Curious to know, do podcasters use any software that balances the audio? I'm tempted to do some measurements after a particularly bad listen last night where the difference between guest and host was easily 10dB (Decibels are a logarithmic measure, a difference of 6dB is equal to doubling/halving of output).

Particularly anoying as an audio guy but I'm sure anyone listening would find it particularly difficult, especially if on earphones. I turned off after a few mins, was way too annoying. Folks say about listening to 40 hours per week but with the level mismatch, this works out at closer to 8 hours as 32 hours were inaudible.

If you're a podcaster, there's plugins that can do this stuff that work in your DAW. I appreciate sometimes guests have bad recording environments but this is basic levels stuff, both voices should be around the same amplitude (who knew!? lol).

I actually just went to the podcaster's site to email them about the issue but the only links I found were for Spotify, LinkedInPark, Instagram, Facebacon and X so fuck them lol.

I'll just try some other, non fiat, podcast instead. Or maybe I should do a 10 hour pod called What Is Audio? Hmmm....

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I’ve been obsessively listening to podcasts for more than 10 years now. That said, my consumption has been reducing recently, not because of sound quality but because of the content. Now, pods are more about one person promoting their book or tour and the host babbling - largely about something they don’t care about or understand - so they can sell advertising. Podcasting has become a yawn, generally speaking, but there are still some good ones. If you had to recommend one podcast to a friend, which one would it be?

Much the same here, a few years back I was listening to podcasts in all my free time. Way less so now. On the plus side, it means I'm listening to more music, which is obviously useful and generally better for my mood (currently listening to The Bare Sounds Project, it's very good!).

Sometimes I listen to pods to help me get to sleep, easier to deal with other voices in my head other than my own, I can't use music as I'm always analysing something in the sound. Not sure if there's a single pod I'd recommend but I do check RHR most weeks for an overveiw on BTC and started working through the archive of Discovering Bitcoin after guesting there the other day, it's cool how he's interveiwing non-standard guests doing the Podcast Industrial Complex circuit. Still digging Blindboy and have a soft spot for Alexei Sayle.

Yes, indeed. RHR is the only BTC pod needed per week really.

Funny you mention Blindboy. I have been listening since ep 1 and have never missed a week. He is bringing the ancient Irish art of storytelling back into fashion. A unique character.

I also listen to The History of Literature Podcast, Philosophize This, The Irish History Podcast, The Troubles Podcast and The Memo - by Howard Marks.

I am still an audio amateur, but I try my best to get a solid mix live and use Levelator to fix it up in post 😅

Always been nice and clear whenever I've listened to you!

It's funny, I actually sent an email to the particular podcaster when they started out saying some things they could try, got a response saying "We're on it" a couple of years later and they obviously don't give a shit and it's not a 1 person outfit, they have a team!

I use audio filters for my stream to balance mic, desktop audio and music.

I think indie operators give way more of a shit about this stuff. The pod in question was one of those Inflooenc0r types with a production team, adverts etc.

That's sad. Those kind of people should have a 100k studio and a sound tech.

Instead travel the world smelling their own farts…