- If you want to learn how
to record high quality, long distance podcast interviews, you are in the right place. In this video, we'll
share the top five things that you can do to get the
best audio quality possible, no matter which recording
software you end up going with. And then Alvin and I will walk through our top recommendations for podcasters that need to either record
long distance interviews or record with multiple hosts from different locations. - So tip number one is we want to just get
a quiet environment. Try to record in a space of the house where there's not a lot of
other people if possible, and pick a time of the day when maybe your neighbor isn't
outside, mowing their lawn. - And then you also wanna pick a room where you have a lot of stuff in it. The worst thing for a Podcast recording is a room that's empty or has a lot of hard flat surfaces in it. Because what those do is they provide wonderful reflection surfaces for those sound waves to bounce back, reenter your microphone, and you get this nasty echo reverb sound in your Podcast recording. - If you watched any if the
other videos on our channel, Joan actually films a lot of her tutorials in a walk-in closet. Because for her, that is the best place to get a great recording. (downbeat music) Tip number two is wear headphones. So when we're doing a remote recording, I need to be able to listen to Travis at the same time that I'm talking. If I'm not using headphones, I'm getting a lot of Travis's
noise out of the computer, and that noise will get
picked up by the mic. So that actually will introduce
this weird echo-y lag sound, which is just gonna be
really difficult to edit out. - Use headphones not only
to eliminate that problem, but also so you can
monitor your own recording. That if you don't have headphones on, and you're speaking into a microphone, it's hard to see or tell when you're starting to drift
away from the microphone when you're starting to
speak softer or more loudly. And so just by having an active feedback of how you sound as well
is a really good bonus. - So tip number three, we wanna minimize the
lag in our conversation. Depending on how far away
the person is from you and your internet connections lag can introduce some
really weird dynamics. You might start talking over your guests or maybe there's these
kinds of awkward pauses in the middle, a lot of oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to cut you off you go ahead. That's mostly introduced by, from lag. Close out all of your browsers
that you're not using, go ahead and turn off any
streaming devices at home. Anything you can do to speed
up your internet connection is really gonna pay dividends. Tip number four is just reducing any sounds that you're introducing. We've already gone to an area of the house where other people aren't
gonna make a lot of sounds, well a lot of podcasters make noise that they're gonna end
up editing out later. So some examples are just kind of playing with the microphone. That's gonna give you some weird noises. Or when I find myself
doing a lot is kind of moving around in my chair, and if you get a squeak now you're gonna have to edit that out. For some people, earrings
or jewelry, like a necklace it especially if they're
kind of jangling around, they can create a lot of noise, especially when you're talking. So it becomes really difficult to work on. Travis are there any others
that you can think of? - The biggest thing that I
would encourage you to consider if you can, if you have the ability to is invest in something like a boom arm, which both Alvin and I are using or a table stand that has
a shock mount with it. Cause often what will happen is if you have your microphone
sitting on top of the table and you're typing on your keyboard or you're taking notes, or you bump against it accidentally, those get picked up pretty prominently in your audio recordings, and you cannot get them
out once they are there. So if you can get your
microphone off the table, get a shock mount whether you have to get an
external one like I have, or if your microphone has
an internal shock mount, which the SM-70 that Alvin
is using has one of those. That will really help
as well for eliminating some of the extraneous things that can creep into your recordings. (downbeat music) - So tip number five, and this might be one of
the most important tips is microphone technique. Just having a consistent
approach to your microphone is really gonna help you with editing levels later on. You wanna be about three to
four inches, finger lengths away from the microphone. So right there I'm about
three finger lengths away. And that's about where I want to be. The main thing is you want
to stay a consistent spot because you don't want to drift
away and get really close, because then you're gonna have to try to deal with those levels later on. Travis any other
microphone, technique tips? - Well and the reason that
that distance is so critical especially if you're using
a dynamic microphone, like either the ones that
Alvin and I are using, or even like a Samsung Q2U or an Audio-Technica
ATR2100 rest in peace. They're designed to pick up the sound directly in front
of the microphone capsule. And so if you're in the back of the room, it's gonna pick you up, and it's also gonna pick up
a lot of background noise. But they are fantastic at
isolating the sound right here in front of the capsule and
rejecting everything else. That's what makes dynamic
microphone so great for Podcasting cause we're not always in these professionally treated sound booths. But if you have a condenser
microphone like a Blue Yeti, that's gonna pick up a lot
of that background noise, even when you are right up
next to that microphone. So practicing good microphone technique with a dynamic microphone does a world of good for
your audio recordings. - One of the best features for zoom it's just the overall simplicity. Now it doesn't have the most beautiful UI, but it's just a lot of
people that have used it. So you can send a link to almost anybody and they can just start recording. They don't need to set up an account to actually record with you. If you're interviewing someone who doesn't have access to a computer, they can just do a call in to zoom. The audio quality is not as good, but you have that functionality. - Now one feature that you probably will not take full advantage of with zoom is the ability to have a 100 people in the meeting at the same time. If that is you, then your first order of business is kicking 96 people off of your Podcast so that you can actually
hear what's going on. But that is also nice with zoom is that you're not really gonna run into a limit of the number of people that
you can have on your show. - Next thing we're gonna
