Painting With Sound: Crafting a Sonic Canvas

For podcasters, to understand sound is to understand an artist’s tools. Just as a painter chooses colors, brushes, and techniques to evoke emotion, podcasters must carefully craft their sound to engage listeners and deliver content effectively. Here’s how podcasters can approach sound as a visual artist approaches paint.

Sound Is Your Medium

Sound waves are like brushstrokes on a blank canvas of silence. But how can you make those brushstrokes inviting for your audience? Here are the two most direct ways to improve your podcast’s sound: clean audio and your choice of microphone.

Silence Is Your Canvas

Your clean canvas is a quiet recording environment. That can mean shielding your recording space from distracting sounds. It can also mean making sure intentional sound in your space goes where you want it. 

The primary goal for most podcasters is that their message is audible. What you, your guest, or your co-host are saying should be clear and free from any competing distracting sounds. Starting from a point of silence is a great way to achieve that.

Of course, not all artists paint on a blank canvas, and you might use your environment’s natural background ambience to enhance the soundscape of your audio. If done well, creating a “theater of the mind” effect can help the listener feel like they are right there with you.

Microphones Are Your Brushes

I didn’t know the difference between brushes for watercolor, acrylic, or oil paint until 2020. When I started using a brush with bristles meant to absorb and disperse water, suddenly, my watercolor paintings went from muddy to distinct.

Like choosing a brush, different microphones capture sound differently, and some are suited to specific use cases. Need to record someone in a busy and loud environment? Try a shotgun mic. Want to do hands-free interviews on location? A wireless lavalier might be the best choice. Or, seeking something that works in almost any situation? A USB-XLR combo mic could work well for you, there.

Tonal Quality as “Color”

If you’ve ever played with color filters in your phone’s photo app, you know how “warm” or “cool” colors can make an image seem cheerful or grim. Just like colors create mood, tone sets emotional impact. For example: 

• Warm tones are welcoming. These tones have low, rounded frequencies and create a sense of peace and contentment. 
• Bright tones make your audio feel zippy. Emphasizing higher frequencies adds clarity and energy.

The process of Equalization (EQ) helps you mix these “colors” effectively, but if we’re focusing on voice and message, much of it will stem from your delivery. Just getting up closer to the mic creates an intimate sense of proximity, as if the host is right in your ear.

Sound Effects and Music as Texture

Ask anyone if they know what the painting “The Starry Night” looks like. Nearly all will say “yes.” Vincent van Gogh’s interpretation of the night sky over Saint Rémy has been printed on anything one can buy in a museum gift shop. But not everyone has seen the original painting.

The layers in the textured brushstrokes include multiple colors in each line and shape. This texture makes the colors and objects appear to vibrate with clarity. Similarly, sound effects, music beds, and transitions are like layers of paint on a canvas that add richness.

Here are some ways to add layers of interest when painting with sound for your podcast.

Sound Effects

What if you could make it sound like your interview guest knocks at your door before you welcome them? Real-world sound effects, such as footsteps or door creaks, can root your podcast in reality and conjure images in your audience’s minds.

Ambience

Put a lot of sound effects together naturally (or field record an environment), and you have a sound bed. Background sound can transport listeners into a scene, evoking mental images.

For example, the podcast Marooned Tunes is a panel discussion of little-known concept albums. Yes, it’s another pop culture discussion podcast. But, this discussion happens over a sound bed of tropical beach sound. The ocean waves, seaside breezes, and rare birds make the podcast feel like a vacation.

Music

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any piece of video automatically becomes funny when underscored with “Yakety Sax.” Is it because of Benny Hill? Or is it because of the musical slides that anticipate the downbeat? Maybe Boots Randolph’s classic 1960s tune is an inexplicable human trigger.

Whatever the reason, music sets tone, pace, and emotion, like brushstrokes that guide the eye. You can use music as a theme, as transitions between segments, or as underscoring to make a moment in your podcast more meaningful.

Using music in your podcast is a way to paint with a sound that provides structure and sets expectations for your audience.

Mixing as “Blending the Colors”

Do you ever have to adjust the volume multiple times when listening to a podcast? Have you noticed when an episode is recorded remotely, and the speakers sound discordant? Audio mixing adjusts all of the elements in an episode so that they complement each other, like how artists blend paint to make the image cohere.

Without proper mixing, the topic gets lost in how the show is made, and the audience gets distracted.

Manual mixing requires practice and skill, like working with paint. These days, many podcast software programs can level your podcast audio for you.

No matter which route you take to get there, levels and compression structure your audio in the same way that composition or a frame makes a painting mean something to the viewer.

As audio pioneer Frank Zappa once said, “The most important thing in art is The Frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively– because, without this humble appliance, you can’t know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. You have to put a box around it because, otherwise, what is that on the wall?”

Storytelling as the Artistic Vision

Despite the enduring power of action painting, if your podcast production consists of “let’s throw stuff at a wall and see what sticks,” you’ll have trouble maintaining your audience, let alone growing it.

Fortunately, there’s a communication system that naturally attracts humans. It’s called storytelling. When you use storytelling tools to structure your podcast, your audience is more likely to listen all the way to the end of each episode, care about your content, and recommend it to others.

How? Here are some strategies you can use.

• Storytelling structure. Story shows change over time. When you put your ideas in a certain order, your audience will want to come along for the ride. Our guide to Storytelling for Podcasters: The Nuance of Narrative can show you different ways to lay out a trail of breadcrumbs for your audience.
• Characters, Desires, Obstacles and Strategies. Forget about pain points. Instead, show us how a unique character achieved their goals even when circumstances stacked up to prevent them. This is a constellation of techniques: blast off for the stars with our guide to Why Characters & Story Aren’t Just for Fiction Podcasts.

Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper, is a classic example of how to use light, color, and composition to evoke a feeling. But most people don’t think about how the diagonal and vertical lines make the off-center composition feel vibrant. They wonder about the people in the image and why they’re in this lonely diner late at night. When you have a lot of information to share, story crafting tools can help you paint with sound in a way that makes your audience empathize.

Painting with Sound Elevates Your Podcast

When we think of our podcasts as “content,” we diminish the work that goes into it. Likewise, we diminish the effect it can have on the audience. Nobody should consider their podcast episodes as inventory for ad revenue. Instead, think of your podcast episodes as experiences that your audience will seek out and share.

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When you learn to paint with sound, you’ll create experiences for your audience to escape mundane existence. True, these techniques take practice. But, taking time to learn these strategies will reward you with audiences excited to immerse themselves in your podcast.