Tag Archives: Podcaster

Ambie Awards Honor Podcast Audio Production

Defacto Sound’s Casey Emmerling (left) accepted Twenty Thousand Hertz’s Ambie award for Best Production and Sound Design, while Double Elvis Productions’ Jake Brennan (right) took home Disgraceland’s award for Best Original Score and Music Supervision last night at The Podcast Academy's Third Annual Awards for Excellence in Audio. Photos: Denise Truscello/Getty Images for The Podcast Academy / The Ambies
Defacto Sound’s Casey Emmerling (left) accepted Twenty Thousand Hertz’s Ambie award for Best Production and Sound Design, whereas Double Elvis Productions’ Jake Brennan (proper) took house Disgraceland’s award for Best Original Score and Music Supervision final night time at The Podcast Academy’s Third Annual Awards for Excellence in Audio. Photos: Denise Truscello/Getty Images for The Podcast Academy / The Ambies

Las Vegas, NV (March 8, 2023)—Hot on the heels of final week’s information that podcast listening has reached record-breaking heights after a startling 2022 post-pandemic drop, the third-annual Ambie Awards have been held final night time in Las Vegas. The occasion, introduced by The Podcast Academy, honors “excellence in podcasting and elevate consciousness and standing of podcasts as a singular and private medium for leisure, data, storytelling and expression.”

New York’s Defacto Sound’s long-running Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast received the Best Production and Sound Design Award. Meanwhile, Jake Brennan, Matt Beaudoin, Ryan Spraker and Bryce Kanzer of Boston-based Double Elvis Productions took house the Best Original Score and Music Supervision trophy for his or her work on Disgraceland.

While the overwhelming majority of the 26 award classes give attention to style—Best Comedy Podcast and so forth—solely a handful give attention to precise podcast manufacturing, highlighting writing (fiction and nonfiction) and reporting in addition to the 2 audio-related awards for unique rating/music supervision and manufacturing/sound design.

Twenty Thousand Hertz host Dallas Taylor uses the stories behind famous sounds to take a deeper look at what sound is and means in the modern world. Photo: Natalie Shields
Twenty Thousand Hertz host Dallas Taylor makes use of the tales behind well-known sounds to take a deeper take a look at what sound is and means within the trendy world. Photo: Natalie Shields

Created by Defacto Sound—a sound design home that has labored with Tesla, HBO, Discovery and lots of extra—Twenty Thousand Hertz is a podcast centered on the histories of modern-day sounds and the way we expertise them. Hosted by Defacto’s artistic director Dallas Taylor, the present appears to be like at every thing from the origins of the Netflix “Ta-Dum” and Seinfeld’s signature slap-bass riffs, to extra technical matters just like the Loudness Wars and the way NASA communicates with astronauts.

Interviewed for Pro Sound News in 2020, Taylor defined the present’s ethos, noting, “I needed to make one thing that began to carry the enjoyment to sound itself, virtually like a chef’s desk really feel, however for sound, to hopefully get tradition extra in tune and extra aware about their sense of listening to.”

He added that educating the general public about sound and audio advantages each medium, from podcasting to movie, as he defined, “If the business itself—the place we solely have visuals and sounds—nonetheless has a tough time figuring out sound as a very artistic storytelling instrument, then I believe the remainder of the world in all probability nonetheless has a tough time with this.”

Berklee assistant professor of music production/engineering by day, podcast producer by night, Matthew Beaudoin was one of the winners last night for Disgraceland. Photo: Double Elvis Productions
Berklee assistant professor of music manufacturing/engineering by day, podcast producer by night time, Matthew Beaudoin was one of many winners final night time for Disgraceland. Photo: Double Elvis Productions

Winning the Ambie for Best Original Score and Music Supervision was Double Elvis Productions’ podcast Disgraceland, a long-running true-crime present that appears on the dramatic, typically troubled pasts of musical icons like Led Zeppelin, Sid Vicious, Mac Miller, Chris Brown and others. As the present’s senior producer Matthew Beaudoin instructed Pro Sound News in 2020, “[We are] very a lot centered on, ‘How can we get music to help this narrative that we’re telling? How can we get the music to work in live performance to help that narrative, and make the expertise as immersive as attainable?’”

