How to record a long-distance podcast in decent quality?

[Mister Six]

A mate and I want to record a podcast for a laugh, but he's in France/China and I'm in America, so it'll have to be done over the web. I'd always assumed this would result in shite quality, but some of the lockdown podcasts I've been listening to - the amateur stuff too, not Louis Theroux's one - have sounded fine.

Anyone got any suggestions for how to ensure consistent (and ideally good) quality for the both of us? A last-ditch move would be to record individually at both ends and cut them together, but that would be prohibitively time-intensive, and probably sound shite whenever we interrupted each other.

[thugler]

Yeah just record your own voices separately and overlay them. It's not that difficult. That's how they do it i gather, so they have a live conversation but do a seperate record of their own side of it.

[Fr.Bigley]

Buy a Codec used for voice over work. Low latency and basically like being in the studio wherever you're at.

[notjosh]

Anyone got any suggestions for how to ensure consistent (and ideally good) quality for the both of us? A last-ditch move would be to record individually at both ends and cut them together, but that would be prohibitively time-intensive, and probably sound shite whenever we interrupted each other.

I think this is much more simple than you think. Good quality mics at both ends. Start a video conference. Count yourselves in to turning the recordings on. When you're done, lay them on top of each other in Audible (or Garageband or whatever). Loads of podcasts operate this way (Athletico Mince for example).

[the]

Count yourselves in to turning the recordings on.

An easier way to sync it would be, once you're both recording, both count up to (say) 4 and then clap in unison. Then when you're combining the two recordings in the edit, line up the clap sound of both recordings to sync.

Could maybe do the same again at the end of the recording to measure if it's drifted.

[Mister Six]

Coo, good call. So having the shit voice under the good voice (and vice versa?) doesn't make it sound crappy and fuzzy or anything? Is this just pure Phil Spector Wall of Sound magic?

[Mister Six]

Buy a Codec used for voice over work. Low latency and basically like being in the studio wherever you're at.

Do you know of any particular names? And do these codecs work in anything?

[Fr.Bigley]

The codecs themselves are much of a muchness APTs and suchlike can be had for a few hundred quid. It's having an ISDN line fitted which might make it a tad expensive. 50-couple hundred a month but it's the industry standard in recording voice.

[Fr.Bigley]

Source-connect now is a good free option and it's over IP so more akin to what you might know. Chrome has extensions n shit.

[Replies From View]

Coo, good call. So having the shit voice under the good voice (and vice versa?) doesn't make it sound crappy and fuzzy or anything? Is this just pure Phil Spector Wall of Sound magic?

You would wear headphones to reduce how much "shit voice" is picked up by the good microphones.

[Mister Six]

Source-connect now is a good free option and it's over IP so more akin to what you might know. Chrome has extensions n shit.

That sounds a bit more like my level, ta. We're just doing this for fun so splashing hundreds of pounds on it might be a bit much.

You would wear headphones to reduce how much %u201Cshit voice%u201D is picked up by the good microphones.

Sorry to be so thick, but just to check:

1- Do call over Skype or whatever
2- Each record the call at our end on the same PC/Apple we're speaking on
3- Wear headphones to minimise audio picked up by our individual microphones
4- Lay one recording over the other (with a clap to help time it) and export, once the sound levels are about the same?

[PlanktonSideburns]

Yea if your recording separately with a recording software, it will pick up nice mocrophone sound, not the turd tier zoom garble

[Mister Six]

Woo! Brilliant, thanks!

[the]

Coo, good call. So having the shit voice under the good voice (and vice versa?) doesn't make it sound crappy and fuzzy or anything?

No - if you record the overall call then you'll be at the mercy of the sound quality of the returning audio, which you won't be able to remove from the recording.

The original suggestion was that you each make your own recordings of only your speech (through decent mics). This means that the audio file is only a recording of your voice, NOT recording the overall Skype/whatever call. (ie. Person A records only their own voice, and Person B does the same on their end. Then you take these two recordings and combine them.)

If you both have separate equipment to record the sound in your respective rooms while you both wear headphones to hear the call, then that should do it.

If not, I don't know how easy it is to route whatever mic is picking up your voice for the call to a separate isolated recording. But if one or both of you has a crappy (inbuilt?) mic for this then it's going to affect the quality.

And if you both have decent mics but you find you can't both achieve the above, then it might be worth giving the Source-Connect Now suggestion a go.

[the]

So basically:

1- Do call over Skype or whatever
2- Each record the call at our end on the same PC/Apple we're speaking on
3- Wear headphones to minimise audio picked up by our individual microphones
4- Lay one recording over the other (with a clap to help time it) and export, once the sound levels are about the same?

... for 2) you both need to make sure you're only making a recording of your voice, not recording the audio of the whole call.

[Mister Six]

Brill, thanks all. Are there any mics that can compensate for the rooms' sizes affecting the sound or am I just making up sci-fi technology here?

[chveik]

don't forget to make the squarespace ads!

[Mister Six]

I was thinking of going for Casper mattresses.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Brill, thanks all. Are there any mics that can compensate for the rooms' sizes affecting the sound or am I just making up sci-fi technology here?

Nah, just gotta record it in a not too boomy room

[Better Midlands]

Nah, just gotta record it in a not too boomy room

Making a little blanket/towel tent helps too

[Mister Six]

Fuck, I meant to put this in the tech board. Sorry Neil.