I was asked this on Twitter yesterday:

Rob, I’m trying to figure out how to eliminate mic phasing for podcasting. Using 2 AT2020 USB mics in a “normal” room. Any tips?

For the purposes of this conversation, I’m going to widen the scope of the question and include sound leakage between the mics. When sound intended for one microphone is able to be heard in a second microphone, you’re getting sound leakage. When the delay is short enough that it doesn’t sound like a delay, but instead alters how the original source sounds, you’re hearing phasing. When you reduce the amount of leakage, you’re also reducing the amount of phasing. These problems can be solved in a number of non-technical ways. Because I don’t have photos of Alex’s setup, I’ll address as many as I can think of. I’m going to address the issue without advising you to separate the microphones, as that can ruin the feel of a recording very quickly.

You can use the pickup pattern of the microphones you are using to help cancel out sound. The AT2020 has a cardioid pattern, which picks up sound in the direction the mic is aimed, as well as sound from the right and the left. The pattern naturally ignores sound from 180 degrees where the microphone is aimed. If the microphones are placed facing each other, a good portion of direct sound from the other person will be cancelled out. The image to the right is of a cardioid pickup pattern. The thick black line represents how sensitive the microphone is in 360 degrees, with a dearth of sensitivity facing in the opposite direction of the microphone.

Facing the microphones away from each other solves the problem of direct sound, but Alex mentions that he is recording in a “normal” room, which probably means a room that has some natural reverb. A second method for eliminating leaking and phasing in audio recordings is to speak closer into the microphone. Speaking closer will not only give you the sexy-sounding proximity effect, but it will allow you to lower the gain on your microphone pre-amp. When there is more direct sound going towards the microphone, it will pick up more of your voice. With the gain on the pre-amp lowered, you’re lowering the amount of noise from the room.

A real world example of a closer source is the sound of a phone handset vs the sound of a speakerphone. When someone is speaking directly into the microphone of their handset, the ratio of the person talking to the background noise and room reverberation is high. When you’re on a speakerphone, the person speaking is further away and the phone has to compensate by being more sensitive to sounds in the room, which is why you’ll hear lots of reverb, toe tapping and typing on the keyboard from that guy who isn’t paying attention.

Using these two techniques, you can dramatically improve the audio quality of your show without spending a dime on sound dampeners, isolators or new microphones. Nor will you have to dramatically change how your show is recorded.

If you have a question for me, you can fill out the contact form on the site or send me an @robblatt on Twitter.

Referenced: Twitter question from @thealexluft

If you are good at what you do, you’ll survive. If you’re amazing at what you do, you’ll thrive.

Four and a half years ago Leo Laporte started the This Week in Tech network. TWiT started as one podcast and quickly grew to a full network of audio and video shows with varied topics and an extremely wide audience. For those familiar with Leo’s career, this comes as no surprise. He’s a media pioneer and is only now receiving a portion of the praise he deserves for promoting technology programming on TV, radio and the internet. An interesting conversation has been happening surrounding Leo’s network. Throughout the history of TWiT, the community was encouraged to make a donation to the network. Early on, this was the only way Leo was willing to make money off of his shows. That didn’t last long, as I assume advertisers were beating down his door to connect with his wide reaching audience. While no numbers are public, I assume advertising quickly dwarfed his donations, but the donations were still there.

An interesting conversation has been happening in the past few weeks about what Leo should do with the money the TWiT makes by donations. When faced with this issue, Leo decided to do something amazing with the donations. Announced on December 3rd, Leo will no longer be paying himself with the money the company makes through sponsorships, advertising, etc. Leo’s salary will be paid through the donations made to TWiT and not the company’s operating budget. This is similar to a CEO of a company being paid a $1 annual salary, but making money if the stock in that company increases. He makes sure to point out that he won’t starve, as he has other jobs that will feed and put a roof over his family, but he’s created an incentive for himself that didn’t previously exist.

Leo now has cares about two separate income streams: one for the company, one for himself. This is a monthly reminder to Leo about how much his shows are worth to his listeners. Leo has always been accommodating to his community by creating shows that they want to hear, giving them the content they want during the shows and by expanding the boundaries of what a podcasting network could be. Now it’s up to the community to give back. IF this model sounds familiar (accepting money, but also putting a focus on donations) you must be a listener of public radio. This method is how NPR stays in business. While NPR does a pledge drive a few times a year, Leo will do a mini-pledge drive once a show for each of his expanding roster of sixteen regular podcasts.

