“We have ease of use as a core value,” says Nomono’s Audun Solvang

The Nomono Sound Capsule is a portable, all-in-one recorder that can create high-quality spatial podcasts while on-the-go.

Shipping began in April, and it has been named the 2023 SXSW Innovation Award winner in the “Audio” category.

The company’s co-founder and Head of Research, Audun Solvang and Head of Sales, Kristoffer Merker spoke to PodcastingToday about the development and benefits of the device.

It all started at Sintef, a private research institute in Norway, where Audun was working. They were looking into 360 videos because their audio quality was poor. The reason was because those making the videos were mostly storytellers and content creators but not audio professionals.

This led to working on audio signal processing and the whole workflow for 360 video production. Audun, along with Jonas Rinde, and Sigurd Saue, then launched Nomono in 2019 to develop their concept, firstly for video, then for podcasting.

“We started looking into the market,” says Audun. “Ok, 360 video, but podcasting – that seems like an interesting market. The similarities are quite striking because most of the content that’s created in podcasting is by content creators and not audio professionals.

“So, having the same focus on ease of use, getting the technology out of the way, we had to go into an exploratory phase again.”

Hardware and software combined was key for them. What they were after was simplicity of use – having wireless mics so there are no cables, sending content directly to the cloud wirelessly and having just one button for recording a decent sound.

Editing or postproduction is also an area to simplify, and Audun says it’s something they’re working on at the moment to make it much easier. Currently audio synched to the cloud is processed and “cleaned up” by AI, but a better solution is due to be made available later this year.

On editing, Kristoffer adds: “When you end a recording with the Sound Capsule, the recording uploads to the Nomono Cloud automatically. One way our products simplifies the workflow is by using our audio processing with artificial intelligence to clean up the audio.

“However, editing the recording, such as clipping, trimming, adding intros and outros, those are the features coming soon and will be the last piece of the puzzle to support the whole workflow.”

The whole concept is a simple end-to-end eco system and workflow system way of thinking. Rather than buying equipment and multiple software solutions from different suppliers, the Sound Capsule with the Nomono Cloud looks after everything for the content creator.

“We just want to make it as easy as possible for anyone to create a podcast and to make sure they get a high-quality recording, regardless of where they record. We see more and more people moving out of the studio and into the field, and we solve the added challenges in acoustics and audio quality in those environments,” Kristoffer explains.

In addition to talking to individual creators, the company is also having conversations with larger enterprises, and it seems the trend in audio production is to have smaller teams. This presents an opportunity for Nomono, with those who are looking for a smarter way to produce more with better quality.

Kristoffer adds: “When we talk to audio organisations who have audio engineers, it’s not about replacing them, it’s how we can remove the tedious tasks they are doing, so they can focus their time on what really matters and what really makes the big difference.”

It’s still early days, as far as spatial audio is concerned for podcasting, and it’s an area Nomono is preparing itself and customers for what they believe is the future.

There’s still a lot of mono recording being produced as well as stereo, but there are some major companies such as Apple and Sonos who are focusing on spatial audio to make their content more immersive.

“We do have an ease of use as a core value position, but along with this we have spatial audio, which is an interesting add-on as part of the package,” says Audun.

Apart from spatial audio making listeners feel like they’re in the room with the recording, Nomono believes it can benefit those who are hard of hearing – 20% of the world’s population struggle with some sort of hearing impairment.

With new file formats they believe it will be possible to personalise the listening experience by customising settings on your phone and making adjustments that are suitable for you own hearing. The BBC is currently experimenting in this area.

“It is also a creative tool as well,” Audun explains about the Sound Capsule. “This is a portable device, you can go out there and do a recording wherever and also capture the ambience in spatial audio at your location, bringing it into your production to set the scene for that piece of content.

“The dynamics of the dialogue shift to become more natural. It’s harder to hear in mono but you’re able to use your directional hearing to separate voices. For dialogue, this has real value for speech intelligibility.

“Also, with the dialogue in spatial audio, it brings a nice contrast to having the voiceover of the narrator in mono inside your head, as you can have a close connection with the host.

“I’m eager to listen to all the types of content that will be created with our kit and how we will experience the spatial domain for podcasts – I think there will be a lot of interesting productions going forward,” adds Audun.

Nomono has developed an ecosystem of hardware and cloud services optimised for a simple workflow. Recordings are automatically synched to the cloud, where there are different subscription tiers. The first is free, which comes with enough storage space for recordings and the use of sophisticated processing using AI. For those who need more space or want to use our audio processing for more recordings, there’s an optional upgrade.

Podcasting simplified – find out more about the Sound Capsule and cloud at the Nomono website.