Remote Recording Applications for Podcasting

Podcasting in the Philippines continues to grow rapidly and a lot of people are getting into this form of content creation. Why not, right? After all, we all grew up listening to radio shows like Good Times with Mo, Morning Rush, and Boys Night Out to name a few and we’ve all wondered how it would feel like if we had our own radio show. In a way, podcasting has been giving us that experience, as it lets us have our own theme, discussions, and style aired out and made available for everyone to listen to.

Big question is, how are you going to record your show with this lockdown brought about by the pandemic? The solution is to do Remote Recording. There is software that you can use to record your discussions without having to come to one studio and record everything. Here are a few that you guys can use for starters.

Zoom

Zoom is a widely-known application as a lot of people have started using this software during the lockdown for online meetings, online classes, conferences, and hang-outs with family and friends. Since most people already have Zoom, it has become an easy pick to do a remote recording as you won’t need to require others to download the software anymore. Zoom also gives you the option to download separate tracks of your recording making it easier to do post-record editing. Make sure to browse through the recording settings and check the box “Record Separate Audio File for Each Participant Who Speaks” to be able to enjoy this feature. Zoom is free to use but will cut your call after 40mins. If this seems troublesome for you, you may opt to upgrade to their Premium Services which lets you continue your call further than the allotted time.

Discord

Discord is a free-to-use, instant messaging, and VoIP application used mostly by gamers as it lets them communicate with their friends or teammates in real-time with minimal delays. Discord has different extension bots that let you do various things like play music while playing your favorite video game, send automated messages to those who are new to the server and record the audio of people who are in a specific voice channel. Discord has a CRAIG bot that lets you record high-quality audio and downloads them in separate tracks whether it’s in FLAC, WAV, or MP3 format. All you need to do is to invite CRAIG bot to your server and enter the commands needed to record your discussion.

Soundtrap

Soundtrap is a web-based digital audio workspace where you can record both music tracks and podcast tracks. It is owned by Spotify and recently got an update with its music maker app which you can use later on use to make your own intro and outro music for your show. A great feature on Soundtrap is that it can transcribe your podcast and lets you edit it like you would a Word doc as well. While it has all these great features, it also lets you invite guests over to “collaborate” with you as you interview them for your show. With all these great features, comes with a certain price. Starting at USD 7.99PHP 469INR 677EUR 8CNY 58 per month, users can enjoy an array of features like remote interviews, 600+ instruments, and sounds, as well as 5580+ loops, and 150k+ sound effects from freesound.org for added entertainment to your show.

Zencastr

Zencastr is a web-based solution for podcast production. It does not require you to download any software and it lets you record your discussion straight from the browser. This allows podcast producers to quickly record their guests over the web in studio quality by simply sharing a link and letting them into the digital audio workspace and start the session. After recording, Zencastr also lets you download tracks separately for easy post-edit recording. Currently, Zencastr is free to use with unlimited guests and recording time with the Coronavirus outbreak but once things go back to normal, people may need to pay USD 20PHP 1,174INR 1,695EUR 19CNY 146 a month to continue enjoying their professional services.

Cleanfeed

Cleanfeed is a multi-track, multi-party live audio recording website. It is straight-forward and easy to use with a simple user interface that lets you see who’s inside the digital audio workspace. Invites can be done through an email link and guests will be directed to the digital audio workspace immediately. There are recording options to place everything into a single output file, split audio tracks to the left and right channels, and multi-track split which is a premium service that lets each participant get a separate file for post-edit recording. Cleanfeed’s premium service costs a hefty USD 34PHP 1,995INR 2,881EUR 32CNY 247 a month but out of all the software included on this list, this website has the purest and best audio output quality.

Using the right tools to produce a high-quality podcast is important. That involves both software and hardware to get the best audio output. With the software that was listed above, it would all boil down to your preference and production budget for which one to use. As for the hardware, if you’re still looking for which microphone to get, make sure to check out these podcasting microphones under PHP 5,000USD 85INR 7,223EUR 81CNY 621 to get an idea of what you need.