Best Free Podcast Presets for Adobe Audition

Introduction

Adobe Audition has a number of presets. From basic ones that increase the recording level to those that add an eccentric touch to your audio. Examples include telephone presets that make your audio sound like a phone call or a radio preset that mimics the sound playing on the radio.

Presets are great for quick edits. They are especially useful if you are editing a number of recordings. They also help consolidate a few actions. Using presets, you can apply a number of effects with just a few clicks. Without them you would have to go through a step-by-step process of modifying several different settings. You would essentially be applying every effect individually.

In addition to the presets that already exist you can also save self-made ones that you may use in future edits. You can also get some provided by experienced audio and podcast editors over the internet. These include free and premium (paid) presets.

How Do I Navigate to Presets in Audition?

Adobe Audition has a number of presets that are dedicated to podcast recordings. In addition, they can be also used on voice recordings.

To get to the presets check the Effects Tab in the panel highlighted in the image below.

Sometimes the effects rack is disabled. If there is no effects rack tab in the highlighted panel, use the keyboard shortcut Alt + 0 to enable it.

Click in the presets slot to open the dropdown option.

Best Free Podcast Presets for Adobe Audition

These presets are beneficial to the different podcast and vocal editing scenarios such as an advertisement recording. So let’s get right into it.

Clean Up and Level Voice Over

This preset is for voice-over recordings. Recordings such as a short promo for your podcast episode or a voice-over for an audio article. It has three effects on your recording. First, it reduces the background noise that is present in your recording. Secondly, it gives your audio a standard volume level all through your audio recording removing a variation that existed prior. Lastly, it reduces the level of audio signals that are louder and increases the volume of the recording without having a distorted end result.

DeEss and Voice Limit (Female/ Male Voice Over)

This preset is very beneficial in minimizing sibilance in your audio file. On the drop-down list of the presets, they are two separate ones: DeEss and Voice Limit Female Voice Over and DeEss and Voice Limit Male Voice Over.

Following the naming, this categorization is based on the gender of the voice-over artist. Therefore, pick appropriately. I have combined them because they address the same issues.

DeEss and Voice Limit remove Sibilance sounds. These sounds mainly result in a hissing sound that we get from words with soft consonant sounds. Words that have these: z, s, zh, and sh letters will result in sibilance which is irritating and distracting to listen back to especially when it is recurrent in a statement. (She sells sea shellsat the sea shore.) In addition to detecting and removing sibilance, it also regulates the loudness of the audio signal and boosts softer/muffled sound by adding some treble.

Podcast Voice

This is ideal for your podcast recordings. It has quite a few effects on your file. First, it eliminates the background noise like wind noise, hissing sounds & static from your audio. It also gives your audio a standard volume level all through your audio recording removing the level variation that existed prior.  This turns the volume up when it’s too soft or reduces it when it’s too loud. This is advantageous in cases where a podcast has sections that were low while others were higher.

Lastly, it adds tonality. This adjusts the softer sound signals and brightens them making them sound fuller.

Voice Leveler And Noise Gate

First, this evens out the sound signals all through the audio recording. The Speech Volume Leveler comprises three processors. These are leveling, compression, and gating. When this preset is applied to your podcast recording it evens out level variations within the voicing. It also removes the noise within the silent parts of your recording while maintaining the speech parts. Lastly, it detects where the audio exceeds a specified level, and then attenuates it.

Issues To Consider When Using Presets

Effects & Latency

When adding presets to an audio file there are three stages. There is the initial stage where you have not added any effects, the next stage is the moment you add the effects and the final stage is when you apply the effects to your file. The second stage is a temporary stage where you have not finalized what you intend. You only get to listen back to how the audio sounds. This is like a preview phase where the effects are applied only when you click the apply button after.

Some of the presets that are present in the dropdown list will have a higher latency therefore it is advisable to hit the apply button after to maximize playback. Since a preset is made up of a number of effects Adobe Audition highlights the particular effect that will be CPU intensive or the high latency effect in a red color.

The latency issue is not an isolated problem but is common in all audio interfaces.

Readjusting Presets

Sometimes when you preview an unapplied presets you might notice that the effect is not perfect hence need readjustments. For instance, a Podcast Voice preset might have a strong noise reduction effect to an extent that it not only affects the background noise but also part of your speech.

To edit the preset click on the arrow on the right side of the specific effect. In the image below, the preset applied is Voice Leveler and Noise Gate. The Hard Limiter was in excess therefore I have to reduce it.

Conclusion

To understand a particular preset and when it is best used it is important to know its categorization. The presets have a number of categories and each category is based on a theme. Some of these categories are:

1. Filter and EQ.
2. Amplitude and compression.
3. Modulation.
4. Delay and echo.
5. Noise Reduction.

In a case where you are aiming to reduce noise applying a time and pitch correction effect will not get the job done. Therefore an understanding of each preset category is important before using them.