Online Audio, Podcast Listening Bounce Back in 2023

Podcast listening bounces back
New York, NY (March 3, 2023)—After a lower in listenership final yr, elevating considerations that the format was a fad, podcast listening has bounced again and reached a file excessive, in accordance with Edison Research’s newly launched annual report, The Infinite Dial 2023. Additionally, listening to all types of on-line audio has additionally reached new heights as nicely. These findings are necessary for the pro-audio and studio sectors, each of that are important elements of the content material provide chain for radio, streaming providers and podcast networks.

While podcasting surged in recognition during the last 10 years, it was through the peak of social-distancing lockdowns in 2020 that the audio format really exploded, reaching new heights as Americans with an excessive amount of time on their arms hungered for leisure and dialog—and located a little bit of each in podcasts. That avid listening, nevertheless, fell off as COVID restrictions lifted.

However, the brand new 2023 report finds that month-to-month and weekly podcast listening have bounced again in an enormous means. A full 42% of Americans 12+ have listened to 1 within the final month—a brand new all-time excessive and up from 38% final yr, and 31% of Americans 12+ have listened to a podcast within the final week, up 26% year-over-year.

podcast

Who’s listening? Well, the vast majority of Americans ages 12-54 (53%) have listened to a podcast within the final month, and 39% % of Americans ages 12-54 have listened to a podcast within the final week. Not everyone seems to be enamored with the audio format, nevertheless; podcast listening continues to be stagnant amongst these 55+, with solely 21% of Americans in that age group listening to a podcast within the final month, and solely 14% within the final week.

Not solely are folks listening extra usually, nevertheless, however they’re additionally listening to extra podcasts, interval. Weekly podcast listeners heard a mean of 9 podcast episodes within the final week, up from eight episodes in 2022. The post-COVID return to commuting comes into play with regards to podcast listening—38% of U.S. adults age 18+ who’ve ridden in a automobile within the final month say they take heed to podcasts within the automobile, up from 32% final yr.

Frank Gallagher: ‘Soundman Confidential’ Talks Talking Heads, B-52’s and the Evolution of Live Sound

Edison Research vp Megan Lazovick famous with the report’s debut that “After two earlier annual research that confirmed clear results from the COVID-19 disruptions, the developments in audio and social media habits appear to be again on sample.”

The full examine will be downloaded without cost.

Fox Podcast Talks Tech in 60 Seconds

FOX on Tech
Fox News Channel

New York, NY (June 21, 2021)—Podcasts, by the nature of their open-ended format, afford creators the license to define the length and pacing of the stories they tell. Episodes of the exhaustively researched Cocaine & Rhinestones: The History of Country Music, for example, routinely clock between an hour and two hours-plus in length. The aptly titled Longest Podcast in the World set the record at 36 continuous hours.

Brett Larson, editor of the FOX on Tech podcast
Brett Larson, editor of the FOX on Tech podcast

“Usually, podcasts are as long as they are interesting,” says Brett Larson, editor of the FOX on Tech podcast and morning anchor on Sirius FM’s FOX News Headlines 24/7. FOX on Tech goes the opposite direction, squeezing the tech news of the day into pithy one-minute audio shorts which are made available to listeners as a podcast and through terrestrial FOX News Radio affiliates.

“Day to day, there’s always something that’s going to happen—there’s a new phone from Apple, there’s malware you have to keep on the lookout for, there’s a massive data breach—but some of the stories are kind of tied together,” says Larson. “The podcast platform allows us to do more interesting stories in the field of technology.”

