What does my audio need?

[solar token]

So I just posted this video which is pretty typical. I do movie reviews and chats blah blah blah. BUT one note I got on another video is that my audio could use some work.

Full honesty- I just record on my iPhone and plug it into Adobe Podcast. Has been working great but I’m ready to do some more.

I just don’t know WHAT. Like I don’t have the vocabulary or skills to know what my audio needs.

See my vid below- what would you say my audio needs? An actual mic? A certain tuning?

Thank you in advance!

GOOD FORTUNE - A New Feel Good Comedy? (Review)
https://youtu.be/xXn83M1qFkc

[vital verge]

Oh hey your the guy with movie reviews that was a welcome treat on the newtubers-live last week.
So Im not too technical with what the correct terms are regarding audio but this definitely comes across flat with the audio. Not sure if its adobe podcast or how the mic is setup with the iphone but it feels like tones are being compressed on the high and low end so while your not monotone it gives me the vibes of it being monotone.

I think the premise of the video and just how it comes across naturally is a +. I think this type of review is pretty solid and comes across a causual review vs a more stuck up one.

@warped kelp @keen jacinth you two are more knowledgeable about audio than me.

[keen jacinth]

Will listen in a bit

[solar token]

I should also maybe mention that after I put it in adobe podcast, in da Vinci I do normalize the audio

[gloomy pendant]

I'm not sure what it is but it seems like it sounds like being compressed? Like it doesn't sound quite right, and your actual tones during recording are good, and idk what exactly during audio processing happened but it sounds "robotic" or like dampened with a towel.

[keen jacinth]

Note: I listened to this on AirPods (2) to give me an "average" listener experience.

TLDR: @vital verge is correct, now listen to me.

I wanted to click off by 1:10, even though the subject was actually kinda interesting to me, and you were quite engaging.

Your audio suffers from "AI garbled mess" which is where your sound gets this weird husky filter applied to it. This typically occurs when an audio-processing model doesn't know what to do with certain sounds.

This could be a number of sounds such as;

• Reverb from your room
• Reverb from your cup
• Mouth noises
• Natural vocal fry / variations in speech
• Background noises
• Changes in volume and tone

All of these things are natural and happen, so you should let them happen

Since Adobe Podcast and such tools are very much "one and done" blackbox systems, you can't change any settings. So scrap it. Do your audio chain yourself.

Normalise, mildly compress (ratio of 3 max) the louder parts of your sound, and maybe slap some noise reduction in at around 5% strength just to do a tiny bit of clean up.

Your music covers the rest already

[solar token]

Thank you for taking a listen and for putting this in words I actually understand lol. I’ll try to take those guidelines and attempt this myself in audacity or something

I’ll let you know how it goes!

[keen jacinth]

You can do all your processing in Premiere / Davinci :)

[warped kelp]

"I listened to this on AirPods (2) to give me an "average" listener experience."

Omg

That's such a good idea

[gloomy pendant]

If only I had em