How iHeart's Ruby Studio Uses Apollo to Podcast at Scale

iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is the branded audio powerhouse behind bespoke podcasts for some of the biggest names in the world — from HBO to Audible, Chase for Business, Intuit, IBM, and AT&T — spanning entertainment, finance, pharma, technology, lifestyle, automotive, human interest, health, and sports. With iHeartMedia's studios across the country — and Apollo at the center of that workflow — Ruby has become one of the most prolific branded content operations in audio. We sat down with Matt Stillo, iHeartMedia's Senior Director of Audio, to talk about the secrets to making a great podcast.

 

Apollo sits at the center of every Ruby Studio session, giving engineers the flexibility to run custom sessions with their own preferred plug-ins and signal chains.

 

Building Ruby Studio

Podcasting has exploded over the last few years. How did you find your way into it?

Like many audio engineers, I go way back as a musician — but my path in was a little different: I studied theater at NYU, where I'd pre-record ideas for sketches I didn't have the nerve to perform in front of peers like Matt Rogers (of iHeart's Las Culturistas podcast) or directors like Elizabeth Swados (Tony-nominated composer of Runaways) — just to give my ideas a shot at making it into the shows we were creating. That's really how I got into recording and producing. From there, I worked my way through post-production studios in Manhattan before landing full-time as a mixer and sound designer at Gramercy Post, where I worked on everything from mixing TV and film to commercial and radio spots to ADR — and, of course, plenty of podcasts along the way. Then one day I got the call from iHeart, where my background as a storyteller and an engineer came together to help build what is now Ruby Studio.

What led to the creation of Ruby as iHeart’s branded content studio?

iHeartMedia had already been building branded podcasts since 2019, but the increasing demand from clients was clear: marketers weren't just looking to buy ad space — they wanted to spend more time with audiences, telling their own captivating stories in a way that can only be done in the podcasting space. So in 2023, we formalized our “custom podcast team” into Ruby: a dedicated studio built entirely around producing, marketing, and distributing branded content at a level that could stand next to anything else in the medium. With iHeartMedia's full talent network, production infrastructure, and distribution reach, we’re able to partner brands with talent like Malcolm Gladwell (host of IBM's Smart Talks) and tell high-caliber stories with incredible reach. That combination — real craft plus real scale — is why Ruby exists, and it's why we've been able to keep clients coming back season after season.

What makes Apollo the right fit for iHeart?

While iHeart has been building and upgrading radio studios across the country for decades, in 2022 we did a full podcast studio build-out, bringing our podcast division (including the formerly Stuff Media which iHeart acquired in 2018) in-house to the iHeart complex in Atlanta. Because podcast studios are more akin to post-production studios than radio studios, I jumped at the opportunity to help guide the design from the podcast team's perspective. With so many productions having gone hybrid or remote during the pandemic, we knew it was critical to build remote connectivity directly into the studio. Apollo's versatile virtual channels and intuitive send capabilities — routing the right mixes to the right destinations, both in and out of the box — are what brought that vision into focus.

There are four iHeart podcast studios at the Atlanta complex. Three are standard setups, with tables and mics in the live rooms and attached control rooms. Prince (our flagship studio) is the largest: six positions, full video capability, and a control room big enough to house production, clients, talent, and agency partners. The fourth studio is dedicated to narrative, scripted podcast production with a modular live room where teams can bring in actors, large casts, and record Foley and sound design however a given production calls for it.

One of the things I love most about Apollo is that with so many different shows, engineers, and teams moving through those rooms, everyone can call up their own custom session with their own preferred plug-ins, exactly how they want it. That's saved us a substantial amount on outboard gear we'd otherwise have needed to buy to make that kind of flexibility possible. 

 

"We knew it was critical to build remote connectivity directly into the studio. Apollo's virtual channels and send capabilities are what brought that vision into focus."

Matt Stillo — Senior Director of Audio, iHeartMedia

 

Finding the Story

How does a brand brief become a finished audio piece?