FOX on Tech began as a feature segment on FOX News Headlines 24/7 and as a download for radio affiliates throughout the U.S. The segment was so popular on radio that the network decided to add the program to the lineup on its podcast platform alongside four other new titles in March.

Story ideas begin at the FOX news desk or with Larson himself, who writes the podcast shorts and compiles audio clips to help tell each story. Timing affects every decision, not only to make the most engaging and informative use of the allotted daily minute, but also because the clips have to be exactly 60 seconds in length for radio. If a story calls for audio support, Larson gauges precisely how much is necessary and writes his script around it.

“Some stories that are more complicated take significantly longer because some of the tech subjects can be difficult to explain in just a few seconds,” says Larson. “How do you explain net neutrality in seven seconds? Because that’s all the time you’re gonna get in a 60-second feature to do it.”

Jason Bonewald, director of podcast development, news operations and political programming, and his team aim to keep production values high.
Jason Bonewald, director of podcast development, news operations and political programming, and his team aim to keep production values high.

The production process is lightning-fast as well, which Larson attributes to the “muscle memory” of researching a topic, then writing, rewriting, submitting and finally producing the podcast segment. Typically, it’s all done within an hour. Larson records at home using a Shure SM7B microphone and a Comrex Access remote-broadcast IP codec, employing an XLR splitter that sends the audio to both the Comrex and through a Focusrite Scarlett Solo USB-C interface into Adobe Audition.

Once Larson is done with the audio, he uploads the WAV files for Jason Bonewald, director of podcast development, news operations and political programming. Bonewald and his post-production team add compression and other subtle audio sweeteners if needed and review for editorial content.

“We’ll add a little bit of compression [and] tweak some if there’s any audio hiccups, if there’s anything we heard coming over his mic,” says Bonewald. “It’s mostly polishing on the final product on our end, and then just reviewing the read and doing some final checks on audio and editorial to make sure nothing that changed from when we handed the original product in to when we get the finished product back. There’s rarely any need for final polishes, but we review every single one of them anyway.”

Producing the ‘WTF with Marc Maron’ Podcast

Keeping production values high is a priority with FOX News Podcasts, he adds. “There’s no closer medium that you could get than the podcast industry, because you’re literally in someone’s ear,” says Bonewald. “We try to give our audience what we’re used to hearing in the old-fashioned radio experience. We’re trying to give them the best quality audio that we can.”

Fox on Tech Podcast •

Producing the ‘WTF with Marc Maron’ Podcast

Throughout the pandemic, Marc Maron (left) and producer Brendan McDonald have continued to record the WTF podcast in Maron’s garage.
Throughout the pandemic, Marc Maron (left) and producer Brendan McDonald have continued to record the WTF podcast in Maron’s garage.

Los Angeles, CA (June 9, 2021)—When the popular podcast WTF with Marc Maron debuted 11 years ago, the iPhone was only on its third iteration and couldn’t muster downloads larger than 20 MB. That’s an important fact in understanding the evolution of podcasting fidelity from tinny and flangey in the early ’00s, as the podcast’s producer Brendan McDonald describes, to the comparatively crystalline audio available from podcasts today.

“When podcasts were a fairly young medium, there were a lot of data concerns about them from users,” says McDonald, “people with early data plans or devices that did not hold particularly a large amount of data and did not have cloud storage plans yet. So, you had to be very mindful.”

As MP3 compression technology progressed and the show upgraded to a server whose bit rate was 128 Kbps, he found some listeners still preferred the original 22050 Hz mono file, which was 32-bit at a constant 40 Kbps. Those longtime listeners can still find that format on the podcast’s website, while podcatchers and platforms like Spotify get a modern formatted file.

Twenty Thousand Hertz Podcast Spotlights Shure SM7

“I was like, if the default setting is [128 Kbps] and I’m compressing down, [then] we’re getting like a VHS copy of a copy here,” he says. “Now we’re using a more standard, almost stereo MP3 style setting of 44.1 stereo, 16-bit and 128 Kbps—which is a much bigger file, but in the style that people are generally listening to podcasts now.”

