Audio Pro

---
name: audio-pro
description: Handle professional audio tasks with recording, editing, mixing basics, formats, and loudness standards.
category: media
---

## Overview

Audio is half the experience and the first thing audiences notice when it's
wrong — viewers forgive
shaky video but not bad sound. This skill covers practical audio: recording
clean source audio,
editing dialogue, mixing basics (levels, EQ, compression), format choices, and
loudness standards
for different platforms.

## When to use

- Recording voiceovers, podcasts, or interviews

- Cleaning up noisy or uneven audio

- Editing and mixing audio for video

- Choosing audio formats and export settings

- Meeting loudness standards for platforms or broadcast

## Core concepts

- - - **Source quality is everything.** No plugin fixes a bad recording. Get the
  mic close (6-12
  inches for voice), record in a quiet treated space, monitor with headphones,
and record 10 seconds
  of room tone for noise profiling.
- - - **The signal chain.** Record clean → edit (cut mistakes, tighten pauses) →
  repair (noise
  reduction, de-ess, de-click) → mix (levels, EQ, compression) → master
(loudness, limiting). In
  that order — mixing before editing wastes effort.
- - - **Levels and headroom.** Record peaks around -12 to -6 dBFS (never hitting
  0). Mix dialogue to
  sit consistently; final masters peak at -1 to -2 dBTP (true peak) to survive
lossy encoding.
- - - **EQ: subtractive first.** Cut problem frequencies (rumble below 80Hz on
  voice, harshness
  2-5kHz) before boosting anything. High-pass filter almost everything that
isn't bass — muddiness
  lives in the low end.
- - - **Compression gently.** Voice: 2-4 dB of gain reduction evens out dynamics
  transparently.
  Over-compression sounds lifeless and pumps. Learn to hear the threshold — if
you can hear it
  working, it's too much.
- - - **Loudness standards.** Podcasts: -16 LUFS stereo (-19 mono). YouTube: -14
  LUFS. Broadcast: -24
  LUFS (US) / -23 (EU). Spotify: -14 LUFS. Master to the target — platforms turn
down (not up)
  non-compliant audio.

## Practical workflow

1. 1. 1. **Plan the recording.** Script or outline, quiet location (soft
   furnishings kill reflections),
   mic choice and placement, test recording with playback check. Record room
tone.
2. 2. 2. **Record properly.** 48kHz/24-bit for video work (44.1kHz/16-bit
   minimum for audio-only),
   healthy levels with headroom, monitor on closed-back headphones, clap or
slate for sync if
   multi-device.
3. 3. 3. **Edit the performance.** Remove mistakes and long pauses, tighten
   breaths (don't remove all —
   breathing sounds human), smooth edits with tiny crossfades. Edit for pacing:
podcast listeners
   forgive ums less than you think.
4. 4. 4. **Repair.** Noise reduction using the room-tone profile (gentle —
   overuse creates underwater
   artifacts), de-ess harsh sibilance, de-click mouth noises, remove hums with
notch filters.
5. 5. 5. **Mix.** Set dialogue level first (everything else supports it), EQ
   subtractively, light
   compression, add music/SFX 15-20 dB under dialogue (ducking for voiceovers),
check mono
   compatibility.
6. 6. 6. **Master to spec.** Loudness-normalize to the platform target,
   true-peak limit at -1 dBTP,
   export in the required format (WAV master archived; AAC/MP3 for delivery).
7. 7. 7. **QC on multiple systems.** Headphones, laptop speakers, phone speaker,
   car. If the mix only
   works on studio monitors, it doesn't work. Check the full listen for level
jumps and artifacts.

## Common pitfalls

- - - **Recording too hot.** Clipped audio is unfixable — distortion is forever.
  Leave headroom; you
  can always turn up clean audio.
- - - **Noisy environments.** HVAC hum, room echo, street noise. Fix at the
  source (turn things off,
  move rooms, get closer to the mic) — repair tools are damage control, not
magic.
- - - **Over-processing.** Noise reduction artifacts, over-compressed
  lifelessness, auto-tune sheen on
  podcasts. Every process should be inaudible in its operation.
- - - **Music drowning dialogue.** Background music mixed like a soundtrack
  instead of a bed. Dialogue
  is king — everything else whispers.
- - - **Ignoring loudness targets.** Uploading a -24 LUFS podcast to a -16 LUFS
  platform means
  listeners crank the volume, then get blasted by the next show. Normalize to
spec.
- - - **MP3 as a working format.** Editing and re-exporting MP3s compounds
  compression artifacts. Work
  in WAV/AIFF; export lossy only at the end.