Best practice for editing multiple mic podcast?

Cubase
1

Hi All,
With four mics in relative close proximity for a podcast, what is the best way to avoid audio bleed? Just edit out the chunks of everyone who is not talking or go to each track and use the pencil tool to reduce the audio levels? There is occasional cross talk that I don’t want to lose.

Thanks for your wisdom.
G
Recording/editing in Cubase 12 Pro on a PC

2

You could use a Gate so each Channel only opens up when its mic is directly getting audio.

3

Thanks Raino…it’s a good thought, but with various voices across a 6’ sq table I’ve found gate settings aren’t a clean solution. It can often happen that the person sitting next to you laughs louder than your normal speaking level.

4

With anomalies like that you probably can’t fully automate the process and will always need some hand editing. So even if a gate isn’t 100% effective it can minimize the hand work (don’t use it while recording, just afterwards).

What I’d typically do is cut the Audio Event around the offending bit and drag if from the middle top to lower the level. Quick & easy and more often than not it’s all you need - you can also use the Fade Handles to tame a harsh attack.

Also some modest EQ might help. Find the main frequency for each person’s voice and give it a small boost, and for every other person give them a cut at the same frequency which is a little larger than the previous boost. Hopefully everybody’s frequencies are different - if not tradeoffs will need to be made.

But of course your first line of defense is prevention. Can you use absorption or isolation panels without disrupting the vibe of the podcast? What about the polar pattern on the mic and where folks are sitting. If you use Cardioid mics you can point their null-points at the loudest ‘noise’ source. Or Hyper-Cardioid mics will give you 2 null-points per mic.

1 Like
5

…or a single LDC omni mic could do the trick as well if your recording space has controlled acoustics. Can make post work a lot easier and yield a more natural sound than a multi mic solution.

6

Excellent advice. Thanks.

7

Yeah…never considered that. I’ll give it a try.