McDonald has been with WTF with Marc Maron for all 1,200-plus episodes and worked with the host in terrestrial radio in New York and Los Angeles before transitioning to the podcast format. While he can hear improvements in the quality of the show and audio over that time period, the equipment he used to get the show to today has changed very little. Maron, in his home studio, still tracks with a Shure SM7 microphone and a Samson MDR6 tabletop mixer with Garage Band. McDonald edits in Adobe Audition, the latest version of the Cool Edit software he used in the show’s earliest days.

The only measurable changes to the show’s production, in fact, came with COVID-19. Maron and McDonald had to ease off their policy of only taping interviews in person, but maintaining the easy, conversational vibe that comes from conducting face-to-face interviews was a top priority during the upheaval of 2020.

True Crime Sound Design on ‘Anatomy of Murder’

“These interviews, and this show in general, really connect with people because the conversations feel so intimate,” says McDonald. “Marc, over the course of a decade, has gotten very good at that—basically creating an environment for people to feel like they’re comfortable and they can share with him. It doesn’t have a lot of pretense, it doesn’t have a lot of roadblocks to actual conversation, as opposed to feeling like it’s stilted or a list of Q&A. He wanted it to be personal; he wanted it to feel like two people connecting. And so that was really important to us.”

Social distancing protocols meant that videoconferencing became a necessity. For interviews in which the subject has a home recording setup, McDonald is able to get a tape sync recording, but most audio now comes through Zoom with the Audio Hijack extraction tool by Rogue Amoeba added to the mix. In the software’s Voice Chat mode, McDonald can select Skype, Zoom or another videoconferencing platform as the audio source and tweak the audio on the fly while Maron conducts the interview.

“It’s actually brought me back to my early days of live radio production, in that now I can actually sit on the live call with Marc and I can tinker with the sound if I need to,” he says. “It’s been more work in the last year, but we’ve been able to make it work and largely have been very satisfied with the way things have sounded.”

PreSonus Revelator USB Microphone – A Real-World Review

PreSonus’ Revelator USB microphone is aimed at content creators of all kinds.
PreSonus’ Revelator USB microphone is aimed at content creators of all kinds.

The Revelator is PreSonus’s latest venture into USB microphones, touting three different microphone polar patterns—Omni, Cardioid, and Figure 8—as well as onboard DSP, software, accessories and more. We recently used it on The Art of Music Tech Podcast throughout an entire episode as I tried each polar pattern and even featured my co-host Denis performing a song on an acoustic guitar. At $249, it’s meant for podcasting, solo musical performances, livestreaming and more, and it handles those duties well.

The microphone comes with an optional table-top weighted base with a great sleek appearance, but it can also be mounted to a traditional mic stand using an included adaptor. We used that adapter on the podcast so it was easier to record Denis and myself on the couch in our studio.

The Revelator comes with access to PreSonus’ Universal Control software, which can also control other PreSonus products like its StudioLive console and StudioLive RM32 audio interface. It also controls the Revelator’s audio preferences like sample rate (44.1-96 kHz), clock source, input and output format, and Device Mode.

One of Device Mode’s key features is the Multi option, which lets you send audio simultaneously to three different platforms—for instance, YouTube, DAW and Skype. A pop-up software control panel lets users control every aspect of the mic, providing four preset modes that can be tweaked and room for another eight user-definable presets.

PreSonus Unveils MicroStation Bluetooth Monitor Controlle

On the mic itself, those four main preset modes can be changed via a preset button, while both gain and headphone levels can be adjusted via the monitor button and volume knob. If you’re familiar with PreSonus’s StudioLive consoles, this is where you can dig into what they call the Fat Channel settings that control the gain, EQ, limiter, high pass filter, compression, gate and effects.

