Podcasting Vocabulary

AAC - A type of audio format only playable on Apple music devices

Actualities (AXX) - Non-scripted sound clips from interviews or scenes that you’ve gathered.

Audio postcard - An Audio Postcard is a short radio piece that tells a listener about a place without using narration. Audio Postcards have a lot of sound in the form of ambient noise, music, conversation, and more, in order to tell the story without narration.

Bed - A piece of music that runs underneath someone talking as background material.  

Bit Depth - Determines the quality of your audio, usually asked before recording. A bit depth of 16 is often best for vocal / spoken word.  

Branding - The promotion of your podcast by means of advertising and distinctive design.

Cadence - The way that your words flow. It is the rhythm in which you speak, the words you choose to emphasize, and the up and down movement of your pitch throughout your sentences.

Characteristic Sounds - These are sounds that help transport the listener to a particular place. Examples include the buzz of a drill at a dentist’s office, a moo at a cattle ranch, the late bell at a school, the gavel noise of a courtroom. If possible in a scene, any action that creates sound should be recorded closely to bring the listener into the moment.

Chatcast - A type of podcast that is conversational and more relaxed than an interview.

Clipping - When a waveform spikes and touches the edge of the recording window, causing loud sounding glitches.  

Compression - The DAW will bring the loudest and quietest parts of your recording close together. The volume will be more balanced throughout the recording.  

Condenser Microphone - A condenser microphone uses a phantom power source or battery to work (mixer or preamplifier). Usually these microphones are more sensitive and as a result, pick up more of the audio in an environment. 

Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) -  The software you’re using to record and mix your podcast. This could be Soundtrap, Adobe Audition, Audacity, Reaper, etc.

Directories - A podcast directory displays hundreds or podcasts to potential listeners so that people can find and listen to your show.

Dynamic Microphone - A type of microphone that doesn't require an additional power supply to work and is generally less sensitive than condenser mics. This can help reduce the risk of peaking or clipping audio.  

Dynamic Range - The range of different volume levels within a piece of audio. In podcasting, the dynamic range should be consistent, with no huge differences between your loudest and quietest parts.

EQ - This stands for Equalizer or Equalization, and allows you to adjust certain elements of different frequencies of your audio.  For example, you can adjust the hiss using the EQ so that it is barely noticeable, making your audio sound much clearer.

EPK (Electronic Press Kit) - A pre-packaged set of promotional materials that provide information about a person, company, organization or cause and which is distributed to members of the media for promotional use. Can essentially act as a CV or resume for musicians. 

Fades - A gradual increase or decrease in the level of an audio signal.

Field Recording - Sounds recorded outside of a recording studio and can include both natural and human-produced sounds.

Gain - Used to adjust the sensitivity of your audio signal. Add gain to get a stronger signal, reduce the gain to get a weaker signal. It’s best to adjust your gain levels before you start recording.  

High-Pass Filter - Reduces or eliminates any low frequencies from your audio. This could be things like wind noise, microphone handling or knocking things.

Interface - Similar to a mixer, it acts as a bridge between your microphone and your recording platform. It gives you added control over things like gain, and provides phantom power for condenser microphones.  

Interview - This is when a reporter/interviewer asks a source a series of questions. When recording an interview, you want to try to gather the “cleanest” sound possible, meaning minimal background noises. Seek out a quiet space, even if it means asking someone to turn off music or devices.

Jingle - A short piece of audio usually used to introduce your show or to introduce different segments. Commonly a piece of music usually no longer than 20-25 secs.

Lede - The introductory section of a podcast to entice the reader to hear the full story.

Levels - Levels represent the sensitivity of your recording device — in other words, it sets the amplitude of the sound you gather. When setting your levels (which you should do before each interview or scene), you want to make sure the amplitude of your sound stays in the mid-range for your device. If your levels are too low, you will not capture the sound you may need. If your levels are too high (“peaking”) the sound will be distorted.

Logging Tape - The act of listening to your raw audio and then select and isolate your favorite cuts. The step before transcribing the best parts.

Logo - A graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordmark.

Longform Narrative - In these narrative podcasts, the episode is well over 15 minutes long (for example, NPR's This American Life).

Loop - This has two meanings. One is to repeat audio on a cycle, and the other is audio created in a loop or for the purpose of looping. In Soundtrap, loops are supplied and organized by genre, instrument, drums, and sound effects. You can preview loops by clicking the play button. You can also click the heart icon to favorite loops you like the most. 

Low-Pass Filter - Reduces or eliminates any high frequencies from your audio. This could help fix distortion in caller segments if they’re calling in from Zoom or Skype.

Media Host - A media host is a website/service where your podcast episodes will live. Your media host will give you an RSS feed you can use for various podcast directories like Apple Podcasts, so that your show will be listed.

Metadata (ID3 Tags) - Information attached to your mp3 file, such as the podcast title, episode title, your name as the producer, cover art etc. 

