Corporate podcast production.

Here, sound is the whole product

In film, the audience accepts a soft picture more readily than an unintelligible sentence. A podcast has no picture at all, so everything depends on the audio track.

• Microphones chosen for voice and room. Large-diaphragm microphones in a quiet room, lavalier microphones when people move, polar pattern according to seating distance. We decide this before the recording so that nothing needs repairing in the edit.
• Separate tracks. Each speaker on a separate track. This is the only way to untangle overlaps, match levels and remove noise individually.
• We listen to the room too. No processing step removes reverb completely. If a room does not work acoustically, we say so in advance and look for an alternative.
• Mixing rather than just making it loud. Level matching, equalisation, dynamics, noise floor. That way the episode sounds as good in the car as on headphones.

For a sound engineer, sound is the actual work in a podcast.

What direction means here

What separates a podcast from a mere recording is less the technology than the direction.

• Before the recording. Format, length, roles, structure of questions. Who speaks for how long, where the conversation begins and where it ends. A concept that carries episode twenty, not just the first.
• During the recording. People in front of a microphone behave differently from people in conversation. They speak faster, more briefly and more cautiously. Bringing them back into a real conversation is the actual directing work, and no technology can do it.
• After the recording. Editing, mixing, chapter markers, short excerpts. This is also where it is decided what stays and what goes.

From 35 years of working with people in front of the camera and at the microphone: most need the first ten minutes to forget themselves. That is why we record first what will not be needed later.

Recording at your premises or at a suitable location

• At your premises. A mobile set-up with studio equipment in your rooms. You provide the room and the people; we bring everything else.
• At a suitable location. Not every room is suitable for sound. If your rooms do not work acoustically, we look for an alternative. That is cheaper than post-production that never fully removes the reverb.
• What we bring. Microphones and wireless systems, mixing desk, recorder, headphones for everyone involved, direction and editing station.
• Backed up twice. Each voice is recorded as a separate WAV track, on two devices in parallel. If something goes wrong on one device, no recording day has to be repeated.

What you receive

• The complete episode, edited and mixed
• Chapter markers and transcript; the transcript is generated automatically and corrected by hand, with translations on request, checked by native speakers
• Excerpts as short audio clips for your channels
• Cover image and intro, created once and reusable for all episodes
• Hosting via Podigee, a German provider, if the podcast is to run on your website or intranet. The account is in your name.

For Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other directories we deliver the finished file with a description. Publication there is via your own account, so the podcast belongs to you.

Who produces

Behind KREATV is Jens Achtert, master photographer, producer and director with 35 years of professional experience and many years of experience as a sound engineer, awarded the Master Craftsman Prize of the Bavarian State Government and a state-certified teacher of photography and film.

From the first call to delivery you speak to the person who directs and is responsible for the sound. Where necessary, we add specialists we have worked with before to the team.