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Highlights, Takeaways & Quick Wins:

Eliminate background noises before you hit record. Turn off fans, AC, or heaters, and set your phone to airplane mode.
Listeners notice sound quality. Background noise and room echo is distracting and degrades the listening experience.
If you have a noisy room or a room with a lot of echo and you can’t treat it, record with a dynamic mic instead of a condenser and grab blankets or couch cushions and make a blanket tent or pillow fort.
Some materials (sound panels) are more sound absorbent than others. Look up Noise Reduction Coefficients (NRC) numbers before buying materials to help absorb sound
It’s possible to improve sound quality a little bit with post production, but it’s better to fix the problems before recording.

How Do I Get Rid of the Hollow Sound or Room Echo In My Podcast Recording?
I’ve noticed that a lot of people struggle with room echo and background noises, so I wanted to do this episode to help you start taking steps towards inproving the quality of your recordings.
Sound Proofing and Sound Treatment
Sound Proofing is the process of sealing your room so that outside noises don’t get recorded by your microphone. This is normally done by installing special sound-absorbing fiberglass or mineral wool in the walls, floor or ceilings.
You may not have much control over how sound proof your room is, but there are some things you can do to control the sounds being created in your space.
Eliminate as much excess noise as you can:

If you have loud AC or heating, turn it off while you record.
Turn off notifications on your computer and phone.
Set your phone to airplane mode.
If you have pets, put them in a kennel or in a room far away from where you’re recording.
Put up a sign to let people know you’re recording.
Throw a thick blanket by the bottom of the door, or cover your windows to help reduce noise coming in.

Remember: Eliminate background noises before you hit record. Turn off fans, AC, or heaters, and set your phone to airplane mode.
Sound Treatment is reducing the echos and sound reflections in a room by adding things like sound-absorbing foam panels, bass traps, and sound diffusors.
The Different Kinds of Echo
Standing waves happen in rectangular rooms when a sound wave bounces off one wall, then back and forth between the two walls until the energy dissipates. This is most common in low-end frequencies, but can happen in high frequencies as well. Too much energy in the low-mid range (200-500hz) can cause a track to sound muddy or boomy.
Remember: Listeners notice sound quality. Background noise and room echo is distracting and degrades the listening experience.
Flutter echo is a ringing sound caused by sound bouncing off of parallel walls. You’ll hear this in the high-end of the frequency range.
Choosing the Right Room to Record In
We don’t always have a choice about the room we record in. When I started recording the seanwes podcast back in late 2013, I was recording in my “office” (which is just my dining room with a standing desk).
It was a small room with only a little furniture in it, so there was quite a bit of flutter echo in my recordings. I tried to compensate for this by bringing in some big couch cushions. I ended up moving to a spare bedroom and building some sound absorbing panels to help with the reflections. (They did help.)
The ideal room will be a room with quite a bit of soft stuff in it. Furniture like chairs, couches and bookshelves can all help absorb and diffuse sound waves.
“Pretty much every room has its own sound, when you walk in the room, there is an enormous amount of factors that control what that room sounds like. The size of the