Audival – Podcasting Tips & Tricks

Tag: Audio lingo

  • Audio lingo: Microphones

    While there are more types of microphones, the three useful for podcasting are dynamic, condenser and ribbon microphones. Condenser microphones have been used for all kinds of applications for a long time, and quality varies a lot. They require some sort of power source, like phantom power. Dynamic microphones are often more directional than condensers […]

  • Audio lingo: Side-chain

    Side-chaining is when you use the dynamic levels of one source to control the compression of your signal. For podcasting ducking might be the typical use for side-chaining. But you can also use it with a compressor and an EQ to create a de-esser, or with a gate and create the opposite effect of ducking, […]

  • Audio lingo: Expander

    An expander is in a way the opposite of a compressor. While a compressor uses the threshold setting to reduce the signal above the set value, an expander reduces the signal below the threshold value. This makes the signal more dynamic, and is thus expanded instead of compressed. As with most audio tools, the parameters […]

  • Audio Lingo: Gate

    A gate is typically the same thing as an expander, but set to a such high ratio (I.E. high compression) that it doesn’t let anything past the set threshold. In other words, it is almost to the gate, what the limiter is to the compressor. Gates are perhaps most often used as a noise gate, […]

  • Audio Lingo: Notch filter

    Nothc filters, or “high Q notch filters” are basically EQ bands used to eliminate certain frequencies. Usually they have very high Q settings so that they only affect a very specific area of the frequency range. Notch filters are usually used to remove hum or other noise.