How can you conduct remote interviews that sound like they were done in person?

When it’s apparent that your remote guest does not have a good enough microphone, and it is an important interview, one thing I have done is ask them to set their smartphone down in front of them with the voice memo running a recording. Then have them email this to you afterwords. It helped to bring better audio to the piece on more than a few occasions. In post-production you can blend this audio track with your own by manually synchronizing them. The other thing you can consider if you have really terrible audio in the finished product is to run it through Adobe Podcast app or enable Studio Sound plugin inside Descript. Descript is a transcription product mainly, but it can help clean up poor audio.

To conduct remote interviews that emulate in-person interactions, invest in quality audio equipment and use video conferencing platforms like Zoom. Establish rapport with your guest beforehand and maintain eye contact by looking into the camera during the interview. Edit the audio post-interview to remove any technical glitches. With these steps, your remote interviews will sound as engaging as face-to-face conversations. Happy interviewing!

Stop using Zoom. High-quality remote audio requires both the right microphone (an XLR is worth it) and the right recording platform. Riverside + Squadcast will be the best options for most people: they both record files locally. Riverside currently has the advantage in customization of separate video and audio file outputs that allow greater sound quality control, whereas Squadcast now integrates directly into Descript for easy, AI-enabled editing and a simple workflow. Perhaps the best feature of both platforms is that even if connection quality drops, localized recordings mean that you'll still get high-quality recordings. If you haven't upgraded your remote recording workflows, it's time - the difference in quality is noticeable.

I spent years recording on Zoom and recently moved to Riverside to enable separate video and audio files, greater sound quality control and AI powered outputs. It's important that a recording platform is accessible and stable for all participants and is tested before investing too much time and money into it.

The biggest item is the microphone and how it's used. a usb mic will do the trick but make sure it's placed just under your stream of voice and not too close to the speaker's mouth. Squadcast, Riverside are two platforms that are build for audio + video recording online and will give you great quality.

There are several tricks you can use to compensate for potential noise in your environment or echo through filters and settings in some platforms. The quality of your microphone and how it is used also makes a huge difference. So in many cases it is best to do your research and test before investing too much into room treatments.

You may think a USB microphone and a good pair of headphones will get you the quality you want, but for high-quality remote audio recordings, you need both the right software setup and an XLR microphone. There are plenty of great equipment lists out there - I recommend the Shure MV7 as a strong ~$180 XLR option for most people. Beyond the microphone (and making sure it's properly set up for you), background noise and the room you record in are your biggest considerations. You've got to limit hard surfaces and reduce echo and reverberation. After the fact, software tools - whether Krisp or Descript's Studio Sound - are a great way to clean up your audio.

You'll probably have little control over your guest's remote environment. Send a list of recording tips to your guest that can help them contribute better audio. Or if you really want it to sound professional, make an arrangement with a recording studio in their area to record their side and send you the audio. (Called a "double-ender".)

Wenn Sie zwei Gäste interviewen möchten, stellen Sie sicher, dass sich beiden in 2 verschiedenen Räumen aufhalten und jeder mit seinem eigenen Gerät eingeloggt ist. Wenn beide an einem Computer sitzen, sitzen sie immer unterschiedlich weit vom Mikrofon entfernt. Im Schnitt führt das zu deutlichem Mehraufwand, um diese Unterschiede auszugleichen.

Yes, you can work on your acoustics, and you must do it. But you are interviewing other person or people that are in other places, with other microphones, surrounding noise, etc. Usually your audio quality trends to be better than your guests, unless you interview another podcaster o someone with good equipment and acoustical environment. If you want to sound like a live interview, your editing phase is very important.

Prep your podcast guests a week in advance with a concise one-sheet checklist. It ensures a smooth, time-efficient interview. Include: use over-ear headphones (not AirPods), an external mic, a freshly rebooted computer with only recording software running. For internet, wired connection is best, but if using Wi-Fi, confirm at least 5Mbps upload speed with SpeedTest.net. If it's a live show, ask guests to join 15 minutes early to avoid rushing. Simple prep can lead to great interviews!

I've interviewed hundreds of guests over the years and the one thing I can say is BE PREPARED. If you have a good outline for your show, and you take the time before you press record to set the expectations and goals of the show, you and your virtual guest should have a lot easier time having an authentic conversation that will sound like it was recorded in person. As it pertains to the tech, use a good tool like Riverside.FM to avoid latency to keep the awkward pauses at a minimum, and make sure you edit out any of those in post to ensure your listener never knows that happened in the first place.