That's one of the biggest and most satisfying creative challenges of this work: taking a brand's concept or messaging and turning it into a story the intended audience is genuinely excited to spend time with. It starts with the brief, but the real work is translation — figuring out who the audience actually is, what they care about, and where the brand's message and a compelling story actually overlap. From there it's development: finding the real people and real stories that can carry that idea, then building the format, tone, and structure around them before we ever get into production.

Chase for Business is a good example of how that plays out. The brief wasn't really about the brand — it was about figuring out what story would resonate with Chase's audience: small business owners, entrepreneurs, people building something from scratch. Small businesses tend to have incredible stories about how they came to be, or big "moment of crisis" stories where they almost didn't survive. One of the first episodes we did was about Luna Gourmet Coffee Company in Denver, which basically burned to the ground overnight — and the founders had to figure out how to move forward after a catastrophic loss. Their story of resilience became the genesis of a podcast we called The Unshakeables. There's a story everywhere; you just have to know how to find it.

 

The Unshakeables is Ruby Studio's award-winning Chase for Business podcast, featuring real stories from small business owners across America.

 

Getting the Sound Right

What’s your approach to capturing vocals in the studio?

The one thing I tell our team over and over is that the human voice is the most delicate instrument you'll ever record. A lot of podcasts you'll hear have the voice overcompressed — stacked with plug-ins, squeezed until it loses all the intimacy that makes a voice feel human. And that intimacy is exactly what podcasting has going for it: you're right in the listener's ear, closer than almost any other medium. So my approach starts with protecting that — recording with just a light touch of compression that keeps the voice dynamic and alive, rather than flattening it before it ever leaves the booth.

Everyone at iHeart has their own preferences going in — and UA offers some incredible compression tools to choose from — but I keep it old school: an 1176 on the track, about 3 dB of gain reduction, and the proper positioning. Getting it right at that stage means I can go straight from the booth into a mix session. In post, I’ll invoke some light tonal shaping with EQ and a few more rounds of light compression through the dialog bus to meet our integrated -16 LUFS spec — less is more.

How has remote recording changed the way you work?

Remote production has definitely added a layer of difficulty to everything we do. One issue you'll run into constantly is that not many studios know how to properly set up a mix-minus — sending studio audio out to a remote guest while receiving their computer audio back in as part of the full mix, without creating feedback. With Console, you can route all of that cleanly: we've got custom mixes built out for each of our studios, tailored to who needs to hear what in every environment. It's genuinely set-it-and-forget-it — on the desktop, we've got templates for all of it, so an engineer just double-clicks, opens the session, and everything's already routed the way it needs to be.

One other thing we love about Apollo is how well it works with MIDI. On all our desks, I had a custom MIDI switch built for the control room so engineers can toggle talkback discreetly — talk directly to the host, talk to the whole room on headphones, or address the overhead speakers — all from one control. That kind of flexibility is something I really love about working with Apollo.

 

At Ruby Studio, capturing a great vocal starts with restraint: an 1176 on the track and about 3 dB of gain reduction.

 

Production at Scale

How many podcasts or projects are you usually working on at the same time?

When it's really busy, I might have anywhere from 5 to 10 projects going at once. As executive producer, though, most of that isn't me mixing — it's overseeing our incredible roster of hosts, producers, engineers, composers and writers, and making sure the right people are paired with the right project to get real creative synergy going. Where I stay most hands-on is early: I'm deeply involved in shaping that first episode — the music, the sonic footprint, the workflow, the outline — iterating on all of it until it's right, because that episode sets the tone for everything that follows. From there, it's really about building the team, earning trust with clients, and giving people the room to do great work together. I don't get to sit down and mix something myself very often anymore, but when I do, it's still one of my favorite parts of the job.

Do you have a favorite story you've told? 

Since Ruby started with custom podcasts for brands, our team has branched out into live event activations, branded takeovers of editorial shows on the iHeart slate, video, and original content — shows we call our "Ruby Gems." Unlike a fully brand-owned show, these are smaller investments where a brand gets involved in specific episodes. 

My favorite story I've ever told is our lifestyle show, Grown-Up Stuff. The premise: there's so much about adult life nobody actually teaches you, and plenty of brands fit naturally into that conversation — like our TurboTax-partnered episode on doing your own taxes. 

