RECORDING OPTIONS AND SETTINGS
The following are the best option/settings for
1. Interviews
2. Solo Recordings
3. Weekly episode with the *same* co-host.
1. Interviews:
Settings for Riverside
IMPORTANT! Everyone MUST be wearing earbuds or headphones. Each mic should ONLY pick up the person speaking and not be able to hear the other people in the conversation, so no computer speakers, only earbuds or headphones.
Riverside is the most popular video/audio remote recording system for podcasters. Here are the best settings to prepare your show for us to post produce.
Access Riverside Settings
Click the gear icon top left:
Participant Audio Recording Settings:
“Record Only Audio” – Turn this ON if you don’t *need* video
- Video is 10x larger than audio and will slow you down at every step (uploading, Descript editing, downloading etc). If you need video for both you and your guest then leave this off.
“Use Noise Reduction” – Off
- we will be able to remove the noise in a more natural way.
- This will ensure the highest quality for your audio and our templates are 48k so it means no time spent converting on our end.
Turn Echo Cancellation Off – This prevents one person’s voice from muffling the other persons but requires that each mic can only hear the person using it and not the person on the other end, so no loud speakers to hear your guest, only earbuds (for a more technical explanation ask me in slack)
Video Settings
If you want high quality video, upgrade and update this to enable 1080p, if you are recording solo (or with the same remote co-host every week) see OBS below.
2. Solo Recordings:
If you’re recording audio only you can record directly into Descript, if you want to record audio and video you have a couple of free local options, local means not over the internet and will always be better quality and no need to download files.
Mac users: Quicktime (free and built in to all Macs) - Windows users see #3 below (OBS)
Quicktime is the perfect option to quickly and perfectly record your audio/video solo episodes and shorts etc.
- Launch Quicktime player on your Mac. To do this use the spotlight icon top right (magnifying glass in your menu bar) and type Quicktime, then you’ll see this in your menu bar at the top left.
- Click “File” then “New Movie Recording”
- Click the small options arrow and select your Mic and Camera (Now you should see yourself and see the levels reacting to your mic.
- Click record then when you’re done simply go to “file” and click “save”. Then you can upload this to Descript.
3. Solo Video OR Same Remote Cohost Weekly - Free option for Mac and Windows
For this option you and your co-host will both be recording Audio/Video locally in perfect quality then combining and syncing in Descript.
For this we use OBS (Open Broadcast Software) click here to download
After you install it and launch if for the first time, you’ll see this permissions page, be sure to grant access to Camera and Microphone
- Run the test when prompted and choose “Optimise for Recording”
- Set recording to 1080p
- Once that is finished, add your microphone by clicking the three dots next to “Mic”
- Choose your correct mic from the dropdown
- Now we need to add your camera, this is done by adding a “source” by clicking the plus sign
- Then click “video capture device” (Camera)
- Create New (Name it whatever you want) and click OK
- Add your Camera from the dropdown and you should see yourself right away
- Now all you need to do is click “Start Recording” then “Stop Recording” when you’re finished. No need to save, that’s done automatically and the video is placed in your videos folder, you can see where it’s stored by clicking “Settings”
- Then click “Output” and you’ll see the path where your videos are being saved, you can click “Browse” and change that to whatever you want and as soon as you click “finish recording” your video will be waiting for you there.
