I wanted the opportunity to let you all know that I'm taking a break from the podcast for a while! I plan on coming back in a few months with a greater sense of purpose, focus, and a stronger grasp of how I can best educate those who are looking to make their podcasts sounds better! If you're looking to stay connected and updated, you can keep up with what's going on in the Discord server or on Patreon! Thank you all so much, and I'll still be seeing you most weeks over on the YouTube channel. L...
Aug 07, 2020•17 min
It's very important to know that every compressor is different and it will make your audio sound differently depending on how it processes the gain reduction. There is a time and place for every different style of compressor, and in this episode we listen to 4 different styles of compression at 3 different amounts of compression applied to my voice. JOIN THE FUN ON PATREON! Links: Join the Clean Cut Audiophiles Discord Server! Clean Cut Audio on YouTube UA Article on Compressor Topologies 4Sound...
Jul 30, 2020•22 min•Ep. 28
Compression is a topic I've covered extensively (but also not nearly enough) on my YouTube channel. Even with all the hours of teaching I've done on the topic, I've barely touched on the other incredible effects and benefits of learning proper compression techniques. While a perfectly dialed in compressor will certainly help level out your dynamic range and save your listeners ears from being blown out by sudden changes in loudness, it will also impart a beautiful tone and character to your voic...
Jul 16, 2020•25 min•Ep. 27
Death has a crazy way of putting a lot of things into perspective. With the recent passing on my dog and best friend Levi, I've been thinking a lot about what audio and podcasting REALLY means to me. It got me thinking of the Alexander Supertramp quote "Happiness is only real when shared". We as podcasters tend to hole ourselves in a spare bedroom, walk in closet, or any location that is completely separated from the sounds and sights of the rest of the world. It can get lonely, and that lonelin...
Jul 09, 2020•20 min•Ep. 26
Something I've been seeing recently in Facebook groups and forums is people claiming they can't be great at audio because they don't have a degree or formal education in audio engineering. If that's you, let me offer some personal insight. I'm one of those chumps who spent 4 years and a TON of money on a degree in audio engineering, and I've lived to regret it. The REAL learning happened after college when I was working with some very experienced and prolific audio engineers who, guess what, nev...
Jul 02, 2020•27 min•Ep. 25
Many folks think noise reduction is something that can only be done in post production, but I'm here to tell you that's a bald-faced lie. The best noise reduction is accomplished WHILE recording your podcast! "The best offense is a great defense" type of vibes. There are SO many things we can do to make sure that noise (see also: unwanted sound) is never captured in the first place! In this episode you'll learn a little bit about soundproofing and why it's unattainable for more people, microphon...
Jun 18, 2020•27 min•Ep. 24
When new podcasters or audio engineers are reaching out to their peers for help with their production, it's not uncommon to hear the super frustrating and unhelpful response of "just trust your ears". Unfortunately when you're so new to audio, that means nothing. It's a lazy cop out that relieves the person being asked for help from actually teaching anything. It would be like a new fighter pilot asking his superior how to fly a supersonic jet and getting the response "just trust your gut". Sure...
Jun 11, 2020•33 min•Ep. 23
I vow to never stop talking about local recordings until every podcast on Earth at least KNOWS it's an option. Whether or not they choose to sound good is up to them. A local recording eliminates all the fail points and fidelity degrading processes by writing all your 0's and 1's directly to your computer without any consideration of WiFi strength, bandwidth availability, or whatever noises your cohost is making on the other end. If you're using a platform like Zoom or Skype to record your podca...
Jun 04, 2020•23 min•Ep. 22
When it comes to mixing audio, you'd be hard pressed to find a more lively debate than the one between headphones and studio monitors. There are a LOT of pros and cons to each, and in this episode we explore many of the arguments for each side along with some brief lessons on HRTF (head related transfer function) and the psychoacoustics of how we localize audio in a 3D world. JOIN THE FUN ON PATREON! Links: The Science of Sound 101 Episode Waves Nx Virtual Mix Room Waves Abbey Road Studios3 HRTF...
May 21, 2020•36 min•Ep. 21
My father always taught me the worst thing you can do is to constantly compare yourselves to others. It can be limiting, anxiety inducing, and can guide you off the path you should be taking in life. Every person, every voice, and every experience is unique and should be treated as such. However! When we're duding our own audio quality, it's important to keep comparing our audio against that of other podcasts and voices that are KNOWN to be of good quality. Here's the reason why... I've said it ...
