Background noises and interference can easily ruin a good audio recording, and while it’s easy enough to close your windows and doors and get usable audio in your bedroom; you can really hear the difference when you’re in a soundproof room like a vocal booth.
We wanted to create a video showing the importance of location when recording audio, but instead, we were pretty impressed by how well the RODE PodMic performed.
Whilst you can clearly hear the difference between a good location and lets say.. your kitchen (No one wants to listen to a podcast with your dishwasher going in the background), we were pleasantly surprised by how usable the audio was - even when recording outside.
Though we don’t recommend you start tracking your vocals outdoors, it was interesting to see how the mic responded to different recording environments.
For the average Podcaster building a soundproof studio in your house is quite unnecessary, but a little bit of acoustic treatment or even just placing your mic in the right spot can go a long way.
Vocal booths are designed to absorb sound waves, stopping them from bouncing around and echoing in your recording. Even though you might not think your voice echoes throughout your bedroom, it does. Everything does. We don’t realise how much ambient noise there is everywhere until you step into a proper vocal booth and can hear the silence.
There are many ways to do this at home for free, like simply hanging a duvet, blankets or towels over the walls, placing your mic inside a wardrobe, or generally just adding anything soft to your surroundings to absorb some of the echo. If you’re just doing some voiceover work, getting underneath your duvet on your bed can be a great way to block out any external noise. If you're open to spending a bit of money for more long term solutions, wall panels for acoustic treatment are available in a wide variety.
When it comes to podcasting, you should be able to get away with just doing it in most rooms of your house with the doors and windows closed... as long as you don’t have a washing machine running nearby. That being said, you really can hear the difference when you record in a room that has been well soundproofed, and a big improvement can be made by just adding a few extra blankets around the place, and using a pop filter can help reduce plosives from vocals.
For more info on what gear to use for podcasting, check out our other blog post on