Revelator’s software mixer simplifies sending dedicated mixes to certain destinations by providing two dedicated channels just for loopback audio on both macOS and Windows. This means users can mix and record the audio from two different applications on a computer along with a voice, all at the same time. Everything that’s tweaked in the Universal Controller can be recorded or heard through the platform being used, whether it’s a DAW, Zoom, Twitch, Skype or something else. This is also useful for musical performers who want to use a preset reverb or delay effect for a livestream.

I recorded our podcast using the Revelator to Logic via my MacBook Pro and the results were great. For podcasting purposes, this microphone can be used for any situation you could possibly run into, whether you’re home and recording a podcast via Zoom, or face-to-face with a guest but with only the one microphone. As an audio professional, I’d stick with having multiple mics, but I would suggest this set up to a beginner that needs a budget-friendly set up. At times in omnidirectional mode, I felt there was a slight delay, but I just needed Denis to get closer to the microphone for the best sound. Overall, I’m very impressed by the Revelator’s flexibility and possibilities for so many content creators.

PreSonus • www.presonus.com

The Cinematic Sound of the ‘Sammy the Bull’ Podcast

 

Former Mafia hitman Salvatore 'Sammy The Bull' Gravano on the set of his podcast, recording through a Shure SM93 lavaliere microphone.
Former Mafia hitman Salvatore ‘Sammy The Bull’ Gravano on the set of his podcast, recording through a Shure SM93 lavaliere microphone.

Phoenix, Arizona (March 25, 2021)—Emmy-award winning sound designer and FX editor Angelo Palazzo has worked on blockbusters such as Disney’s Frozen, Stranger Things and Bridgerton, but he hit the curveball of a lifetime last year when COVID-19 brought the world to a standstill. Palazzo was working with filmmaker Robert Rodriguez on another project when the pandemic halted production one Friday afternoon in early 2020; by the following Monday, he was on board with Our Thing with Sammy the Bull, a Mafia podcast that puts his cinematic skills to use in a new format.

Emmy-award winning sound designer and FX editor Angelo Palazzo
Emmy-award winning sound designer and FX editor Angelo Palazzo

“I’m steeped in feature films and the TV world,” says Palazzo, “[and] it’s a real fine line when you’re putting sound to narration. The music is what is emotionally leading you through the story, but the sound design and sound effects root you in the reality of it. I didn’t wanna go too deep, because if you go too deep, then it can get corny.”

Instead of relying on gimmicky, on-the-nose audio cues that closely follow the action of a story—for example, the sound of a door creaking on its hinges when the protagonist walks into a dark room—Palazzo strives to put listeners in a scene without them even noticing.

“If it’s too literal, it can backfire, so when there was a major plot point, I wanted to kinda ease you into it and set you up for the big moment,” he says. “Then, slowly fade that reality out and bring you back in with just the narration with the music. If you’re nuanced about it, before they know it, you’re out of it and there was no distraction.”

Sammy the Bull with Richard Miller
Sammy the Bull (left) with podcast producer Richard Miller, the general manager of the Sammy the Bull organization.

The protagonist of Our Thing with Sammy the Bull is Salvatore Gravano, the notorious mobster whose hit list runs 19 murders deep and who served as underboss of the Gambino crime family under John Gotti.

Palazzo works with Richard Miller, the general manager of the Sammy the Bull organization, to produce each episode of Our Thing with Sammy the Bull. Miller, whose background is in seminar production, records the narration with Gravano on a Shure SM93 lavaliere microphone (Gravano’s preference over typical podcasting models) into a Zoom H6 recorder. Miller says they’ve since moved on to the Shure MX150 lavaliere, which doesn’t pick up as much ambient sound.

After a few rounds of editing in Adobe Audition, the narration tracks and archival sound clips go to Palazzo for placement and mixing with the score, which he composes and records himself using Native Instruments and vintage synths.