Mid-Roll - An advertisement that is about a minute long and usually plays near or at the halfway mark of the podcast.

Mix Down (or mixdown) - Your mix down is the resulting audio file once you have mixed all your audio together and exported it out. The final single audio file is the mix down of your episode.

Monitor - A device to listen to yourself on as you are recording so that you can listen critically.

Mute - A function used to eliminate the sound of audio. In Soundtrap, this is a speaker icon located on your track used to quiet the selected instrument or loop.  

Narrative podcast - Story-driven shows, as opposed to interviews or game-show-like recordings. They rely on heavy editing to splice together the right story, pulling from interviews and other recordings, sounds, and music. Many feature a host who narrates the story, almost as if everything else happened in the past.

Narrowcast - Referring to content that is aimed at a specific target audience, rather than a broadcast which is aimed at a wider, mass audience.

Noisefloor - Even if you're recording in complete silence the recording will still pick up a very low level of noise. Often sounds like a hissing or buzzing. It’s the static from your recording equipment in the background.

Normalization - An option you will commonly find in your DAW that alters the size of your waveform. It will adjust the levels of the audio based on the original waveforms peaks and troughs. Basically, it evens everything out.

Omnidirectional microphone - This type of microphone picks up sound from all directions.

Peaking - Waveforms come in ‘peaks’ and ‘troughs’, with the top of the waveform being a peak, and the bottom of a waveform being a trough. Peaking is when it goes a little too high due to a louder noise, like a scream or a cough.

Phantom Power - Phantom power is an option available on most recorders, mixers, and interfaces. It allows you to send power to condenser microphones. It commonly appears as a button marked “+48V”.

Podcast - An episodic series of spoken word digital audio files that users can download to a personal device for easy listening.  A podcast series usually features one or more recurring hosts engaged in a discussion about a particular topic or current event.

Podcaster - A person who makes an audio video recording and puts it on the internet

Post-Roll - An advertisement that is usually about 15 seconds long and appears at the end of the podcast.

Pre-Roll - An advertisement that is usually about 15 seconds long and gets played before the actual content of the podcast begins.

Room Tone (Ambient Noise) - Referring to the general noise in the room you’re recording in. It’s good practice to leave 5-10 secs of room tone before you start talking on your recordings; it can help with noise reduction.

RSS Feed - An individual link you’ll get from your media host when you sign up with them. It’s where you’ll upload your podcast episodes so that you can submit your podcast to various directories.  

Scene - In audio, a scene takes you to a place where some sort of action is happening that relates back to the narrative. A scene consists of elements such as characteristic sounds, room tone, interaction, and emotion. The goal is an audio soundscape that allows your mind to recreate whatever is going on.

Scene Tape - Consists of the characteristic sounds and sequence of noises that help the listener associate the story with a particular place or action.

Scripted Fiction - Also referred to as audio drama, this is a way to tell a fictional story through sound. An example is the podcast Welcome to Night Vale.

Scripted Non-Fiction - Also referred to as non-fiction narrative, these podcasts retell the true stories of others through the use of audio clips from the interviewee, as well as layer on their own editorializing of the stories at hand. An example is the podcast This American Life.

Shortform Narrative - In these narrative podcasts, the episode lengths range anywhere from a minute to around 15 minutes.

Solo - A function used to mute everything except the audio you are wanting to hear. In Soundtrap, this is a headphone icon located on your track used to play the selected instrument or loop by itself.

Stand-Up - When a reporter does a brief, live description of what is going on and/or what they are doing in the field. Stand-ups often address the 5 W’s of reporting — who, what, where, when and why. They may also include narrative elements, such as how the reporter is feeling or thinking.

Stinger/Sting - A short piece of audio, usually used as punctuation to split up certain parts of the show. For example, at the start of a program, you could read an intro and then have a short noise to separate it from the next one.

Tape - Used to refer to the long, narrow flexible material with magnetic properties, used for recording sound, pictures, or computer data. Now that we’re mainly digital, it refers to the sounds/clips/interviews you capture on digital recorders.

Timeshifting - The act of recording and storing data to listen, watch or read later on. Podcasting is the perfect example as you’re not live like radio broadcasts, you are just recording, editing and then uploading the episode for a later date for your listeners.

Transcribing Tape - The act of listening to tape and writing down everything that you hear. 

Vox Pop - Means “voice of the people.” Members of the public are interviewed and asked to give their views on a particular topic; their responses are presented to the listener as a reflection of popular opinion.

Waveform - The display you see on your DAW of how your audio is recording. The visualization of recorded audio.

WAV File - This is the high-quality recording of your audio that sounds exactly as it was recorded. It’s best to edit using WAV files, then export down to the smaller MP3 file afterwards. In this conversion, a little bit of the quality gets lost but is barely noticeable.