The audio quality of your podcast, does it matter? This is one of the most common questions we get from podcasters just starting. The fact that you are reading this article means you have this question also wrapped up somewhere in your thoughts. But guess what, you are one step closer to a piece of information that has helped our podcast clients grow their listening audience.
To start with the basics on why the audio quality of your podcast matters, there is something you should never miss out on, and that is “why is podcasting so special and how did it win its way into the media industry?”
It’s simple!
Podcasting is such a personal media with a human voice timbre, creating a sense of natural communication intimacy. It reminds us of a convo with a pal a seat away, doesn’t it?
That intimacy is podcasting’s unique selling proposition, which is a basic reason why the audio quality of your podcast matters.
Listen to these samples, and let us know which sounds better in the comments.
BEFORE & AFTER
Noticed the difference is amazing, right?
That’s the power of a well-produced podcast and it is easily identifiable by listeners. If you want a straightforward answer if the audio quality of your podcast matters.
Yes, the audio quality of your podcast matters!
But if you have a few minutes to understand a complete set of reasons why it matters and what to look out for please continue to the subsequent headings.
1. Maintaining The Touch of Intimacy
The strength of podcasting lies in the bond and the connection the human voice creates. Have you ever wondered if your friend’s voice is so boomy, cracky, excessively sharp with high “Ess” sibilance? Surely your conversation with that friend would not be enjoyable.
It is the same with the audio quality of your podcast!
The little glitches here and there ruin the illusion of intimacy and the bond we feel for podcasts. Boomy and fading voices distract and shift our minds from the content of podcasts. We experience this in real-life scenarios but with podcasting, it becomes much more obvious since we do not see the communicators and we rely solely on our ears.
The horrific glitches and the larger-than-life boominess of over-compressed sound waves traveling through the air create a disconnect, a disconnect our ears only pick but our brains try to dissect.
Mind you, we don’t process information with our ears. We process the audio with our brains, and that is why the slightest distraction can leave a listener thinking something else and not absorbing the information. Of course, the goal is to keep the listener glued to the information.
For podcasts, audio isn’t just audio. Audio is a class of investment that pays whopping dividends. Think of what the “ums”, “uuuuuhhhs”, pops, breath between words, awkward pauses, awful ambient noises, and background noise could do for a podcast.
2. Achieving Greater Credibility
Have you checked out the top-ranked podcasts you know? What do they all have in common? For sure, they all have top-notch audio quality.
A premium is placed on audio quality not just because of the ready-to-critique audiophiles and the psychoacoustic experts that might be listening but because great audio quality instantly sends a credibility alert to our brains.
How would the jar of an unedited, poorly recorded podcast feel to you? How would your brain react when hit with a pi
ece of discord it’s trying to run away from? You instantly get the feeling that you’re dealing with wannabes and quacks. That’s not professional and is bad for business.
Investing in the audio quality of your podcast can be the single tactic you need to keep a new listener returning for more episodes.
You just need one person to listen, get your message and pass it onto someone else. Then you have just doubled your audience.
– Robert Gerrish (Co-authored the business bestseller)
3. Finding The Balance
Wait a minute!
If podcasting prides itself as a personal and intimate medium, shouldn’t it be as close to real-life as possible? Is podcasting an on-demand radio or a mere voiceover? Is all the fuss about audio quality worth it? Does an over-concentration on audio quality make a podcast lack the touch of reality?
Surely these questions come to your mind and yes, for a lot of podcasts, the coloration of the recording process spits out something different than what you hear in person.
Balance is the perfect answer to these questions.
A podcast with great audio quality helps its listeners find a balance between the real and the synthetic; between the organic and the inorganic; between the created and the recreated.
With balance, a podcast touch of reality is not lost.
4. Apple’s Ranking System with Podcast’s Audio Quality
Ranking high on popular and respected podcast charts like Apple’s is the dream of every podcaster. Apple’s listening platform is the biggest place podcasts are consumed. This is why so many podcasters focus on Apple’s podcast rankings.
