all sounds very consistent

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so you can use compression to take out some of

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these peaks and valleys. To me, compression is a little

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bit more of a tougher tool to learn how to use

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because it's a lot more subtle than EQ is.

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Finding a sweet spot is kind of

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difficult and sometimes, especially as somebody who's new to

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editing, you might not even be able to hear the differences of

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what a good compression or a bad compression is. And

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I say that because I had a very hard time when I first started learning

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how to use compression, like even hearing what it was doing.

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And this one takes a little bit more practice and a little

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bit more training of your ear to hear what you're

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listening. You know, I'm not the best user of

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compression out there, but I try to take a very minimalistic

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approach and you can Google stuff out there like what's

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the best compressor settings for a podcast and watch some

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YouTube videos out there that tell you how to use it and that sort of

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thing. But today I really just wanted to bring to your

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attention how you can use compression to help your

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audio and to help your podcast sound better. But like I said, it

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does take some practice. So make sure you go practice both the EQ and

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the compression out there and utilize the tools

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to help make your audio sound better. But also keep in mind

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that there's going to be a learning curve and you're going to need to

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work with these tools a lot in order to get comfortable with them.

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And like anything else, the more you use it, the better you'll get

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at it. So I think it's good to start and good to

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just go in there and mess around with them and to use them as

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tools to increase the quality of your audio

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recordings. So that's all I have for you today.

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Maybe I'll do a video on compression and EQ one of these

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days. If anybody's interested, let me know. You can always send me

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an email. You can always sign up for the Happy Podcasting newsletter

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with a link in the Show Notes and I will see you next

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time. We've reached the end of the episode and

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if you enjoyed this podcast or you got something from it, you might be

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interested in my weekly newsletter that I send out every Monday

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morning, full of podcasting tips, tricks and

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news. So if you like this show, you might like this newsletter. To

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sign up, just go to the Show Notes and click the link. Thanks for

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listening and happy Podcasting.