Even a small latency over a remote connection means that interruptions can play out awkwardly, and you won't be able to rely on the natural flow of conversation like you would in-person. Have a clear end to your questions signaling it's time for them to speak. If you speak after them and hear yourself interrupting as their delayed audio comes through, don't stop talking. Just continue as they have likely stopped speaking on their end already, reacting to your delayed audio reaching them. It usually sounds better to just push through your interruption even if it seems rude to you.

It is important to inquire what type of setup your virtual guest has. Be sure to inquire on their setup and offer insights on how to get the best audio and video quality at their disposal. Often there are ways for them to rent or borrow equipment if necessary. It is hard for a listener to hear the host crystal clear and then have a guest that sounds far away.

Preparation separates podcasts. You'll outperform if you: - Do your research - Share clear recording expectations with guests - Communicate an outline in advance When you level up your pre-recording preparation and communication, guests will come more prepared to have the right conversation - and you'll ensure they've got the right audio/visual setup for your show. Plus your host will feel more comfortable. A great approach is to do a pre-production call to test your guest's sound quality and compatibility with your show, plus let you ask informational questions to help you build a talk track for your episode. By setting you and your guest up for success you also build a connection and increase the guest's commitment to social sharing.

If you're just getting started with podcast editing, I can't recommend Descript for editing enough. Descript's simple workflows and AI-enabled tools make editing a podcast easy for anyone those of us who aren't audio experts. Plus with a paid Descript subscription you get access to Squadcast for recordings, improving remote recording quality and simplifying your editing workflow with automatic uploads. Alternatively, consider seeking out an editor with a scalable process whom you can pay a nominal amount for professional quality editing. There are a ton of great editors out there and depending on your show + budget, it might be worth focusing yourself on hosting, growth, and monetization while scaling your podcast.

Record some small amount, like 3 seconds, of silence in a session to use as a noise print for removing noise. Sometimes the background noise in a room changes, e.g., an air conditioner turns on. In this case, you may want to apply different noise prints to different sections of the audio to remove different kinds of noise.

As I said at point 1 of this article, it's a must that the platform you use gives you one MP3 per person in the interview. Now you can work on each separately for unifying levels, volume, reducing noise, equalizing, etc. If your guest had a different gain level, now you can equalize it; or you have more surrounding noise, etc. Most interview podcasts have the problem that the guest sound quality is way worse than the host, it sounds too much like an ancient telephone call. When editing, try to match the sound of your guest and yours: volume, tone, echoes, etc. Phone calls tend to enhance some frequencies and low others. When editing, try to fix that with the equalizer.

You don’t always have to be on at the same time as your guests. With the power of editing tools and platforms, you can have your guests record their comments at their own pace. Just agree on a specific date for submissions so you can edit your and their parts in time and combine them into a solid episode. I have done this in my podcast series with multiple members from different parts of the world. With great editing, you can still get the same sense of continuity in your podcast.

It's easier to focus on your recording environment because you have control over it. But more than half of the recording will probably be your guest talking. What you can ask of them in a remote location may be very limited, but sending them a "tips for good recording" doc ahead of the interview might get them to find a quiet room. If you can arrange for a remote recording studio to host them, that would be ideal for quality. Other better-than-average options for remote recording are inside parked cars, single-person conference rooms, and telephone booths. The recording space will affect quality much more than any microphone, so there's no point in shipping a fancy mic out to an interviewee.

If your podcast is only audio, I recommend you using an online platform to record your interviews better than sharing a room. When you hear interviews on the radio, everything is controlled by professionals, the space is a pro studio, microphones are very high quality and they have mixing boards to manage many different channels of sound... If that's not your case, if you use only one mic for the interview it will be way more difficult to edit later. And if you use 2 separate mics that record independent MP3, be careful about not mix sounds, try not to be heard by the other mic adjusting gain levels, distances and talking volume: each one must be heard and recorded only by its own microphone.

The main goal with remote interviews is being intimate with your guest, just like you would be if you were face to face. But it's an essential part of sounding as authentic as if it was recorded face to face. You need to consider eye contact. Don't get too distracted by your screen, focus on your guest. Ask your guest to wear a headset, so that your voice is directly in their ear. What you loose remotely in physical distance, you'll gain with the contact of your voice. Take your time, don't rush to fill in the silence.

A practical solution is to invest in a USB microphone along with a protective case and send it to your guests, especially if they are in the same country or nearby. By initiating a chain where each guest passes the microphone to the next, you ensure consistent access to high-quality audio for continued collaboration. Alternatively, in the absence of shared equipment, new AI solutions can efficiently process audio with just a few clicks, achieving studio-like quality. An example I've personally tested and used is Adobe Podcast, demonstrating the potential for enhancing sound quality even without specialized recording setups.