But ranking high on Apple’s podcast chart is no guessing game. While your podcast might score high when you put effort into podcast search engine optimization, social media promotions, and getting listed on as many directories as possible, Apple’s requirements are quite unique.
To score high on Apple’s podcast charts, you need to pay credence to the audio quality of your podcast. Apple is drunk on great content backed up by first-class audio quality.
Honorable mention to the “cleanliness” of your podcast’s cover art but audio quality is one of the strategies that make Apple’s algorithm tick.
How Do You Know if The Audio Quality Of Your Podcast Is Bad?
Before we dive right in, it is important for us to say not all of our clients were aware of how great their podcast could sound till we brought it back to life. And no doubt, many of them were amazed.
That’s a story for another day!
In the following paragraphs we will talk about how to identify if your podcast has a bad audio quality;
Background Noise: This is one of the most common problems podcasts starting out face. From ambiance sounds to electrical and mechanical noises, background sounds are a real nuisance to your recording. Background noises can be very irritating.
Excess Room Echo: Echoes are the arch-enemies of your recording. Echoes don’t just hurt the ears of your listeners; it drifts your listeners’ minds off your content.
Hearing a reflecting or reverberating sound fade away into the walls of your recording room gives your podcast off as mediocre. While other elements of bad audio quality might be overlooked, echoes are unforgivable. They are the greatest pet peeves of podcast listeners “especially when they are too pronounced.”
Errors In Speech (Ahh,stutters, em..): Too much “Emms” can make you sound unprofessional and seem unsure of your information. The “little” awkward pauses, “emms”, and ” uhs” do eat up a lot of recording time making your podcast unnecessarily long. These speech errors disrupt the flow of your content thereby making your podcast less enjoyable.
Sharp Ess Sibilances: This can be very distracting and annoying to the ear. It reduces listening time and hurts the quality of your content. Listeners find the continuous “esses” a bit grating to the ears.
Remember! In podcasting, what affects the ears affects the listening experience and the mind.
Inconsistent Volume: Listener turning up/down your podcast can be a pain in the ass. Audiences quickly spot the high and low variations and they’d likely get off your podcast.
Long Silence: Silence could be an artful sound in podcasting but long periods of silence seem awkward. Podcast audiences easily interpret a long period of silence as either a break in thought, a lack of information, or a lack of confidence.
The sound of silence makes your listeners feel that you’re not present and that you’re suffering a disconnect.
Excessively Loud breaths: The microphone could be a podcaster’s heel if it picks loud breaths. The underlying pants accompanying your words could be picked by your listeners and it is extremely irritating when it’s too noticeable (Balance is key).
Standard loudness mastering: It isn’t somewhat common for podcasters to over-compress and distorts their mastering because they want it very loud and competitive. That’s a good goal to have the audio loud enough but guess what, there is a standard for podcast’s loudness and if it’s not followed strictly the audio gets messed up.
Exceeding the podcasting loudness standard sends your podcast sounding squashed as your audience listens to your content.
You remember how bad you want to avoid that noisy fellow, don’t you?
Conclusion
In all, professional podcasters understand that high-quality audio is not strived for, it is a standard.
Leveraging technology and balancing it with reality is another important podcasting ideal.
Don’t forget that this is a highly intimate medium. As a podcaster, you have a one-on-one relationship with your listener.
That connection, if treated respectfully, will turn a casual listener into a raving superfan — which is what every podcaster wants.
Remember, if you truly want to make headway in podcasting, high-quality audio, and courting professional podcast editors are your surest bet.
Emmanuel is the Founder & Chief Editor at MYPODCASTPRODUCER. At MYPODCASTPRODUCER, we believe editing should be personal. That’s why we begin every podcaster’s relationship with a conversation. We want to know how you want your podcast to feel, your objectives, and how we can best help you achieve them.
To learn more about Emmanuel and how we help podcasters achieve great audio quality, visit www.mypodcastproducer.com.
