What’s the point of hosting a radio show if your audience can’t understand what you’re saying? If you want to learn how to improve the sound quality of your show, we’re here to help! We just did a 10 minute segment on BlogTalkRadio University covering audio best practices and recommended hosting equipment. You can listen to the episode here and read below for additional audio tips and resources.
The beauty of the BlogTalkRadio platform is that there are several ways to host your show but that also means that some methods will result in better sound quality than others. That said, we’d like to go through the best ways to host your show sound-quality wise and provide you with some audio equipment recommendations. There are 3 ways to host your show, which we’ll go through in order of most ideal to least.
Landline/Desktop Phone
Calling into your show using a landline or a desktop phone with a VOIP connection (Comcast, Verizon) that has a hardwired Ethernet connection will result in optimal sound quality. Using this method, you should be talking directly into the receiver or using a good quality telephone headset (starting at $14) such as Plantronics or Logitech, but not using speakerphone.
To give you an idea, here is an excerpt of a show hosted by Sree Sreenivasan of SAJA using a landline phone:
Skype
If you are calling in to do your show with Skype, we recommend having a high-speed Internet connection that you are hardwired into. This means plugging an Ethernet cord from your computer into your modem or router (not using a wireless Internet connection). You should also close out of all other programs while hosting your show and minimize household usage of your Internet connection during broadcast if possible.
For hosting with Skype, you will need a headset with a microphone (do not use the speaker on your computer.) We recommend purchasing any of these headsets with USB connection (starting at $7): Microsoft Lifechat, Logitech or Turtle Beach. If you want to have a real studio feel to your show, you can buy a microphone that will plug straight into your computer and noise-cancelling headphones. We recommend (starting at $90) Blue Yeti or Rodes microphones and the following headphones (starting at $7): earbuds without mic, Beats, or Bose.
Here is an excerpt of a show hosted with Skype and using the Blue Yeti microphone and a noise-cancelling headset:
Mobile
Hosting your show with your cell phone should be a last resort because the audio quality of your show will then be dependent on your cell coverage in the area you are broadcasting from. This method of hosting can result in a high frequency of dropped calls and less than optimal sound quality for your show.
Guests
In order to get the best audio quality for your broadcast, you should also ensure that your guests are calling in on a landline or a desktop phone with a VOIP connection (Comcast, Verizon) that has a hardwired Ethernet connection and not with a mobile phone.
For all of these methods, you will need to find a quiet place to broadcast from to ensure there is minimal background noise. One other tip is to make sure you are not live-streaming the show on your computer at the same time you are broadcasting because that will result in an echo.
UPDATE: In addition, just this month we released Direct Connect, a new way to call in to your studio and an alternative to hosting your show with Skype. So far, we’re finding this method results in better sound quality. Read more on the new feature and try it out.
Additional Audio Resources
More From Our Blog
From Our Customer Service Team
- Best Practices Guide Including Audio Quality Tips
- Skype Audio Best Practices
- Testing Sound Quality
- Interviewing Overseas Guests
- Troubleshooting Echos
- Uploading Audio Files
- Setting Volume of Audio Files
- Adjusting Audio File Volume While Broadcasting
- Intro (Start-up) Audio File Best Practices
- Accepted Audio File Formats
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