159. How Can I Reduce Plosives? | Podcasting Tips for Editing

FAQ Friday answering the podcasting question of "How Can I Reduce Plosives?"

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Transcript

Welcome to Podcasting for solopreneurs and FAQ Friday, where I answer a podcasting question in five minutes or less. Today's question is a request for some mic pointers from an anonymous listener. This person says that they are on episode three of their podcast, which is awesome, way to go. And that they're getting a lot of popping P's and B's. They also mention that they're getting some harsh S sounds as well. Okay, so in the editing world we call popping B's and P's plosives and harsh S sound sibilance and plosives especially are pretty common. There are a couple things to do in terms of mic technique in order to help with these unwanted sounds. This listener mentioned using the Samson Q2U microphone, which is the one I recommend.

It's a great microphone and they also said that they are using the foam cover that's included. That foam cover, called a windscreen, is very helpful for plosives. You want to make sure that the microphone is not too close to your mouth. It should be about a hand length or a cell phone distance away. That's the right distance for most people, although if you talk especially loud or especially soft, you might need to adjust. The angle is also really important. You don't want the microphone directly in front of you. Instead, position it slightly off to the side at about a 45 degree angle.

And finally, you want the height of the microphone to be at about mouth level. Speaking down into the microphone can exacerbate the sibilance. So folks who have a lot of sibilance may even position the microphone slightly higher than mouth level. And I'm realizing how hard it is to describe all of this without any visuals. So so I'm not sure if that was actually helpful, but hopefully you can make some sense out of that. An adjustable arm makes positioning the microphone much easier, so if you're using just the basic tripod stand that comes with the microphone, you may want to consider investing in an arm or just getting creative with a stack of books or something like that to help prop up the mic. Ideally, refining your mic position will reduce or even eliminate the plosives and sibilants. However, you can also address these in the editing process if needed.

Each editing program is different, but you can look for settings like Reduce plosives or Deplosive and de Esser, and then you can play around with the settings from there. If you have a podcasting question, click the Send me your question link in the episode description and I'll answer it in an upcoming episode. Until next time, happy podcasting.