May 14, 2020•28 min•Ep. 20
The title says it all. You can almost stop reading now if you want to. But, I find buying used gear to be one of the most valuable "life hacks" when it comes to buying audio gear for podcasting. Podhacks? Anyways, in audio production, with very few exceptions, you get what you pay for, and usually spending a *little* extra money can go a very long way. This is where buying used comes in! If we have a fixed budget, which most of us do, we can get MUCH higher quality gear if we buy used and spend ...
May 07, 2020•21 min•Ep. 19
No matter what instrument you are recording, how it was recorded, or what hardware it was recorded with, you will always capture unwanted frequencies. That's what this entire series on frequency has lead to, identifying and properly removing unpleasant sounds. While there's more to it than this, one type of very unpleasant sound is a resonant frequency, which is simply defined as a build up on energy in a located area on the frequency spectrum. There can be several of these resonant frequencies ...
Apr 30, 2020•28 min•Ep. 18
As we start to wrap up this long series on frequency, we work our way towards the natural conclusion, export settings. While sample rate and bit depth can be and are recording settings and are decided at the beginning of the session, we also have options when bouncing down (see also: exporting) our sessions. The same goes for what bitrate mp3 to convert our audio to. Each of these settings affects frequency either super directly or mildly indirectly so we're going to focus a bit on HOW our voice...
Apr 23, 2020•30 min•Ep. 17
This episode focuses on a phrase I say often on the show, humans are more perceptive to change than to constants. So far, this series on frequency has been in relation to 1 voice, but most podcasts feature at least 2 speakers. The fastest way to lose podcast listeners is to have a wild difference in loudness between the 2 or more speakers. However, we need to take this a step farther. While the podcast loudness standard is -16LUFS for stereo tracks (my podcast is always exported in stereo), -16L...
Apr 16, 2020•27 min•Ep. 16
Could this title sound any more clinical? Geez. Anyways, this is a super exciting episode! Building upon the frequency band listening exercises last week, we are now exploring more subtle and intentional moves when it comes to equalizing vocals for a podcast! In this episode we look at 10 different octave bands ranging from 32Hz to 16kHz and explore how my voice sounds when we boost each of those frequency by 2 and 4 dB, and when we cut by 2 and 4 dB. While listening to each move made in this ep...
Apr 09, 2020•34 min•Ep. 15
In order to produce a great sound, we first need to learn how to hear good sound. In this listening heavy episode, we isolate the 7 frequency bands in the audible spectrum to hear what they sound like in isolation, and what it sounds like when they're completely removed from the signal. All of the previous episodes and these listening exercises, in addition to the ones upcoming are critical to build a foundation of understanding what these frequencies sound like and how they affect the signal as...
Apr 02, 2020•26 min•Ep. 14
When it comes to audio and creating a good sound, everyone will tell you "just trust your ears". It's a blanket statement that really means "spend the next 30 years figuring this out, because this rabbit hole is deeper than you could possibly imagine". This becomes exponentially more difficult when we realize our audio is lying to us, ALWAYS! Building on what we know about frequency from last week, we're now exploring all the things that impact how we perceive these frequencies in every day life...
Mar 26, 2020•30 min•Ep. 13
You can't master your craft until you've mastered the fundamentals ten times over. This week's episode is all about the fundamentals. What is sound? How does it travel from one place to another? What is wavelength and how does it correspond to a frequency? All of these questions are answered within the episode, and plenty of visual can be found in the show notes at www.cleancutaudio.com/podcast/12 Find me online! Patreon | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Website My Signal Chain Hardwa...
Mar 19, 2020•19 min•Ep. 12
There are many hills I'm willing to die on, but one I never feel bad about is that your podcast, my podcasts, everyone's podcast is a performance. Even for those who are "just talking to their buds around a couple cold ones" are still in front of a microphone working a non-zero amount to create a product for someone to potentially listen to. I think accepting the fact that we're all performers is step one to making a significantly better podcasts, for many reasons that are explored in this episo...
Mar 12, 2020•27 min•Ep. 11
"With great power comes great responsibility". We all know the phrase, but when it comes to editing a podcast, we don't keep it in mind. The ability to edit audio on such a microscopic level is an INSANELY POWERFUL ability, and we need to use this power for good and do it responsibly. JOIN THE FUN ON PATREON! I think what people struggle with the most when it comes to editing a podcast is WHY they're editing a podcast. I have one very simple philosophy: We should be editing our podcasts with the...
