Hi I'm Elissa Nadworny for the student
podcast challenge and this is an NPR
studio. It's a soundproof room where we record
podcasts and news segments and we
interview famous people and I'm here
today to guide you through making your
podcast sound better.
The problem with classrooms and schools
is they're filled with people and people
make noises.
Sound is constantly
bouncing off of things and if you got
people talking you're not going to be
able to hear you. You want to make sure you're
not drowned out by your surroundings.
Can everyone be quiet?
We're trying to record a podcast. NPR reporters often need to build sound
booths on the go.
But how? Turns out there's an awesome
trick that you can use anywhere.
pillow forts? pillow forts? okay let me explain.
Don Gonyea covers politics for NPR then
he travels all over the country making
radio he's a big deal so you should
listen to him notice how he positions
the pillows that's because the soft
pillows muffle the sound you want the
sound to bounce off as few surfaces as
possible so the pillow fort is basically
built here right but what I do before I
start recording is I might just make a
couple of adjustments I'll talk a little
bit into the fort and I'll go okay let's
there's a little bit of metal over there
like a panel and I just want to cover
that a little bit because it might echo
when I when I turn this way and speak
not using the benefits of the pillow
fort we can hear the room in this
recording it's a little boomier it's
maybe not a real echo but it's not
really crisp but if I turn this way and
I do my voice work right into the
pillows you should notice that it's
clear it's less boominess there's no echo
and I'll sound I hope just like I do on
the radio when I say Don Gonyea
NPR News Washington.
Lauren is an audio producer at NPR and
she's always saving us from situations
like this
she makes us sound really good
she has some awesome hacks to make sure
your sound sounds good
even if you don't have pillows the main
thing you're trying to do is cut the
echo so you have to build a buffer
between your voice and any hard surface
you can do this by putting a coat over
your head putting a rug under your feet
or finding a carpeted room putting a
blanket over your head or putting a
cloth over a table or desk now that you
have a bunch of tools to make your
podcast sound better you just need an
idea and once you get one of those you
should submit to the student podcast
challenge entries open up in January and
they're due by March 24th if you need
more information or you want to learn
about the rules you can go online to
npr.org slash student podcast challenge
