Putting the ‘Quality’ Back in Recording Quality

What is the minimum adequate recording quality?

This is a question that has buzzed around the audio industry since the start of the covid pandemic, like a housefly trapped by the inscrutable magic of transparent glass. Back in the days when we were all sitting in studios, recording on $1000 microphones and sneezing into one another’s mouths, the question of ‘recording quality’ had a very different tone. It was, essentially, can you soundproof your basement enough, or get enough detail from prosumer microphones, to compete with the big studios of NPR or the BBC? But with the increasing prevalence of remote recordings (a trend that I can’t see going away soon) the question has become more fundamental. As a producer, it is no longer possible to be in the room with every guest, micro-managing their technological specifications. Instead, we have to constantly rely on an element of self-producing, something that every competent producer has learnt to dread.

But this isn’t going to be another blog explaining that you need to use Zencastr or Riverside instead of Zoom or Skype, or extolling the values of the Shure MV7 over the Blue Yeti (subscribe to my newsletter for more like that). Instead, this is more of a foundational suggestion. I don’t often give direct advice on the actual making of podcasts, not least because the podcasts that I make…