talk about is video quality. So the video you're watching right now is the video from zoom from when Travis and I are recording this. And the nice thing is, zoom will give you the
ability to download this, but it's gonna be compressed. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some kind of artifacts
popping up on the screen and you don't get a super crisp image. - Yeah if you're just
looking for something to throw on social media to help promote the episode. Or if you wanna figure out an easy way to start publishing
your Podcast to YouTube, then posting the zoom video
is a great first step. - All right so let's talk about
a few of the cons with zoom. One con is we're not even
able to tell you exactly which plan need to sign up for now. At one point, all of this stuff was free. And then for a while, some of these important features were only available on the $15 plan. So it's quite possible
when you're watching this, you need to pay $15 a month to get all of this functionality. If you wanna record more than two people. So if you have two co-hosts, then you're gonna need to
definitely be on that $15 plan, cause so that there are time
limits on your episodes. Second is you're not ever
gonna get lossless audio. You're gonna get something called lossy, which means you lose some
of the sound quality. And it's just not gonna
be as good a quality as you'd get with something
like Squadcast, it's not bad. And you can hear for yourself what that sounds like right now is just not as high
quality as is possible. (downbeat music) - Zoom is hands down the
budget friendly option that I recommend the most. Whenever a new Podcast
approaches me and says, hey, I need to record
something long distance and I don't have a lot of money
to spend, what should I do? I tell them you use zoom. Sure for a couple extra bucks every month you can get some, better options as far as
audio quality is concerned, but for ease of use and the ability to get up and get started, zoom is a great option. - Squadcast is really
focusing on one thing and that's giving you the
highest quality audio possible. So the way they're doing this is everybody's audio is recorded
locally to their computer as just their own voice. And it's recording as lossless files, which are like the biggest files and also the highest quality. - Yeah, so down in the
bottom right corner, you can see this bar is
moving left to right. You can see my audio on the top. You can see Alvin's audio on the bottom. And so as we're talking, it's actually consistently uploading that audio file to Squadcast. At the end, it's going to finish rendering those audio files and then I get to download them and use them in Hindenburg
or GarageBand, Audacity, whatever software that you're using. So it really is a great system. And the audio quality is top-notch. - One of the reasons it stands out from some of the other software
that does the same thing. So I can get almost the same
thing with like cleanfeed. The difference is that we
can actually see each other. And I really like the
ability to see the co the person I'm recording with, just so you can, if they start nodding to stuff that you know you're saying
something that they'd like, or maybe you can see they're
getting a little distracted. So it's just nice to have
that additional connection. - The great thing about Squadcast in addition to recording each
person's audio separately and recording that high quality audio is that they actually record
a backup of your audio file. This is something that's
very unique to Squadcast. If you've ever been in an audio recording situation, long distance, where you like end the interview, and then something happens
like some freak accident and you lose the interview, Squadcast has a built-in backup plan to help save your interview. - So now let's dive into
a few of the limitations or the reasons you may pick
something besides Squadcast. First limitation, I don't think
is too big of a limitation, but some people, this is
something important to them. You can only record four people on a Podcast with Squadcast. Travis, why is that not a big deal? - Well once you start
getting beyond four people recording simultaneously,
it can be difficult to understand what's going on, especially if you have people
talking over each other. And so if you're at the point where you're beyond four people, consider paring down the
number of people recording at any one given point in time. But if you really do need
more than four people, you can use a solution like zoom, which allows you to
record up to a 100 people. So, record as many people as you want, just know that's probably gonna negatively impact your Podcast. - Yeah, if you want full chaos, zoom has the 100 person plan where all of you can record
at the exact same time. Actual cons for Squadcast right now, there's no
ability to record the video. I know it's something that they've been working on for a while, but it's still not available
at the time of this recording. We are recording something cause you see something
on the screen right now that is Travis setting up some other software to record his screen. Just to help you see what it looks like to record something inside a Squadcast. (downbeat music) Prices on Squadcast range
from 10 to $45 a month. They will give you a bit of a discount if you prepay for a year. But with all this software, I recommend take it one month
at a time in the beginning, and then upgrade once you know that you are gonna use
this for the long haul. Most people though, I don't think they're gonna end up on that $10 plan. You're gonna need a bit more time. So that $10 only gets you
two hours of a recording, so you're probably gonna want to upgrade to the $20 plan so you get a full five hours. It's a little bit more
expensive like you said than a free option like zoom, but the right price for
the people it's targeting, which is anyone trying to get the last bit of audio quality possible. - I hope that video was really informative and gave you the insight that you need to make a good decision for your Podcast. Now before you go, if you are an independent podcaster that wants to continue to hone your skills and become better at your craft, whether it's growing your audience, becoming a better editor, or learning how to monetize your Podcast, make sure you subscribe to
the Buzzsprout YouTube channel because every single week
we put out multiple videos, covering everything
from microphone reviews, to step-by-step software tutorials and Podcast strategy videos. So if that sounds interesting to you, make sure you subscribe to the channel, hit the bell icon so you
can get notifications whenever we post new videos. And we'll do our part to
give you up to the date, tactics and strategies that are working for independent podcasters like you. Well that's it for today. Thanks for watching and as
always, keep Podcasting.
