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This week, I'm talking about why wearing headphones is important when podcasting, and how you can choose the right pair for your needs. I see podcasters who don’t wear headphones when recording, and it drives me NUTS. If you or your guest aren’t wearing headphones while recording, the episode is at risk of having a lot of audio issues. In addition, hosts who don’t wear headphones are missing out on the opportunity to improve their style, sound, and approach. You can’t fix what you can’t hear.

 

Reasons To Wear Headphones When Recording a Podcast

 

• You need to know how you sound on the microphone so you can make adjustments on the fly. Perhaps you’re too far from the mic and your voice sounds faint. Maybe you’re too close and you’re hearing distortion. You need to be able to adapt to this and make changes during a session.

 

• It’s important to know how your guest sounds, so you can have them adjust their positioning as needed. 

 

• It’s possible there is ambient noise in your recording environment that you can’t quite hear without headphones. In my experience, the faint hum of an air conditioner, or the white noise of cars passing by outside, is WAY more noticeable when you’re wearing headphones. Ambient noise can ruin podcasts, but, you may not know these sounds are being picked up by your microphone if you don’t have headphones on.

 

• Without headphones, you can’t hear if you're popping your p’s or breathing loudly into the mic

 

• In a remote recording, if your guest doesn’t have headphones on, the conversation you're having will be playing back through their computer speakers. This will get picked up by their microphone and create a feedback loop, which is an echo-like effect. It ruins recordings and can’t really be removed from the audio file.

 

• Headphones give you the opportunity to get comfortable with your voice and tonality. Hearing yourself up close gives you a lot of internal feedback. If you can hear yourself loud and clear, you can practice making improvements in your style, adjust your tone, and ultimately play around until you like the way you sound. This will improve your podcast and improve your hosting ability.

 

My Favorite Pair of Headphones

Sony MDR7506 - This is an affiliate link

 

I wear these to record, edit and mix my podcast, and my client's podcasts. They’re super comfortable, do a great job at rejecting outside noise, sound excellent, and come with a ¼ headphone adapter, so you can plug them in anywhere. They produce crystal clear high frequencies, full-bodied in-your-face mid’s, and accurate bass.

 

Resources:

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