Separation Stories

In the Field with Ellie McNeil – Mixing The Mom Forum Podcast with IDC

The IDC plug-in offers fast and easy dialogue cleanup with the turn of a knob. Engineer for Enhanced Media and Audionamix Product Manager Ellie McNeil writes of her experience using the IDC on The Mom Forum podcast.

Elisha Beach is a birth mom of 3, adoptive mom of 1 and a stepmom of 4. With 8 kids and a dog, life does not slow down when the record button is on. In each episode of The Mom Forum podcast, Elisha and her portable recording system (featuring the Yeti microphone) travel to various locations to meet with moms from all walks of life to discuss their personal journeys through motherhood. Their diverse experiences are matched by diverse recording environments and sonic challenges. In order to deliver the weekly podcasts on schedule, my task was to find a solution to quickly solve these audio challenges without requiring a lot of time-consuming cleanup. As the Product Manager for Audionamix I was excited to see how our latest tool, the IDC: Instant Dialogue Cleaner plug-in, would perform!

Elisha and her guest would often sound distant and their voices would reverberate through the room so much that it would distract from the stories they were telling. This is a normal consequence of recording in a large, untreated audio space without close miking all sources, and it’s a common challenge that accompanies a traveling podcast such as The Mom Forum. I was absolutely blown away by how IDC handled this challenge, and I wound up using the plug-in on every single interview recording to quickly reduce the room ambience and draw attention back to the dialogue. The fact that I could keep the same settings for IDC even as the interviews, background noise, and room ambience would change from episode to episode was a refreshing change from more complicated denoisers that require first learning and removing noise profiles. I found that a simple turn of the main IDC background knob down between -6 and -12dB worked best to eliminate excess room and refocus on the storytelling.

Another unique aspect of The Mom Forum podcast is how it gracefully integrates interruptions from kiddos, whether cries in the background, questions from the door, or a little one playing with a toy. These are all perfectly normal parts of motherhood, and their inclusion only enhances the relatability of the podcast. During the mix, the challenge was to minimize any of these sounds that would detract or distract from the intimate one-on-one conversations between Elisha and her guests. Oftentimes a bumping of a table or cooing in the background might get so loud that it would break the attention of the listener. I found the IDC plug-in to be an essential tool in managing these complex, varying noises and in delivering a polished and professional finished product that still sounded natural.

With every audio project there are unique challenges, and unique solutions. It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to use our own IDC in the field on The Mom Forum with such positive results. I recommend IDC for podcasters and all those looking to quickly and easily tackle complex audio problems including removing room ambience and inconsistent, varying noises like bumps, knocks, wind, and traffic noise.

The Mom Forum Podcast launched In July 2018 and features intimate mom-to-mom conversations sharing the journey to and through motherhood. These stories show the diversity of mothers while still sharing the common experiences that come with motherhood.

Listen on iTunes / Spotify / Google / Stitcher