True Crime Sound Design on ‘Anatomy of Murder’

How ‘Real Narcos’ Makes Rough Audio Work

“Most everything starts with a piano idea, and as I get a certain progression or vibe, piano and strings are where I usually start,” says Palazzo. “There’s these moments where there’s a lot of flutes riffing in the background that has a real ’70s vibe to it that I liked. Also, in the beginning, I went with this beat bassline thing with a Fender Rhodes, just to set the city vibe.”

Our Thing with Sammy the BullElements of Palazzo’s original score pop up in various moments throughout the podcast, including a piece he wrote for the finale that is now the signature opening and closing music for each episode of the podcast.

“They wanted a big orchestral thing—a big, sort of swelling finale,” he says. “If someone gives me a reference, I’ll check out the reference and I’ll listen, and as soon as I get into the vibe of it, I’m almost immediately off onto my own tangent. And then it becomes its own thing, which is what happened with that.”

Immersive Audio Developer Nomono Hires Cedmer

Peter Cedmer
Peter Cedmer

Oslo, Norway (March 24, 2021)—Nomono, a spatial audio research firm focused on processing spoken word content in podcasts, broadcast and VR/360 video productions, has brought on Peter Cedmer as its vice president of Product Management.

Prior to joining Nomono, Peter served in similar roles at Dirac, and as both chief product officer and chief technology officer at Jays Headphones. He brings experience in the field of connecting signal processing technologies to audio products, with the focus on providing quality sound to end-users.

“To have someone with Peter’s experience join our team at this time is just what we need to help take our research, and build it into compelling tools that will help podcasters, journalists, and other audio content creators tell their stories, while simplifying their workflows,” said chief executive officer, Jonas Rinde, Nomono. “Many years of research and development have led us to this point, and the whole team is energized to start incorporating our findings into the next generation of audio creation tools.”

“This is an exciting time for spatial audio. We’ve seen major manufacturers make noteworthy progress in bringing immersive, interactive audio playback capabilities right into the mobile devices and headphones we use every day,” said Cedmer. “Our mission is to make it easy for audio storytellers to capture and distribute great sounding object-based audio content, while at the same time minimizing bottlenecks on the content creation side.”

Nomono • www.nomono.co

Podcasting Pros Ready for Pro Audio & Radio Tech Summit

podcast panelNew York, NY (March 17, 2021)—A panel of top podcasting professionals will share their insights and knowledge at the upcoming Pro Audio & Radio Tech Summit on April 1. Produced jointly by Mix magazine, Pro Sound News and Radio World, the event is a free one-day virtual trade show where radio and pro audio professionals can learn about new products and technology and network with colleagues and manufacturers.

Podcasts have exploded in popularity over the last five years, inspiring millions of people to start their own shows, in part due to the low cost of entry-level audio gear. In reality, however, the DIY days of podcasting are long gone; today, audio quality is a crucial factor in building and keeping your audience. In the kickoff panel, Podcasting: ‘Good Enough’ Audio Is Not Good Enough, Chris Crump of Comrex Corporation, Fela Davis of One of One Productions, Dallas Taylor of the hit podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz, and Frank Verderosa of Digital Arts NY, will share their insights and real-world experiences, discussing superior audio tools, developing and applying best practices, and more.

Registration for the free event is open.

Chris Crump has served as the Sr. Director of Sales & Marketing for Comrex since 2004. In 1987, he began his professional radio career at ABC/Cap Cities Detroit before taking the Features Editor position at MediaBase Research/Monday Morning Replay. On-air, remote broadcast engineer, Creative Services Director roles followed for Capitol Broadcasting (subsequently Paxson Communications) in Orlando and the Ron & Ron Radio Network in Tampa/St. Petersburg. In 1996, Crump moved to the manufacturing side of the broadcast business performing sales & marketing roles for Spectral, Inc., Euphonix, Symetrix and Klotz Digital America. Crump resides in Buford, Georgia (outside of Atlanta) with his wife Seval, 15 year-old daughter Zara and their Affenpinscher Olive. He is a CBNE certified member of SBE Chapter 5 in Atlanta as well an Assistant Scoutmaster with Troops 597 and 5597 in Dacula, GA.

