How to use sound effects to improve your audio lessons and podcasts

Sound effects, whether it’s background music, actual effects or audio clips that you insert into your podcasts and audio lessons can change, dramatically, how good your audio lesson or educational podcast will be.

Don’t believe me? Go ahead and listen to the first 5 minutes of episodes one and two from the podcasts Serial and Startup. Pay attention to how different audio sound effects are used throughout, and what the effect does to you as the listener. Does it make you pay attention? Build suspense? Highlight a key point? Change the monotony and pace of the story?

The answer is that all of the above. Great sound effects dramatically improve audio lessons, courses and educational podcasts.

Curios to try it out yourself? Analyze how we use sound in one of our lessons of Pricing Strategy.

Learning from the greats of podcasting

So how do you use audio to improve your lessons? We’ve analyzed the first few episodes of Startup and Serial to show you how it’s done. Here are our takeaways from each:

Serial episodes one and two:

• Keep it moving – In the intro to both episodes there were audio cues and shifts every 45 seconds or so. This set the pace, letting listeners know when to expect a new piece of information. It also kept the intro interesting.
• Mix it up – Despite drawing on a similar music / sound library throughout both intro sequences, Serial used many different types of audio: music, phone recordings, voiceovers, etc. This meant that even when there was no narrative break, the information still felt fresh.
• Mood – Serial is incredible at choosing the right sounds to set a scene. When describing the mystery, audio is tense, terse, and fast-paced. When covering a memory, music is used to help situate the listener in the setting where the memory takes place.
• Signposting – Audio and silence are used to highlight what’s about to happen next. Does the background noise suddenly go silent? Listen up! Something important is about to take place. Is suspenseful music playing? We know that something mysterious is about to unfold.

Analyzing ‘Startup’

‘Startup’ also has great takeaways:

• Show, don’t Tell – Instead of telling us about how difficult it was to decide what to wear to his first investor’s meeting (a story that, if told at a cocktail party, probably wouldn’t go over too well!) Startup shows us the conversation through direct recordings. We’re sitting there feeling just as confused and bemused as Alex’s wife, which is what makes it all the funnier – and more interesting – when Alex hits the punchline.
• Where is the Listener? – One of the most interesting and engaging things that Startup does is make the listener feel like they’re watching a play or movie. We’re plopped in the middle of someone’s living room, listening to a conversation take place when suddenly the lights are dimmed and a spotlight is thrown on the narrator stepping out of the shadows. He’s going to tell us what’s unfolding behind him, and we can see gesticulations from the actors that back up his narrative. Except the wild thing is that all of this is done using audio only. By overlaying recorded conversations with voiceover narration (while occasionally letting the recordings bubble up to the surface), Startup creates a visual theater-going experience. Other times, when a piece of authoritative information is about to be divulged, the audio is straightforward – one cleanly and professionally recorded voice telling us what we need to know. Clearly a lot of thought has gone into situating where we, the listeners, are meant to be relative to the story that’s unfolding. Are we participants? Interlopers? Students?
• You Don’t Need Much – Startup does not make use of very many audio effects, but the ones it does rely on it uses deftly and wisely.

The key principles for how to use sound effects to improve your audio lessons and podcasts

As you can see, it’s critical to use sound effects to improve your audio lessons and podcasts. The difference it makes is tangible to the listener and can make a huge impact on a student trying to learn the material and maintain focus. Luckily, it’s definitely doable. There’s no rocket science involved, just attention to detail and acting along these five principles we’ve compiled from our research (which you can read more about here: Use sound to improve your podcast).

1. Keep listeners engaged by using audio shifts
2. Make the most of your theme music
3. Repeat audio cues to set listener expectations
4. Use audio to set the scene
5. Integrate sound effects