Our first episode covered retirement planning, and making it genuinely helped me get my own finances in order. We've since covered credit cards and budgeting, with an investing episode releasing in August. Teaching some of the most important lessons any adult needs to learn, alongside incredible clients, has been one of the most fulfilling parts of my job. Grown Up Stuff is now in its fourth season, and as long as there are topics we still don't know enough about, I'm excited to keep it going.

 

Grown-Up Stuff, now in its fourth season, is Ruby Studio's original podcast dedicated to explaining the complexities of adulting.

 

What’s something that would surprise most people about podcast production?

Most people picture podcasting as the interview format — a celebrity chat show, someone talking into a mic. What would surprise people is how much podcast production is actually like making a movie.

Audio is incredibly editable. That gives you the same storytelling power a film editor has: the ability to cut, restructure, and shape a story that no one could tell cleanly in the moment. Think about how hard it is for someone to tell a story perfectly out loud, or for a comedian to nail a joke's timing on the first try. With audio, you can take a raw interview — one that might ramble or run long — and, through editing, music, and sound design, shape it into something extraordinary. You cut the extraneous detail, land the music at exactly the right beat, bring in sound design that pulls the listener into the world of the story. Video can't really do this the same way — it gets choppy fast. Audio lets you build something seamless.

That's the level of craft behind shows that redefined the genre: This American Life, Serial, Heavyweight. People hear the finished product and assume it's just a good conversation, well recorded. What they don't see is how much editing, structure and creative decision-making actually goes into turning a raw conversation into a story that hits the way it does.

 

Matt Stillo is a veteran audio professional who melds technical expertise with creative storytelling. As iHeartMedia's Senior Director of Audio, he leads the podcast division's audio initiatives including the design of their flagship podcast studios in Atlanta. At Ruby, iHeart's branded content studio, he serves as Executive Producer, masterfully balancing brand messaging with compelling narratives across award-winning shows in entertainment, finance, and pharmaceutical verticals — including HBO's official Game of Thrones, Chase for Business's The Unshakeables, and the first Ruby Original series Grown-Up Stuff, which he co-created and hosts.

 

— Miranda Kumpe

 

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Frequently Asked Questions

What audio interface does iHeart's Ruby Studio use for podcast recording?

Ruby Studio runs Universal Audio Apollo interfaces across all four podcast studios at iHeartMedia's Atlanta complex. Apollo's virtual channel routing and Unison preamp technology allow engineers to load custom sessions with their preferred signal chains and plug-ins for every show, without investing in duplicate outboard gear.

What's the best audio interface for professional podcast production?

For professional-grade podcast production, an audio interface like the Universal Audio Apollo provides the flexibility that consumer-level USB interfaces can't match. Apollo's real-time UAD plug-in processing lets engineers apply compression, EQ, and Unison preamp emulations with near-zero latency, and Console's routing templates make complex multi-guest sessions repeatable at scale.

How do you set up mix-minus for a podcast with remote guests?

Mix-minus sends the full studio mix to a remote guest's headphones, minus their own microphone signal — eliminating echo and feedback. In Universal Audio's Console software (Apollo's companion app), this is handled through custom virtual channel sends. Ruby Studio has saved Console templates for every studio: engineers double-click to open a session and the mix-minus routing is already configured, ready to go.

What compression settings work best for podcast vocals?

For broadcast podcast audio, restraint is the most important principle. At iHeart's Ruby Studio, vocal tracks are processed with a UA 1176 compressor plug-in set to approximately 3 dB of gain reduction — enough to control dynamics without squashing the natural intimacy of the voice. In post-production, light EQ and additional compression on the dialog bus bring the final mix to the broadcast standard of -16 LUFS integrated.

Can Universal Audio Apollo handle large-scale podcast operations?

Yes, iHeart's Ruby Studio uses Apollo across four dedicated podcast studios — including a flagship room with six microphone positions, full video capability, and a control room large enough for talent, clients, and production teams simultaneously. Apollo's virtual channel architecture means every engineer working across those rooms can maintain their own custom session configuration without requiring duplicate hardware or outboard gear.