5 tips to sound great podcasting with ANY microphone

Simple mic technique can fix your podcast from sounding cheap and amateur to far more professional. Apply these five simple tricks to sound better podcasting!

Demo podcasting microphones

1. Get close to the mic

A big mistake early podcasters make is talking too far away from their microphones. This makes the audio more susceptible to room noise, reverb, and harsh tones.

Get closer to your mic and turn down your gain (the sensitivity of the mic).

This even works with internal mics, when you combine with other techniques.

2. Don't get too close to the mic

On the flip side, getting too close to your mic can be bad, too. This will pick up excessive breathing, mouth noises, and pops from letters like P and T (call plosives).

Depending on your mic, the optimal distance is about four fingers' width away.

3. Talk past the mic

Pointing the mic directly at your face causes the most plosives as the puffs of air some letters make will go straight from your mouth.

Pivot the mic around your mouth so you are talking past the mic instead of into the mic.

4. Don't touch the mic

Unless you have a noiseless overheard boom arm LINK and shock mount, never ever touch your microphone, stand, or anything touching the mic or stand while you're recording. The creates loud booms in the recording.

5. Avoid noise around the mic

What you do away from the mic is just as important as in front of the mic. Avoid loud keyboards, squeaking chairs, cracking knuckles, whispered conversations, background noise-makers, and more.

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About the Author
As an award-winning podcaster, Daniel J. Lewis gives you the guts and teaches you the tools to launch and improve your own podcasts for sharing your passions and finding success. Daniel creates resources for podcasters, such as the SEO for Podcasters and Zoom H6 for Podcasters courses, the Social Subscribe & Follow Icons plugin for WordPress, the My Podcast Reviews global-review aggregator, and the Podcasters' Society membership for podcasters. As a recognized authority and influencer in the podcasting industry, Daniel speaks on podcasting and hosts his own podcast about how to podcast. Daniel's other podcasts, a clean-comedy podcast, and the #1 unofficial podcast for ABC's hit drama Once Upon a Time, have also been nominated for multiple awards. Daniel and his son live near Cincinnati.
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Brian Caruthers
11 years ago

Did you write this for my wife? 🙂

Christ Russel
2 years ago

Hello Daniel,
Can I use this microphone with a Sony camera?

Ryan Rampersad
11 years ago

My co-host occasionally forgets to get close to the microphone despite hearing himself through headphones. I can hear the difference so I’m frequently directing my co-host and other guests to get back in there and talk into it.

Note: eating is a noise you can try to hide from the mic by being far away but the best solution is to eat before and or after the show.

Keeper Dan
Keeper Dan
11 years ago

Great episode, Daniel. I’ve been using this version of the SP-1 mic, and I love it:
http://www.amazon.com/Nady-SP1-Microphone-Stand-Package/dp/B003E2X3PU/ref=pd_cp_MI_0

The mic stand works well for someone seated as I can swing it down from the side of my desk.

David A. Dufour
11 years ago

Rule #4 can be expanded to “No Table Tapping.” That’s the rule we have at Theatre Geeks podcast. There are generally three (sometimes more) of us around a table we’ve padded with a thick cloth, but tapping on the mike stand does happen as well. (We don’t use the fancy mike arms.) Good tips about mikes here. I just had someone recommend to me a Blue Encore mike that runs around $150. It’s a dynamic mike, but it uses phantom power to run a built-in pre-amp so you can run at lower gains on your mixer. Nice because some lower-end mixers will inject hiss into the recording when you have to turn up the gain. I’m thinking of giving one a test.

PS: did you post the video of this episode?

Jeremiah Miller
Jeremiah Miller
11 years ago

I got a noiseless overhead boom thing and shock mount for Christmas!!!!

trackback

[…] Brief all presenters on good microphone technique […]

Harry Barker
Harry Barker
8 years ago

Is it good for gaming

Harry Barker
Harry Barker
8 years ago
Reply to  Harry Barker

I mean in making videos on gaming?

Josh
Josh
7 years ago

Hi Daniel,

I recently listened to the episode and I enjoyed it. My brother and I co-host a podcast together.

We currently use the internal mic on our computer, so we really need to upgrade.

We don’t want to spend a lot on a mic, but is it better to get 2 cheap microphones or one better one that we could share?

trackback

[…] For more microphone placement tips, click here. […]

Zachary Webb
6 years ago

I think that a Audio-Technica ATR1100 would be better than a cheap stick microphone, and can work with the headphone splitter idea, as it has a 3.5mm jack. http://a.co/1V6YOgu

Sara Mars
3 years ago

Hey, I was looking for some tips and I find your article very helpful, Don’t get too close to the mic, I didn’t knew that it would harm the vocals. Thank you great stuff

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