Fela Davis is a graduate of Full Sail University with 20 years of experience in audio engineering and inducted into the University’s Hall of Fame in 2020. Her live mixing experience includes Ron Carter, Brian Blade, Jose Feliciano, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Bilal. She is front of house engineer for six-time Grammy Award winner Christian McBride, mixing sold-out shows across Asia, Europe, Canada, and America. Fela records, mixes, and edits at her One of One Productions Studio located 5 minutes from NYC in Fort Lee, NJ. The One of One Productions studio also specializes in podcast recordings for top 200 Apple Podcasts like Holding Court with Eboni K. Williams and The Art of Music Tech Podcast that she hosts with her business partner, Dennis. The Art of Music Tech Podcast highlights the latest in audio gear, mixing techniques, and interviews with top audio engineers, musicians, and producers (Leslie Ann Jones, Jeff Bova, Jett Galindo, Patrick Smith) about their journey in audio. It’s also featured with many of her writings for Pro Sound News Magazine & Podcast Pro Newsletters.

Dallas Taylor is the host and creator of Twenty Thousand Hertz, a lovingly crafted podcast revealing the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds. Dallas is also the Creative Director of Defacto Sound, where he has led thousands of high-profile projects ranging from blockbuster trailers and advertising campaigns to Sundance award-winning films and major television series. Dallas is a sought-after speaker at conferences, a regular contributor to major publications, and a respected thought leader on the narrative power of sound.

Frank Verderosa (www.frankverderosa.com) is a 30-year veteran of the New York audio industry, fighting the good fight for film studios, ad agencies and production companies, but secretly loves mixing music most of all. These days, he plies his trade at Digital Arts in NYC, but he has additionally taught hundreds of voice-over artists how to record professionally while at home during the pandemic, and is also a longtime engineer for a number of high-profile podcasts.

The Pro Audio & Radio Tech Summit will also feature a virtual exhibition floor, live chat and a separate track of presentations showcasing technologies and trends in pro audio.

Registration for the free event is open.

True Crime Sound Design on ‘Anatomy of Murder’

Dayton Cole, handles all the post-production work on Anatomy of Murder using a variety of tools, including Avid Pro Tools, a Universal Audio Apollo Twin X interface, plug-ins on an adjacent screen like Waves’ WLM Loudness Meter, and a pair of Audeze LCD-2 Classic Open-Back Over-Ear Headphones.
Dayton Cole, handles all the post-production work on Anatomy of Murder using a variety of tools, including Avid Pro Tools, a Universal Audio Apollo Twin X interface, plug-ins on an adjacent screen like Waves’ WLM Loudness Meter, and a pair of Audeze LCD-2 Classic Open-Back Over-Ear Headphones. LEAF & PINE PHOTOGRAPHY | www.leafandpine.com
Anatomy of Murder executive producer Sumit David.
Anatomy of Murder executive producer Sumit David.

Indianapolis, IN (March 18, 2021)—True-crime podcasts, by the nature of the stories they tell, tend to be underlaid with tense and ominous sounds. While each episode of the Anatomy of Murder podcast, produced by Indianapolis, IN-based Audiochuck, deals with dark themes and details, there is also plenty of room for light, says executive producer Sumit David.

“If you look at the color palettes of a Star Wars movie, they always [begin] white and bright, and as the movie progresses, it gets darker,” says David. “[We were] like, ‘That’s how we should approach the sound design of this. Let’s start not so true crime. Let’s not start very heavy. Let’s ease our audience into it.’”