This won’t work if his listeners don’t care if he continues podcasting. If he was good, but not amazing, this wouldn’t work.

Referenced: What’s TWiT Worth to You

Recently the Business Insider was sent an internal email from Aol welcoming a new editor and described their editorial process. It’s a pretty smart document from top to bottom and everyone who creates content on the web could pick up a few pointers from the email.

We’re not Gawker, so be friendly and authoritative, but on the other hand, don’t be afraid to take sides.

Forget the jab at Gawker, let’s focus on the second part of that sentence. Having a tone that is both friendly and authoritative is a clear path towards building trust with your community. The letter goes on to suggest attaching a human element to the post. This is something that I admire about Chris Brogan’s writing. Check out his post How Could New Ideas Change Education. He makes his point by telling the story about his thought process. Building trust inside your community is one of the most important connection you can make. If you need more convincing, check out the book Chris Brogan wrote with Julien Smith: Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust

Create a virtuous cycle between you (AOL) and a smaller site from which you may be capturing a story. Linklove is real. Use it.

I love the idea that Aol, this giant company, is trying to promote the idea of linking to smaller sites that can use the traffic. The entire document looks at the web from an editorially realistic point of view, which is something that I haven’t experienced in any newsroom I’ve stepped into before. One of the final notes states that you should have a 140 character message and a Facebook message ready for when the story was going to be published. The web department would have done flips for this when I was at the New York Sun. We couldn’t get our editorial staff to tag stories, let alone create extra content for something besides the publication.

I think that the document is a must read for most non-personal bloggers. If you write about your life, SEO strategies might not be up your alley, but if you’re writing niche content, it is something you should read at least once.

Referenced: AOL’s Editorial Process — Revealed! (AOL, TWX)

Editor’s note: I know people are searching for parental controls of their Motorola Droid phone, but as of right now I see no parental control over the Android Market application purchases or the applications themselves. The post demonstrates the dangers of what is possible through the platform, but I feel it’s important to know that children and teenagers will find their way around parental controls and blocking software like NetNanny if they want to.

Google’s open Andoird smart phone application store might backfire on them in a way they never expected. This week, MiKandi released an application for Android phones that is its own app store for adult content. Here are the headlines: Porn App Store Lands on Android Phones, Porn app targets your Android, Porn on G1…. Finally!… you get the idea. When Google built the Android platform, they made their app store open for all to develop form and this is exactly opposite of Apple’s often criticized iTunes App Store approval process.

In a world of iPhone & AT&T vs Android & Verizon commercials, Apple & AT&T were just handed an opportunity to market their approval process as a good thing for parents who are interested in purchasing a cell phone for their children. My mother would never have allowed me to own a cell phone where there was an application to potentially download pornography with. To that degree, Apple has a leg up on the app store market. The trick is to figure out how to say “THERE’S A PORNO APP FOR ANDROID PHONES” without specifically saying “THERE’S A PORNO APP FOR ANDROID PHONES”. Apple wouldn’t want to advertise someone else’s platform or the MiKandi porn app store.

While people will continuously complain about Apple’s approval process, the available alternative isn’t something that parents should be comfortable with. Check out this post in the Android Support forum where parents and pornography addicts discuss the need for some kind of parental control for the phone’s app store, specifically to prevent people from being able to download apps liek the MiKandi app store – Parental Controls?

According to C&R Research, 22 percent of young kids between the ages of 6-9, 60 percent of tweens age 10-14 and 84 percent of teens 15-18 own a cell phone. With those numbers, there is a strong need for “clean” smart phones. While Apple’s process isn’t perfect, it creates a cleaner phone. Apple has an opportunity to advertise that no apps on its phone are “adult” and that other phones have some adult content that shouldn’t be seen by children.

Here’s the video for the MiKandi app store on the Android platform:

Rock and Roll All Nite Lyric Flow Chart by me. Click the image for a PDF. Released with a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Attribution: Created by Rob Blatt
(attribution includes link)