Immersive audio can be used in multiple ways to tell compelling stories. The sense of position, proximity, reality, location, as well as music and voice placement can enhance your podcast production to the next level: creating unique binaural podcasts.
Brad Stratton is an audio producer/editor/mixer working in Brooklyn, NYC, and won in numerous award-winning commercial projects including AICP, Cannes Lions, One Show and CLIO.
> Read full Expert Story: Brad Stratton
Brad Stratton is an audio producer/editor/mixer working in Brooklyn, NYC, and won in numerous award-winning commercial projects including AICP, Cannes Lions, One Show and CLIO.
> Read full Expert Story: Brad Stratton
The narrative voice is the essence of every podcast which is usually captured through a large-diaphragm condenser microphone. But think about how you could augment this standard podcast experience by working with additional audio elements, like ambient sound, atmospheres and even interviews. Using spatial audio microphones for this purpose can be a great benefit.
The spherical sound image recorded with the AMBEO VR Mic includes all audio elements of the scene. This can bring the audience closer to the acoustic scene giving awareness of the space you are in. Sennheiser has partnered with field recorder manufacturers for an easy, seamless workflow to record these additional elements.
If you don’t have the AMBEO VR Mic at hand, you can still enhance your podcast by recording additional elements in mono or stereo and then use the state-of-the-art spatializer dearVR PRO, or the free binaural panner dearVR MICRO in the mixing process.
To convert the signal of the AMBEO VR Mic to an immersive binaural stereo signal, we suggest using the dearVR AMBI MICRO. This plugin outputs binaural audio for you to integrate in the podcast mix as additional elements.
To process additional elements that you have recorded in mono or stereo, we encourage you to use the enhanced 360° immersive spatializer plugin dearVR PRO by Dear Reality, adding a true perception of direction, distance, reflections, and reverb. You’re new to binaural audio? Take the first step into 3D audio podcasts and fully immerse your listener using the free binaural panner dearVR MICRO.
Podcasts that are mixed in this way will essentially just be binaural stereo files. So they can be streamed and downloaded from any podcast platform. Just bear in mind that the experience will be best over headphones, so please make sure your audience is aware of that.