compression . But instead of having them hold it to their ear , he asked them to place it on a stack of books in front of them to eliminate handling noise . The guests then have their headphones connected to a laptop to speak to the show host over Zoom or Google Hangouts .
“ We ’ ve done three or four podcasts like this and I sometimes get weird looks . I say , ‘ Just listen to Brainwashed , for example , because it was recorded just like that .’ It ’ s something where different guests of different skill levels can all figure this out . You know , they all know how to launch Zoom or Google Hangouts because that ’ s how they talk to the grandkids , right ?” Fernandes explains . “ There was a big rise of Riverside and all those other apps where you send them the link and it records their microphone and then uploads it . But even the small stumbling blocks of having to allow microphone access or you have to allow webcam access , that was enough for us to lose one too many guests . So , I was like , ‘ Forget it , we ’ re not going to go down this road . Let ’ s break it up and make it real simple .’”
Fernandes adds , though , that he is often surprised how willing guests are to go out of their way to sound good . They just need to be asked .
“ That professor who you ’ re interviewing , they want to sound good . So , it ’ s like , ‘ What can we do ?’ We ’ ll do a test and I ’ m like , ‘ Do you mind unplugging your refrigerator ?’ and it ’ s no problem . Or , ‘ Do you mind drawing the curtains because the sound is a little bouncy ?’ You know , they want to sound fantastic , so the thing I ’ m always hammering into our producers is that you just have to ask them . Do the test and ask them , and then get them to run a test to make DAVE MISENER sure that there ’ s no lag . That will tell you a bit about their internet speed and stuff like that .”
Once all audio assets are recorded or inhand , then the sometimes-tedious editing and mixing begins . This obviously varies greatly depending on what type of show it is , or even the type of episode . The Daily , for instance , has a wide variety of episodes , from the straight-forward episodes that mostly feature just an interview with a Times reporter on recent events , to the more elaborate episodes that feature a lot of in-the-field or archival recordings . That said , The Daily can pull off ambitious episodes on a very tight deadline because it has a staff of more than 30 people
CBC PODCASTS ’ CESIL FERNANDES
– mostly producers plus a couple editors and a mixer – which is far beyond what most other podcasts have .
“ Even the simplest episodes of The Daily , like the day-turn episodes where we don ’ t decide what we ’ re doing until noon or 1 p . m . [ the day before ], still contain quite a bit of music and tape , and that ’ s not what podcast sounded like in 2009 or 2010 ,” Fisher says . “ If you were to open up a Daily session , there are hundreds of edits and a lot of that ’ s for time . We remove every ‘ um ’ and ‘ you know .’ We do our best , obviously , to make it sound like it ’ s a flowing , simple conversation where somebody was just sitting there with all the right buttons to push the tape of President Biden right at that sound clip , but there ’ s absolutely no way we could produce that as a live radio show in that way . And so , I think that ’ s sort of the sticking point , really , is just it depends on how heavily-produced you want the final product to be and what you ’ re willing to put into it .”
Because episodes of The Daily are released every weekday morning around 6 a . m . EST , and the edited show isn ’ t ready for mixing until the middle of the night , the Times purposely hired a full-time mixer in England to take advantage of the five-hour time difference . His name is Chris Wood and he ’ s been with the
Times ’ news-focused audio team since 2018 .
“ The main thing that helps me mix it efficiently and with my brain on the right way is because I ’ m based in London . So , it ’ s a reasonable time in the morning when I ’ m working on it rather than at three in the morning ,” he tells Professional Sound . His days begin at 8 a . m . in London ( 3 a . m . EST ) and he has three hours to mix that day ’ s episode and publish it by 6 a . m . EST .
“ The first thing that I probably concentrate on is cleaning up audio . It ’ s gotten a lot better now , but especially towards the start , we were self-syncing or guests were self-syncing off of iPhones quite a lot , we had quite a lot of tape just grabbed from all over the place of different qualities — some of it is noisy , with helicopters in the background and all kinds of stuff . So , a lot of work in iZotope RX sorting all of that stuff out . Then just doing a couple of passes until it gets up to scratch for levels and for everything else that we need to do ,” he explains . “ But in terms of time flow and turnaround , the craziest ones are definitely when there ’ s something overnight , like a vote in congress or an election or something like that . The latest it ’ s been delivered to me is 5:30 in the morning for release at 6 a . m .”
In those extreme cases , Wood and the team take advantage of one of the nice aspects of podcasts as compared to other mediums , which is that the first published version doesn ’ t need to be the final version . A day ’ s episode can be tweaked and reuploaded at any time .
In the above example , Wood says , “ I jump in and I just check everything ’ s more or less in the right level , and then any music and any tape we ’ ve got isn ’ t going to blow someone ’ s ears out , and then get the thing up for 6 a . m . Then I maybe address some edits that the editor is still making if it ’ s come in that late , re-bounce and upload ; work , work , work ; re-bounce and upload ; and be doing that for three hours after the deadline , but that ’ s an absolute worst-case scenario that doesn ’ t usually happen … I think the team has consciously tried to pull back and calm down a little bit since November ’ s election .”
As far as mixing , iZotope ’ s RX 7 audio repair software suite is Wood ’ s most indis-
NEWYORK TIMES ENGINEER CHRIS WOOD
NEWYORK TIMES SR . TECHNICAL MGR . BRAD FISHER
28 PROFESSIONAL SOUND