How to Improve Audio Quality without Buying an Expensive Mic or Gear

When people start to think of ways to improve the sound and production of their podcast audio, one of the first places their mind goes to is "Well, I guess I'll need a better microphone, preamp, interface, etc...." 

While these things can certainly improve audio quality, chances are there are a couple of steps you can take with the gear you already have, that will noticeably improve the sound of your recordings. Let's take a look at some of them.

1. The Proximity Effect

The proximity effect is the name for the bump in low-end, bassier, frequencies that you get when you speak in closer proximity to the microphone. This can give a more "broadcaster" kind of sound to your recordings and add some weight and depth, if that is something you feel is lacking. 

An important thing to keep in mind is that since your mouth is now much closer to the mic, there is a greater chance of plosives and mouth sounds entering your recording. So be sure to use a pop-filter, or even 2, if you are going to be trying to take advantage of the proximity effect. And you can also experiment with speaking off-axis, meaning that while your mouth is very close to the mic, it is not pointed directly at it, but rather off to the side. This way, bursts of air leaving your mouth won't go directly into the microphone capsule.

2. Room Treatment

One of the quickest indicators of poor audio quality is "roominess", "echo", or "reverb" in podcast audio. While most podcasters won't have access to a professional vocal booth or studio when recording their show, they can still take some steps on their own and work with what they have to treat their recording space.

Ideally, your room will sound as acoustically "dead" as possible, meaning no reflections or echoes. This is the kind of sound you get from recording in a pro vocal booth, (you know - those rooms with foam covering every inch of the walls.)

To achieve some of this effect on your own, you can utilize things like pillows, moving blankets, heavy comforters, or other soft, dense material around your recording space to minimize the room reflections. Pay careful attention to not only the space directly around your microphone, but also the space behind you. Since the mic is facing your mouth, it is also facing whatever is behind you, and if there are substantial reflections coming off of that surface, they will find their way into the recording.

Try things like hanging a moving blanket or comforter behind you, placing your mic in the corner of a room - facing out from that corner (with the walls of that corner treated with the materials previously described) Get creative, and limit the amount of "room sound" in your recordings.

3. EQ Sweep

Going along with number 2, it is likely the room you will be recording in is not quite a pro vocal booth. This means there may exist some "Room Modes" or some frequency build up in certain ranges of the frequency spectrum that lead to some unpleasantness in your recordings.

Whatever software you are using to record, there's a good chance it has a built-in stock EQ plugin that comes with it. You can use this EQ plugin to do a simple "sweep" of the frequency spectrum and try to find any unpleasant frequency ranges, and then cut them.

To do this, you take one band of the EQ, and turn it all the way up. You then make the "Q" setting very narrow. So now you have a very tall and narrow EQ band, and then while listening to your audio, you slowly move that band throughout the frequency spectrum. If you hear any harsh frequencies that jump out at you when you get to them, that's a good sign that you may want to cut a bit of that frequency range out of the audio.

4. Mic Position

While we touched on this a bit already, there are some additional points to make in regards to Mic Position. Most people with little to no background in audio, will assume you just put the mic in front of your face and start speaking, and that's the best sound you are going to get. In reality, where and how you position your microphone can have a dramatic effect on the final sound of your podcast audio.

Most microphones that podcasters will be using have what is called a Cardioid pickup pattern. This means that the microphone will pick up sound that is directly in front of it, and also to the sides of it, but it will reject sound that is directly behind it.

Use this knowledge to your advantage. For example, if you are recording in a space with some noise source, such as a refrigerator hum, street noise bleeding in from a window, or something similar, you can position your mic so that the back of it is directly facing the source of the noise. So for example if you have a noisy fridge, make sure the back of the microphone is facing that fridge, so that it rejects the noise from it.

Understand that this doesn't mean that any noise coming from behind the mic won't be picked up at all, it will, as that sound is still traveling through the room and reflecting back into the mic, but it will be significantly quieter than if the mic was facing it.

Try applying some of these tips to your next episode recording and quickly, and cheaply improve of the overall audio quality and production value of your show.

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