How to record a remote podcast in good quality

Recording a podcast with someone in another city, or another country, is now ordinary. The hard part is the sound. A conversation that felt great while you were having it can turn out choppy, echoey or robotic when you play it back, and there's no way to fix a word that the connection swallowed.

The good news is that most of these problems are avoidable. This guide covers where remote recordings go wrong and what to do about each one, from the software to the room to the files you get at the end.

Why a video call recording isn't enough

When you record a regular video call, you're recording what arrived over the internet. To keep the call smooth, the sound and picture are squeezed to fit the connection. When the connection dips, the quality drops with it, and sometimes words simply go missing. What you hear while talking is fine for a conversation. As a podcast, it shows.

There's a second issue. A call recording usually gives you everyone mixed into one track. If your guest coughs while you're talking, or you both speak at once, you can't separate the two. Editing becomes a series of compromises.

Record each speaker on their own device

The fix is local recording. Each person's own computer or phone records their camera and microphone directly, at full quality, before anything goes over the internet. The call still runs so you can hear and see each other, but the recording doesn't depend on it.

That gives you two big advantages:

• A weak connection affects the conversation, but not the recording. If your guest's internet stutters, their own track stays clean.
• You get a separate file for each speaker. In editing, you can lower one voice, cut a cough or fix overlapping speech without touching the other person.

When you choose a tool, check how it handles a dropped connection or a closed browser tab. Good ones upload the recording in pieces while you talk, so an accident costs you seconds, not the episode.

The microphone matters more than anything else

Local recording only keeps what the microphone picks up. If the mic is the one built into a laptop, you'll get a clean recording of a laptop mic: distant, roomy and full of keyboard noise.

• A USB microphone is the simplest upgrade. You plug it in and it works.
• A headset with a microphone near the mouth is a solid second choice, and it keeps the voice close.
• Earbuds with a built-in mic are better than a laptop, but the mic hangs low and picks up clothing rustle.

Everyone should wear headphones. Without them, your voice comes out of the guest's speakers, goes into their microphone and ends up on their track as an echo. It's one of the most frequent problems in remote recordings, and one of the easiest to prevent.

Our article on webinar and podcast equipment goes into specific setups at different budgets.

The room

A quiet room with soft things in it sounds better than a large empty one. Bare walls and hard floors bounce sound back into the mic. A few practical choices help a lot:

• A bedroom or a room with a sofa, curtains and a rug usually sounds better than a kitchen or an office with glass walls.
• Sit close to the microphone, about a hand's width or two away. The closer you are, the less of the room it hears.
• Turn off fans and air conditioning for the recording if you can, and close the window.
• Put phones on silent, including vibration on a wooden table.

If you record video too, light matters next: sit facing a window or a lamp.

Preparing your guest

Your guest's sound is half the episode, and you have the least control over it. A short message a day or two before makes a big difference. Keep it friendly and practical:

1. Which link to open, on which device, and roughly how long it will take.
2. Please use headphones, and a microphone other than the laptop's if they have one.
3. Pick a quiet room, with the door closed.
4. Plug in the laptop, and close other apps and browser tabs.
5. If possible, use a cable or sit near the router.

Ask them to join a few minutes early. Use that time to check their level, ask them to say a sentence, and listen for echo or hum. It's much easier to fix it then than in editing. For the conversation itself, see how to interview a podcast guest.

During the recording

• Clap once at the start, or count to three together. It gives you a clear point to line up the tracks, even if your tool already marks the start of each file.
• Take turns. Remote conversations have a small delay, and people talk over each other more than in a room. A small pause before answering helps both the flow and the edit.
• If something goes wrong, like a siren outside or a dog, stop and repeat the sentence. With separate tracks it's easy to cut.
• Keep an eye on whether every speaker is recording. If one of them drops, you want to know right away.
• Don't rush the ending. Record a few seconds of silence before you stop, so the last word isn't cut off.

After the recording: the files

With local recording you'll usually get several files: one for each speaker, sometimes in both video and sound only, and often a mixed version of the whole conversation. Each has a use:

• The mixed file is good for a quick listen, sending to a guest for approval, or publishing as is if the conversation was clean.
• The separate tracks are what you edit with. Put them on separate tracks in your editor, line them up, and you can work on each voice alone.
• Clean sound files, uncompressed, give you the most room to adjust levels and remove noise.

Keep the original files somewhere safe before you start editing, and back them up. Once a guest has gone home, you can't record them again.

If you're still deciding whether to publish with video, our article on video or audio podcasts lays out the trade-offs. And if this is your first show, start with how to start a podcast.

Try it without committing

The Kolcast podcast studio records each speaker in their own browser, in full quality, so a weak connection never spoils the recording. Guests join with a link from a computer or a phone, with nothing to install, and you can have up to four people: you and three guests. When you finish, you get a video file and a clean WAV sound file for each speaker, plus one mixed file. You can see what's included in each plan on the pricing page.