How to Record Podcasts from Two Separate Locations

Have you ever run an interview where the other person wasn’t in the same room as you? Have you ever created a column format podcast where you’ve recorded at different times or in different locations? Have you ever had a computer crash on you between podcasts practices and had to switch computers?

If you have then you’ve been faced with a situation where you are recording podcasts from two separate locations. It’s not unusual to have to record from multiple locations. Fortunately, it is also easy to do. In fact, it’s easier than recording more than one person in a single location. In this article Glen Ford shows you how to record podcasts from two separate locations.

The first solution is to actually make a single recording.

The easiest technique to do this is to use a telephone. Well not really. The easiest method is to make a Skype call. There are a number of tools available such as MP3 Skype Recorder which is free. One trick you can use for that particular tool is to record the call in stereo mode. This puts the microphone and the other party on separate tracks. You can then manipulate them separately and combine them in the editing step. You can also use this tool when calling more than one person using Skype’s conference call facility. Besides being the easiest this usually gives you the best quality.

The second easiest technique is to use a conference calling or teleconference service. Have everyone call into the conference call and then use the service’s recording features. Once downloaded you can use put the result through your editing process.

A third technique involves the use of a telephone microphone and a regular land line or mobile phone. There are several different types of these microphones ranging from a simple vibration microphone with a vacuum hook at the end to an inline decoder. The microphone can then be attached to either a digital recorder or a computer running Audacity or another voice recording software.

The second solution is to combine them in editing.

Under some circumstances it is not possible to create — or more frequently, use — a single recording. Sometimes you need to make a recording of each voice separately. There are many situations where this is true but the most frequent is when you are recording more than one person in the same location. Although you could use one omni-directional microphone using individual microphones will result in a much better quality recording.

A professional studio might use a multi-track recorder to make such a recording. However, that is typically beyond the capability of the amateur learning content product author. For those of us on a budget the trick is to make a recording of each person separately. I won’t repeat the techniques but they are essentially the same as the above.

Once you have each of the recordings you need to combine them. This is done using a multi-track editing software such as Audacity. Each of the recordings is matched so that they align… one person is speaking on all tracks at the same time. This is most easily done by inserting a tone into all of the recordings prior to beginning the recording. This key tone is matched and then removed. The result is a perfectly aligned set of tracks.

The duplications are then removed from each recording so that each of the tracks is a master track for only one source. Volumes and tones are then balanced so that no one track is louder or brasher than the others. The final step is to combine all the tracks so that a single master recording is available. This master recording can then be edited in the normal way.