Today on five minute Monday, we'll compare a few software solutions for conducting online interviews. Welcome to five minute Monday where we bring you the best tips and strategies for building your podcast in five minutes or less. So if you're new here, consider subscribing.
Now, if you incorporate interviews into your podcast, chances are at some point you'll need to record a conversation with someone that doesn't live close to you and it's not feasible to fly all over the country or all over the world to record interviews for your podcast. So what are the best software solutions, solutions that allow you to interview someone on line?
There are two that we recommend that I'll dive into, and then I'll also explain how we record interviews for podcasting in real life, which is the other show here on buzz cast. So the first software solution that we recommend is zoom. Zoom is an all in one online meeting platform. Just a couple of the features that zoom has that help it to stand out above the competition is that it has the capability for video. This is really important.
If you want to have a more intimate interaction or conversation with your guest and you don't know them or haven't had any kind of conversations with them before the interview. Being able to see their face, being able to read their body language is going to help you have a more natural conversation. Zoom also allows you to record separate audio tracks for each person. This is really important when you're mixing your final episode audio.
If your audio level is at a different place than theirs or if there's some background noise on your end that you want to eliminate while they're talking, you'll need separate audio tracks. Be able to do that quickly and easily and zoom allows you to do that. The other thing that's really cool about zoom is that guests can call in on their phone.
Uh , when you send them an invite to join the interview, there'll be a link that they can join using an internet browser or a phone number they can call in as well. The other thing that's great about zoom is that there's a free option. If it's just going to be you and one other person, then you can have unlimited to person meetings for free with all the features that I just talked about.
Now there's one reason why you shouldn't use zoom and that's if audio quality is supremely important to you because zoom is conducting the interview in real time online zoom has to process your audio and so the recording that you get is not as great as if you were just recording on your own in your home or recording space. So if audio quality is really important to you, don't use zoom. Now the other software solution that we recommend is zencaster.
Zencaster was created specifically for podcasters and so they went out of their way to make it really easy to record high quality audio. It's very easy for guests to dial in. You just send them a link and they click on the link and there they've joined meeting.
Uh, Zencaster is able to have more of a higher quality audio because instead of processing the audio in real time, they record separate audio tracks locally on each person's device and then we'll upload both of those files to a Dropbox folder for you to go and grab to use in the final episode. Now you shouldn't use zencaster if you want to see your guest because then cast your does not have a video component at least at this time, and it's also not free. It does require a bit of an investment.
So if you're looking for a free solution, then zencaster is not going to be for you. Now the way that we do podcasting in real life interviews is we use a combination of zoom and audacity and we record what's called a double ender where each person records their audio locally using audacity audition or something similar. And so I will use the zoom recording to sync the separate audacity files in r d a w which is a digital audio workstation like Garageband, audacity or addition .
And so that is able to take the benefits in Zencaster to get the best audio without sacrificing video. I'm still able to talk to the person over zoom, but then each of us is recording our own separate audio file on our computers and then we upload those to a Dropbox folder. Now, I would not recommend this if your guest is not tech savvy compared to audio quality. The story and how well you do your interview is significantly more important to your listeners.
So don't make it too difficult for your guest to be part of your podcast. Need some help with your podcast, the Buzzsprout podcast community on Facebook is a great place to find answers and get the help that you need to make your podcast as excellent as possible. So if you're not a member yet, just click on the link in the show notes and ask to join. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you soon.