7 Recording Software
John Kane
Local Recording
If you wish to record podcasts on your phone, there are numerous free and inexpensive recording apps available for iOS and Android devices. On iOS devices, some of the more popular recording apps are:
- Voice recorder (free – available by swiping up on phone to reach the Control Center)
- Voice Memos (located in Utilities folder)
- SoundCloud
- Garage Band (available for free on iOS devices) – also provides basic editing capabilities
- Squadcast.fm and Riverside.fm provide recording apps that allow recordings from multiple remote users (requires monthly or annual subscription to their recording services)
- Most podcast hosting services (such as Buzzspout, Podbean, Anchor, Spreaker, etc.) provide recording apps that upload recorded podcasts to the hosting service.
- Hokusai Audio Editor
- Hindenburg Field Recorder (a more expensive app ($29.99), but it has some good editing tools.
Some of the more popular android recording apps:
- Spreaker Studio
- Anchor
- Podbean
- SoundCloud
- Podomatic Podcast Recorder
If you buy an external mic for an iOS or Android device, it generally will include audio editing software which allows for higher quality audio recording and editing.
Most podcasts, though, are recorded using Windows or Mac laptops or desktops. Most recording on desktops and laptops is done using audio editing software such as:
- Audacity (free)
- Adobe Audition (expensive, unless provided by your campus)
- ProTools (more expensive)
- Reaper ($60 or nagware)
- Hindenberg ($10 per month)
- GarageBand (free on Apple products)
Recording remote guests
You will have access to a wider range of guests if you are willing to record them remotely. The least expensive option is to use Zoom, Skype, Facetime, or Google hangouts and to record the audio during the call using the recording tools in the app or an audio capture tool such as Audio Hijack (or other audio capture software). Remote recordings captured in this way, though, generally have lower quality audio due to audio compression and network lag.
A much better, albeit more expensive, approach is to use a software service that records each participant locally in high quality audio and streams this back to a server. Commonly used services include:
Each of these services will allow you to download separate audio tracks for each guest, allowing you to clean up any audio issues (such as ringing phones, lawnmowers, doorbells, bumps against the table, etc) on individual tracks before mixing the audio from all participants together into a mono or stereo recording. Most of these services also allow you to record video as well as audio if you wish to release the podcast in a video format. (We don’t use video because we edit out filler words, repeated words, and false starts on sentences and this would result in numerous jump cuts in the video.)
