I hear an echo in the studio

Troubleshooting for:

• Hearing participants' voices echo in studio

Suggested troubleshooting steps

• Confirm that all participants are wearing headphones, not using their device's speakers.
• Enable echo cancellation on participants' tracks.
  • Use our audio tester to determine whether echo cancellation can resolve the issue before recording in the studio.
• Have the person who is the source of the echo reduce their device's mic sensitivity or mute themselves when not speaking.
  • The host or producer can also help them mute and unmute.
• If someone is using an external microphone with a headphone port, they should connect the headphones to their computer, not to the mic. This will reduce the chances of audio summing.
• If someone is using headphones with a microphone, select the computer's microphone or use a different microphone than the one in your headphones / headset. This will reduce the chances of audio summing.
• Have all participants angle their microphones away from each other and sit at a distance. This will reduce the chances of audio bleed.
• If anyone is using an audio interface, they should enable its mix-minus mode.
  • Read more about isolating tracks with commonly-used audio interfaces.

• Audio summing

  Audio summing is a natural part of the audio publishing process where you combine many tracks into one. For example, if you’re recording a podcast, you want to make sure your listeners can hear all of your speakers, so you sum them up into one final track for playback.

  Audio summing becomes an issue when users can clearly hear other speakers on their individual track.

  This can happen when a headset or wired headphone with a microphone is used because both the audio you're sending out (audio output) and the audio you're receiving (audio input) are going through the same connection (i.e. the same wire).

  Audio bleed

  Unlike audio summing, bleed occurs when a noise is picked up by a mic when it shouldn’t have been.

  This can happen if two people are recording in the same room and they're sitting too closely to one another, or if one person is using a directional mic and has positioned the mic incorrectly (ex. omnidirectional mic facing the other person and not themselves).

  Differences

  • Summing: The issue occurs in the wires, each voice is clear and pronounced
  • Bleed: The issue occurs in the room, the 'bleeding' voice is faint and distant

Learn more

• How can I minimize echo in the studio and on my recorded tracks? My guests are already wearing headphones.
• Isolate tracks with a mixer or Rodecaster Pro