Dayton Cole, who handles all the post-production work on Anatomy of Murder at podcast editing service Resonate Recordings (Lousiville, KY), likens the process to building a house, with the brooding sounds serving as the basement. Once they establish that baseline, Cole attends to the “brighter, sentimental moments,” which are his favorite to highlight. “More natural sounds, strings and piano—those kind of natural elements—rather than the synthetic, electronic pulsing and droning,” he says.

Anatomy of Murder's hosts Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi, an NYC homicide prosecutor, and Scott Weinberger, an investigative journalist.
Anatomy of Murder’s hosts Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi, an NYC homicide prosecutor, and Scott Weinberger, an investigative journalist.

David’s background as an editor on reality television programs prepared him for his role on Anatomy of Murder, which is also unscripted. Hosts Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi, an NYC homicide prosecutor, and Scott Weinberger, an investigative journalist, research the cases and keep a loose set of talking points for each episode, but otherwise the interviews and case discussions are fluid. The pair record on Blue Yeti USB microphones, while guests record locally on their own computers during video conferences with the hosts.

Before the audio files make it to Cole as an OMF, an open-source format that allows him to import David’s Adobe Premiere files into Pro Tools, David edits the interviews and compiles related archival audio collected from law enforcement sources.

How ‘Real Narcos’ Makes Rough Audio Work

Missing In Alaska’s Sound Puts Listeners in the Search

“I try and make it so that the story is all laid out, that all the bites, whether they be from Scott, Anna-Sigga, from the guests, or from archival material, are all put together in one big sequence, divided up into the four acts,” says David. “From there, it’s handed off to Dayton so he can do his magic of adding the sound design, pacing [and] music.”

David provides some creative direction, but after working together on dozens of episodes of the podcast, the pair have a largely unspoken workflow. Cole approaches each episode as a listener would, forming an outsider’s perspective on the structure and recordings David sends him. “I create blank tracks—little ‘slugs’ I call them—so I can just say, ‘This is kind of the emotion I want in this section,’” says Cole.

Many of the sounds Cole weaves into the podcast’s aural environment come from sound libraries, although he often manipulates the stems through processors like iZotope Rx to meet his needs. The main concern is to keep the music from distracting listeners away from the dialogue, so it is impactful but not overpowering. On a recent episode where he didn’t have access to stem tracks, he improvised to keep the bass and kick drum from overpowering the other instruments.

“I liked what all the other elements were doing,” so “I used the Elysia Alpha Compressor to be able to help the mids come back, and then open up the sides,” he says. “And, I was able to kind of blend that underneath so it wasn’t hitting you in the face so much.”

Transparency is key at the end of the day. Cole prefers to remain in the background and work without being detected. “My job is, don’t be noticed, but be impactful,” he says. “If people are in the story and they’re digging it and they don’t notice all the sound changes, that’s when I know I’ve done my job.”

Anatomy of Murder • https://anatomyofmurder.com

Steinberg Unveils WaveLab Cast

Steinberg WaveLab Cast

Hamburg, Germany (March 17, 2021)—Steinberg has released WaveLab Cast production software, offering integrated tools for podcast recording, editing and publishing.

Created with an aim of helping podcasters improve the audio quality of their shows, the software includes sound correction tools, editing tools, features such as automatic ducking, a variety of signal processing tools and more. The Track Inspector provides simple 2-band EQing, while the signal processing offerings include a Voice Exciter, Compressor and Brickwall Limiter.

Steinberg Releases Nuendo 11

The specialist DAW also assists with the distribution of podcasts, connecting directly with five different podcast directories, including Spreaker, Podbean and Soundcloud

For livestreamers, it also offers postproduction tools for live streams’ audio, allowing users to remove pauses, unnecessary filler words and unwanted noises while remaining aligned with the video. Its signal processors and meters assist with enhancing the audio to ensure the best results.

The software is exclusively available through the Steinberg Online Shop for 69.99 euros. It is also possible to upgrade from WaveLab LE to WaveLab Cast for 19.99 euros.

WaveLab Cast • www.steinberg.net/wavelabcast