Podcasting Q&A

How to get the best results with Magic Mastering

January 25, 2021 Buzzsprout
Podcasting Q&A
How to get the best results with Magic Mastering
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Marisa from the Live Blissed Out podcast asks, "What adjustments should I make to my podcast episodes when using Magic Mastering?"

TL;DR
Magic Mastering is a new feature that we recently added in Buzzsprout that allows you to automatically mix and master your podcast episodes to improve your audio quality without adding a ton of extra work. But there are certainly some things that you still want to do when you're editing your podcast episode to get the best results.

In today's episode, we'll explain how to get the best results with Buzzsprout's Magic Mastering tool.

Learn more about Magic Mastering.

Record your podcasting question at Speakpipe.com/Buzzsprout to be featured on a future episode.

Review Podcasting Q&A in Podchaser to let us know what you think of the show.

Travis:

In today's episode, you'll learn how to use magic mastering to improve the audio quality of your podcast episodes. Welcome to Podcasting Q&A, where you learn the best tips and strategies to launch grow and monetize your show. This week's question comes from Marisa.

Marisa:

Hi, Team Buzzsprout. This is Marisa host of the live lissed out podcast. My question elates to the magic mastering eature you offer. Do you ecommend that I upload my pisodes as is for Magic astering? Or should I still ake adjustments via my editing oftware before uploading? hanks for all your support?

Travis:

Thanks for your question, Marisa. Magic astering is a new feature that e recently added in Buzzsprout. hat allows you to automatically ix and master your podcast pisodes to improve your audio uality without adding a ton of xtra work. But there are ertainly some things that you till want to do when you're diting your podcast episode to et the best results. First, et's talk about the three hings you should continue to o. Even if you start using agic mastering, the first thing s get a really clear audio ecording, as great as magic astering is it is not a miracle orker. And so if you are ecording in a super echoey nvironment, or your guest is ecording with their phone, and hey have a bad connection, or ou have a lot of crosstalk and icrophone bleeds so you can ear yourself and your co host icrophone magic mastering annot magically fix that as reat as it is doing other hings magically. So you want to et a really clean recording for our podcast episode. That means ecording every single person on heir own track in your editing oftware, it means recording in really solid environment where ou're going to reduce echo. And t's going to sound really crisp nd really clear. And that means sing proper mic technique where ou're about four finger widths way from your microphone, the econd thing you want to do is et your volume levels in the allpark of where they need to e. So if you recorded at a eally nice level, and then your o host recorded a little bit ouder than you and your guests as really quiet, then you want o adjust those. So they're all bout the same. You don't have o get them perfect, but you do ant to get them in the allpark. And the last thing hat you want to do is remove ny unwanted sounds that you on't want to make it into your odcast episode. Now we're not alking about you know, air onditioning units or low ackground noise. That's omething magic mastering can ake care of, and we'll get to hat in a second. But I'm alking about dogs barking, alking about kids screaming, omeone has a coughing fit in he middle of the interview. hose are the kind of things hat you'll want to remove from our podcast episode before you pload it to Buzzsprout and use agic mastering. So now let's alk about the things you no onger have to do. Once you tart using magic mastering and he first one is leveling, magic astering applies adaptive eveling to your entire podcast pisode. So it sounds like veryone's recording at the same olume all the time. And this eally is a step beyond a egular normalization effect, hich analyzes the entire audio lip, and then does one major djustment to the whole file. daptive leveling splits your odcast episode up into little hunks and then applies ormalization and leveling ffects along the way, so that ven if someone is loud at one oint and soft at another point, agic mastering will take care f that. The second thing you no onger have to worry about is ackground noise and hum eduction. So if there's a fan oing in the back of your room hen you're recording your pisode, and you notice that it ets picked up in your icrophone. Magic mastering will ake care of that if your eighbor two doors down is owing the lawn and you can kind f hear it in the background. ou don't have to take care of hat in your editing software. agic mastering will do that for ou. And if you have an inline um which means that you have a oorly shielded XLR cable or USB able, and you have this really asty hum in the background of our audio recordings, magic astering can take care of that oo. So those are notoriously ifficult to get rid of in your odcast editing software, you ot to use noise gates, you got o use plugins, all that kind of tuff. Magic mastering will do hat. And then the last thing hat you no longer have to worry bout is loudness targeting. So est practice for podcast pisodes is to target your oudness setting essentially the erceived volume of your podcast pisode two negative 16 lufs if ou're using a stereo file, or egative 19 lufs. If you're xporting as a mono file, magic astering will automatically pply that loudness targeting or you. So you don't have to orry about it any more. Thank ou for sending us your uestion, Marisa. Now if you h ve a question you'd like us to a swer in a future episode of t e show, just go to speakpipe.co/Buzzsprout or click the link n the show notes and leave us brief audio message Podcastin Q&A is available both as a vide and a podcast. So if you like atching videos, make sure you ubscribe to the Buzzsprou YouTube channel. If you prefe audio, you can find Podcastin Q&A in your favorite podcast l stening app. Well that's it for today. Thanks for listening and as always keep podcastin

Intro
"What do I need to do with my episodes?"
3 things to keep doing
Magic Mastering