Which Do You Choose, The Hard Or Soft Option?

Glenn Reynolds recommends a couple of hardware compressors for pumping up the volume of podcasts, and while those are both admirable products, I’d suggest a more software-based solution for PC-based recording: a mastering plug-in with a loudness maximizer, and first class noise reduction software.

The latter is, arguably, even more important than a compressor or the mastering software: I’ve heard a number of noisy podcasts, and in the months I’ve been doing the Pajamas Blog Week In Review podcast, I’ve done everything I can to tame that noise, which is inherent in telephone recordings. The Soundsoap Pro software samples the background noise of a recording, then filters it, and adds a noise gate to further reduce ambient sounds (such as hiss, hum, and ground loops) between audio. It’s not going to make a telephone sound like a $3,000 condenser microphone, but it will go far towards enhancing the quality of any recording.