Mar 05, 2020•27 min•Ep. 10
I see a lot of folks (sometimes myself, even) using the word "editing" as a catch-all term for anything that comes after recording a podcast. If you're a solo creator, meaning you don't collaborate with another on the production, this may not be a big deal. Call it whatever you want, no one has to know. BUT, this becomes a much bigger issue when you hire your first editor, or if you're the editor working with your first client, because the word "edit" and even "editor" means a ton of different t...
Feb 27, 2020•31 min•Ep. 9
When it comes to interfaces, mixers, and portable recorders, not all are created equal. I would even dare to say neither of them are comparable to each other! There are many reasons why I think this, but the spec we're focusing on today is the preamps, and specifically the noise created by budget quality recording devices. Let's start at the very beginning... Any electronic device creates noise, maybe on a microscopic level, but in terms of audio recording equipment, they can all sum up to somet...
Feb 20, 2020•31 min•Ep. 8
One of the most exciting and most crucial times in a podcaster's career is either buying gear for the first time, or finally upgrading after months or years of steady growth and eventual justification for spending all that hard earned cash. However, there's a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to "what gear should I buy". The WORST answer to this question is any answer at all. Sounds strange? You're still in the right place. In order to record a symphony, you need LOTS of gear to capture ...
Feb 13, 2020•33 min•Ep. 7
I've said it over and over and over again, your audio is mainly defined by your microphone technique and your recording environment. Last week we recorded mic technique, so here we are with the environment! Reverberations are caused when a sound (ie. your voice) bounces off your walls over and over again, hundreds of times a second, and each time it bounces off the wall, you hear that instance of the sound, and again milliseconds later when it bounces back, and milliseconds later when it bounces...
Feb 06, 2020•32 min•Ep. 6
I've said in the past that the most important factors to your sound is your environment and your microphone technique. The two are linked together pretty closely, and one slight change to either can drastically affect your signal. In this episode, we explore several different microphone techniques with the Shure SM7b, not to find which one is "right" or "best", but to explore what we like the most, and that's highly subjective. That's not to say we don't bust a few myths in this episode and demo...
Jan 30, 2020•19 min•Ep. 5
Being a podcaster or a podcast producer can be lonely business. Long nights in your pitch black walk-in closet, the basement, or the forgotten spare bedroom can take its toll on anyone brave enough to enter to wild world of podcasting. The reason so many podcasts fade out after 7-8 episodes (which is so lovingly called "podfading") is because the work can often outweigh the reward, especially when you're just starting out. Luckily, there's an antidote to podfading and burnout, and it's called hu...
Jan 30, 2020•18 min•Ep. 4
While we are all striving for the best audio we can achieve, learning all the ins and outs of audio can be daunting, especially when we really just want to be focusing on the content of our podcasts. This episode is geared towards the low hanging fruit, the techniques anyone can put into place with their current equipment to immediately and dramatically increase the quality of their show. A lot of what it takes to capture great audio is a good recording environment, proper microphone technique, ...
Jan 30, 2020•24 min•Ep. 3
Since the beginning of time, or podcasting at least, it has been generally well received that having great audio quality isn't really that important, especially when compared to content and marketing. That may have been true for a long time, but the times they are a-changin' my friend. With massive media corporations and A-list celebrities entering the podcasting arena, bringing their massive teams and budgets with them, an unfair race for attention has begun. While many people believe these cel...
Jan 30, 2020•18 min•Ep. 2
Often times in life, the only thing holding you back from achieving greatness is yourself. I find this true to be for audio. In podcasting, there is this culture I can't quite wrap my head around that seems to always be aiming for the bottom. "Don't buy that nice microphone what you can totally get away with this $17 karaoke microphone from Radio Shack". Does that place still exist? Why are we trying so hard to get away with the minimal effort? This hack-a-thon mentality can be fun in some situa...
Jan 10, 2020•18 min•Ep. 1
Welcome to the brand new Clean Cut Audio podcast. This is a show for new and seasoned podcasters who are looking to take their audio production to the next level. Every week, Tom will share actionable tips and tricks that you can implement into your podcasts RIGHT NOW that will make them sound great, and make them easier and faster to produce. In this podcast, you will hear demos, tutorials, walkthroughs, listening exercises, side by side comparisons, and deep dive audio training that will teach...
Jan 06, 2020•7 min
