Thread: Doing Pro Audio Podcasts and/or Youtube stuff

Originally Posted by UncleBob58

I recently worked on the sound design of the first four episodes of a serialized podcast, the concept being similar to the radio serials of the 30's and 40's that can be downloaded to your iPod. The whole project is still in development and in search of additional funding but shows some promise.

Most subscribers would, supposedly, be listening on headphones rather than speakers. My biggest question is should these be mixed differently than other material? Should I be doing the final mix with ear buds? It's new ground for me, I usually do audio post for film and TV.

Hey Bob,

I'm the technical producer of a serial audio drama (HG World), and while I'm no expert I can share my experiences with you. I edit, mix and master the show with large set of Yamaha computer speakers - they're not near-field quality monitors by any stretch, but they favor the mids strongly just the the Yamaha studio monitors are reputed to do and I've been fairly successful with these so far. My next purchase will be a pair of Yamaha near-fields. I preview the final master on these speakers, my good A-T cans, a pair of AKG tracking cans and my iPod. I also enlist other cast members and members of the production staff to preview the finished product as well. So far the feedback on the audio quality of the shows that I've produced has been favorable and I'm learning as I go. I constantly read up on mixing techniques and audio theory looking to sharpen my skills every chance I get.

I'm applying fairly standard mixing techniques, based on my limited knowledge of the craft. I use panning, volume and EQ primarily to set characters and SFX in the sound field and use several layers of low-ratio compression from inserts on individual tracks to group busses to the master buss to keep all of the sounds sharp and well in focus regardless of position in the sound field. I occasionally use subtractive EQ (notch) to provide separation of sounds when the scene features strong scene bed music that clashes frequency-wise with the dialog. I usually pan the music strongly to one channel and occasionally double the track and pan one track hard left and the other hard right to avoid muddying the dialog.

I edit and mix by scene and assemble all scenes together into a single master project to produce the final mixdown for the show. I level out the scene mixes keeping the peaks at -6dB to give some headroom for the master buss compressor. I also apply some gentle EQ on the master buss, rolling off everything below 65Hz. I also use a brick wall limiter on my scene master buses and the final master buss as well.

That was a quick and dirty run-down of how I do the audio production for our show. I hope that was helpful in some way.


Mike

Here we are in 2012, and I just read your post mstokes10. Thank you!!! One thing I didn't get:

I usually pan the music strongly to one channel and occasionally double the track and pan one track hard left and the other hard right to avoid muddying the dialog.

What do you mean "double the track"? Are you speaking of the music bed, or ???