How do you get in-studio quality with long distance interviews?

In this bonus episode, Travis teaches Ted how he's able to get super high-quality audio even when interviewing people on the other side of the world.

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Transcript

spk_0:   0:12
But Ted, what is what is your most depressing podcast related question right now? Maybe I can help you

spk_1:   0:17
with, like, kind of tea. Is this a little bit when we were talking before we started recording? Because one thing I've been impressed with about what you're doing with this show is having the experience of I certainly felt like when I was listening to other episodes and I was listening to two people in a studio together. And so when I can, I submitted my application to come on here and saw some of the workings of how you actually set it up to get the audio quality that you get for We're not on the phone, but for just kind of a general term. A phone call. I I have found it really interesting, too. Talk to you about how you do that. I think other podcasters would be interested in just kind of the set up of how you how you produce these interviews?

spk_0:   1:05
Yeah, I could definitely talk about that. So essentially, what I do for these episodes is a couple things. I I use zoom, which is ah, online web conferencing tool that allows you to, uh, have a video component, which I really like, because then I feel like I'm getting to know the person I'm talking to, even though we've never met before in our entire life. For the most part, um, and it also allows you to record each person's audio separately. Which makes it a lot easier if you know one person's louder or quieter, or there's some ambient noise in the background. I want to cut out like that gives me a lot more flexibility when I'm editing it. But then something that I do for this podcast because I'm interviewing podcasters that have microphones and know their way around Ah, audio editing software and things like that. We'll also use audacity, which is a free audio editing tool that you can download on Windows or Mac, Or even I believe Lennox as well. I'm running to any Lennox podcasters yet, uh, but but it's a free tool that you can download, and I use that, too. Record each person's audio locally because the problem with any online interview tool is the software is going to compress your audio file two to make it more seamless and more real time even though you're you're in different parts of the world, right? So if I'm in Florida and I'm talking to someone in the Czech Republic, which just happened, then Zoom is going to compress those audio files and make them smaller. Less high def. Um, and so the sound quality isn't as great now, compared to like Skype or some of these other solution. Zoom has really great audio quality, but it's not the same as you just recording straight in your computer. So So, in addition to using Zoom, I will use audacity. We'll we'll jump on it the beginning of the episode. Get audacity set up on both sides, make sure all the settings are good. I know when we were setting up this interview is about 20 minutes of Googling. What kind of privacy settings need to get toggled on and off so that he would recognize your microphone? Which that was a fun journey? Learned something new today? Uh, but that's what I do. And then after the interview is over, I will send my guest a link to a drop box. Ah, request site. It's like a It's like a website where people can drag in files, and I just asked them to export the audacity file as away file and send it to me. And that's the the audio that makes it into the final episode. And then I just you zoom to kind of sync up the audio, so I know that, Okay, this is where this audio needs to start. This with. This audio needs to start and just line everything up, because if different people are starting recording at different times, it can be difficult when you bring everything together. You know, like, how do I get the timing right? How do we make sure that the questions the answers are lining up correctly? But then, once I have everything lined up than I am, you zoom right, delete, zoom and just go with the original audio files. And that's that's what allows it to have that kind of in studio feel. Even though it's it's long distance, and I'm still waiting for that perfect online solution. There are some some new ones that are coming that have come out recently that I think shows some promise that will allow me to not have to make Ivor this this show together. um, one that I'm keeping my eye I Honest squad Cast squad cast on FM where they, uh, use video, which I'm a big fan off. But then also, uh, upload the local lossless audio files to the server as your recording. Um, my only my only hesitation with those kinds of solutions is whenever you introduce Internet and broadband into the equation of how good your audio is. Uh, you're always kind of beholden to each person's upload speeds. And so someone doesn't have fantastic Internet that control the sabotage, your quality, which is one benefit of using audacity. Zero Internet involved in getting good audio from. But, ah, you just do the best you can. I mean, like I said, I have the luxury of kind of tweaking this and doing 20 minutes of text set up with my guests to really dial it in. It's not always realistic for everyone, but that's that's how I'm able to get that kind of studio in studio quality, even though I do long distance interviews.

spk_1:   5:30
But it's really interesting, because I think I kind of it doesn't sound like you need to. I kind of assumed you had to have a mixer on your end. In order to do that,

spk_0:   5:40
you know, it is very simple. Once you once you figure out and the other key, the only reason I use audacity is because it will not compete with Zoom. So, like garage Band comes preinstalled on all Mac books. But it will not let you recording garage band and zoom simultaneously. It just will not let you do that. And so audacity is, you know, not smart enough to do. You realize it's playing second fiddle and we'll say, Oh, yeah, I know. I'm just grateful that you're opening up my application on your computer and you can you can put me in the background and I won't pitch a fit and I'll just record everything wonderfully for you. So yeah, so it's It's just trying all these different things to figure out. How do I get the best audio quality? Well, also, you know, not shipping microphones and, you know, field recorders and stuff around the world