February 7, 2006

Recording Interviews for Audio Podcasts

Much thanks to all of the guests who participated in the first 10 audio interviews for the Great Dance podcasts. You can listen to the interviews on the Great Dance weblog and you can also access these interviews on iTunes (if you have the iTunes software installed).

I've been saving the audio interviews in stereo format. In other words, my voice is on one channel and the voice of my guest is on another channel. This has ended-up causing occasional problems because not everybody's computer sound system plays back in stereo. So if you listen to the interviews in mono mode, you'll only hear one voice. So I guess I will have to save the recordings in mono from now on. I'm actually surprised by this because I thought just about all sound cards supported stereo playback and I was wondering if the problem is not that some sound systems don't support stereo, but that the settings are not configured properly. If you have experience with this, please let me know. I'd much rather save interviews in stereo format.

Equipment for Recording Interviews

Here's a run-down of the equipment I use to record interviews by telephone:

First, I needed a device that separated my voice from the voice of the person that I was calling. If you connect an audio recorder to a telephone line and record a conversation, the sound levels will not be matched. Your voice will be much louder than the person you are interviewing - this doesn't make for a good quality recording. And once a recording is made, there is no convenient way to edit the recording of the conversation and match the voice levels.

So I wanted a way to record and save each voice independently so that I could edit the volume levels for myself and my guest at a later date.

To do this, I bought a JK Audio Inline Patch - Telephone Audio Interface (retail price is $270 - I think I bought it for about $240 from Full Compass). I connected this device between my telephone and the wall jack. This device does exactly what I explained above. It separates each voice and outputs the audio to an audio recorder.

JK Audio Inline Patch

Digital Audio Recorder

Next, I needed a device to record the interviews. I use a portable digital audio recorder - a Marantz PMD660. Here's a description of this device - they list the price at $499. So it's come down a couple of hundred dollars since I first bought mine over a year ago. I might have bought my Marantz recorder from Full Compass as well.

Marantz PMD660

I record in stereo mode so that my voice and the guest's voice or saved on separate audio channels. The recording is saved to a compact flash card - that is about two inches square. After the interview, I take out the compact flash card from the Marantz and insert it into a flash card reader I have connected to my computer.

Compact Flash Card

Flash Card Reader

Just so you know, it did take me some time to figure out how to configure both the in-line patch and my digital recorder. There are a lot of buttons, knobs and options. So I'm still tweaking the settings to get the best audio recording as possible.

By the way, you don't need to buy a digital audio recorder. You could just use an inline audio patch and connect it directly to the sound card on your computer. I bought a portable digital audio recorder so that I could do interviews while on the road. Plus, I can easily carry the inline patch and Marantz recorder and connect them to any standard telephone line for recording interviews.

(In a future post, I'll write about how to create digital audio programs if you're just recording your voice and you have no need to record telephone conversations. It's easier and less expensive than the set-up that I'm describing in this post).

Audio Editing Software

I'm currently using the Creative WaveStudio audio editing software program that came bundled with my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card. I can edit an audio program and adjust the sound levels, and then save the file in MP3 format. But this software is too limiting. One of the features it does not have is noise reduction. So if there happens to be too much background noise on a phone conversation, I do not have a way to remove it. So I'm looking for a more advanced audio editing software program.

I just found the WavePad software from NCH Swift Sound (it sells for $76). This audio editing software is very popular on Download.com and the editorial and user ratings are all very high. I'm going to download trial version of this program and see how its noise reduction feature works.

Click for Larger Screen Shot

Trackback Pings