Podcast recording

Special Interest Groups Podcasting
1

Hello-

I am using Windows 8.1, with Audacity 2.1.0. I’m not sure about the third question or where to obtain the information?

My question is I am attempting to record a podcast. The first episode I recorded sounded okay however my co-host who I recorded through Skype volume was really low and muffled.

I attempted to record a second podcast along with my co-host. And we had a call in which I used Skype’s three way call feature. At first when recording it would not pick up the audio of the co-host. Now I cannot seem to record my voice. I have visited numerous tutorials on youtube but have still not been able to solve my problems.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

2

Recording from Skype is tricky because the normal Windows drivers can only record from one device at a time.

There is a popular Skype recording program called [u]Pamela[/u].

3

I’ve heard this is a common practice in the podcasting world.

4

Another good way to use Skype in Podcasts is for each party to record their side of the conversation direct from a microphone. The “interviewee” then sends their recording to the “producer” as a high quality WAV or FLAC format file. The podcast producer then edits the file into the show.

Yet another method is to use two computers and a mixing desk. One computer handles the Skype and the other handles the recording (see this topic for some discussion about this method: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/balancing-a-sound-board-with-skype-calls/38311/1)

Attempting to handle live Skype and live voice recording on one computer is a common cause of problems. I would not recommend doing it that way.

5

Well, Steve, you make me officially blond again. :laughing:

This is maybe obvious to some, but it isn’t to me. I think I may adopt this next time I need to setup Skype for recording.

6

There is one podcast and poster who just set up Audacity and Skype and he’s been recording his Skype podcast ever since.

https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/record-mic-and-computer-sound-simultaneously/28990/3
http://reellife.podomatic.com/

He was, as we say, supersonically lucky. That doesn’t work for most podcasters who try it. They all get what you got: “I can’t hear the far end, the sound is garbled, etc.”

Neither Skype nor Audacity play well with others. They both struggle for mastery of the microphone and speaker and it’s usually the user who loses.

Pamela is the paid solution. It (she?) knows all about Skype and how to correctly manage the sound channels. It will give you two different high quality WAV recordings, left and right, with you on one side and the guest on the other. This will let you apply corrections to one side without affecting the other.

http://www.pamela.biz/en/products/

You don’t have to use a paid solution. There are freebies out there, but beware of programs that automatically mix near and far or insist on producing MP3 instead of WAV.

https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/help-recording-with-a-mic-laptop-and-headphones/35068/6

I did my podcast test the hard way. I threw hardware at it. This is the two computer and mixer version.

This is a very ratty podcast we shot.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/clips/DeniseFirstPass-Edited.mp3

Denise sounds like she’s on the sofa behind me, doesn’t she? She’s not. She’s four time zones away.

This is how the better podcasts do it. The control is much better and you can add guests and other sound effects if you wish. This is how the Pando Podcast shoots their show.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/PandoPodcast.png

Most of that reduces down to two computers and a mixer. He, for example, is probably playing Angry Birds.

Koz

7

Local recording and shipping sound files across the internet is also highly recommended…if all your performers are good at shooting themselves. That’s how this was done. I know it looks like a fancy-pants Skype session, but it’s good old-fashioned copying sound files hither and yon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU8hXDim-1s

Of course, this also depends on you being able to ship sound files around. My email poops out at 25MB and large, high-quality WAV files are very highly recommended.

Koz