Should you record your podcast interviews on one track or two? Today I want to talk about the power of multitrack recording and how it can take your podcast listening experience, but also post production experience to the next level, and ultimately create an even more powerful opportunity for you to have clarity in your episodes. Before we dive in, here's a word from our sponsor. I have been in the podcasting space for a while now. And let me tell you one of the biggest struggles I see podcasters dealing with is the quality of their podcast recordings. From choppy audio to lagging video, the list could go on forever, but not with Riverside FM. As a virtual recording studio, I can rely on it for creating studio quality content in both audio and video formats. Riverside has become my go to tool for recording solo episodes, interviews, mic check society trainings, and even taking my calls with their built in editor. It's an all in one software for podcasters, especially if you're just starting out. Not only is it easy to use, but it's a lifesaver for repurposing content. My absolute favorite feature is magic clips, where with the click of a button, you have already made social media clips for easy promotion and sharing to drive even more listeners to your podcast. Get started today with Riverside FM by heading to the link in our show notes or going to creators.riverside.fm forward slash clocking in and use the code Gaffin 15 for 15% off. Hey y'all welcome to the clocking in Podcast, the podcast for podcasters entrepreneurs and professionals making their way in the working world while building their own personal brand in the podcasting industry. I'm your host Haylee Gaffin owner of Gaffin creative a podcast production company for creative entrepreneurs. If you're a podcaster, or even just dreaming about launching your own podcast someday, this show was built to help you merge your love of conversation, education and business, you can find resources shownotes and more for the clocking in podcast at Gap and creative.com. Today's episode is brought to you by Mike check society, a community that was built for podcasters who are looking to take their podcast from good to great, scale your podcasts, improve your processes and connect with your listeners through our educational trainings, our private members only community and our monthly calls. If you're ready to join us, you can head over to Mic check society.com and enroll today. And you can get $10 off per month with the code podcast. Now let's clock in and get to work. Hello, Hello friends. Welcome back to the basics. This is a series where we are taking you back to the beginning foundations of your podcast. And in today's episode, we are talking about multitrack recordings. And this is not like one of those topics that you hear a ton of people talk about. And you don't know unless you know how important it is. So I want to highlight why a multitrack recording is important how you can actually accomplish a multitrack recording, and then also what it means for the quality of your podcast. So first things first, what is a multitrack recording? Essentially, it is where it records one track per participant of your interview. So this means that I would have my own track recorded of just my audio and then my guests would have their own track of audio recorded. Now, almost all of the tools allow for this to happen. But not every tool defaults to it. So you heard earlier Riverside is actually the sponsor of today's episode, they are my go to tool for remote interview recordings, and even some in person I've done before. But what I love about Riverside is that they default to recording multitrack. Like they have the standard and then they have the video and then they have default tracks. Now, I love this about them. The other thing that I really love about their tool in particular, is that when it's recording, and I'm probably going to butcher this so they probably explained it more eloquently than I can. But essentially, when you're recording with a guest, their track is being recorded on their end and yours is being recorded on your end. So it is gathering everything that is said even if there's an interruption in the internet service where there's glitches and you can't really hear what they're saying. Riverside is still tracking it. They're still uploading that exact conversation so that in post production, you can correct it. But one quick tip for you as you are are recording, especially in Riverside is make sure that your recording and your guests recording both upload 100% Before you sign off, otherwise, I'll have to send them a link. And we just want to make sure that that is all set and good. Now that I have kind of explained what this multitrack recording looks like, I do want to talk about three benefits of recording multiple tracks. The first one is it does enhance your audio quality. And what I mean by this is when you are actually having these conversations, and there's either a delay in the conversation or a delay in you hearing what your guests is saying, having the multitrack allows for us to correct that. So like if you talk over each other, anything like that, it just creates a better audio quality experience, so that we're not trying to clean up one track, but we can't really get it all, you know, and I'll talk about that more in just a moment. Because the second reason is the flexibility that it does provide in post production. So I'm going to run through a few scenarios in which I am so thankful for two tracks from my clients. And one of those is exactly what I was just talking about if you talk over each other, if you interrupt each other and it doesn't like make sense for the conversation. So say, well, we'll put it on the guest for this scenario, say that your guest actually interrupts you. But you're still talking and you're like, I need to finish this thought. You can keep finishing your thought. And what we do in post is we kind of cut off where they interrupted you. And then we move it over a little bit, and we move it to her it sounds like they didn't interrupt you. That is something that our team does. Most podcast producers are going to do this, the only time that our team does it is when we're not provided a multitrack. And we're only provided one. Now, the second scenario, and this happens way more often than you would think. Because I don't like for my guests to mute and unmute. I think it does delay the conversation a little bit. But we do clean that up. But because not every podcast guests is muting, you're getting any cough that they have any grab of a drink. So they may think like, oh, this can be edited out later. But when it's on the same track as yours, we're not editing that out, it's on the track with it. So that is another scenario in which I would just call there's a third scenario is we have had guests who you can hear an echo in their from their end. So like they're not wearing headphones, the host didn't recognize it couldn't figure it out. And if they provide us one track, we can't remove that echo. So you essentially have to rerecord, I will say there are tools out there that I have played around with the audio quality just as not as good. When that happens, which goes back to point one, audio quality, it all comes down to that audio quality. The third benefit overall is that it just provides a better listening experience. All of these things that we would edit out all of these things that we would do for your podcast episode, create a better listening experience. And that's what it's all about, you know, you're creating this content to be consumable. You're creating it so that people can learn from you. And people are not going to if they're so focused on the quality of the audio, that they don't necessarily like listening to it. And I could probably guarantee you that at least one of your podcast listeners, if not every single one of them has turned off a podcast, maybe it wasn't yours. But they have turned off a podcast because of how bad the quality of the audio was. I know I personally have I know have actually sent clients their episodes back and said, Hey, I can't work on this. Like this is not the standard that we would put out and it's not the standard we would want you to put out. Here's what we need you to do instead. And I honestly have no problem pushing back for that. So when that happens, it's typically no microphone was used. They were on the go. They forgot to plug their microphone in.
There's so many little things that can cause a bad listening experience. And if something as simple as recording two tracks can improve that, then I absolutely recommend you do that. Now, like I said in the beginning, Riverside is my platform of choice. I do use it it's not just because they sponsored today's episode. I love the platform. And what I recommend If you do is try them out. You can head over to the link in the show notes of today's episode and we will have it there for you. You can get 15% off with the code Gaffin 15. All right friends. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. And I will see you all next week in another episode where we're going beyond the basics and talking more details around video. All right, I'll see you then. Thank you so much for listening to clocking in with Haylee Gaffin. For resources mentioned in today's episode head to Gaffin creative.com. If you're a podcaster looking for a community that will help you improve your podcast, make sure you check out Mike check society, our community for podcasters who are looking to take their podcast from good to great enroll today at Mic check society.com and use code podcast for $10 off per month. If you love this episode, I'd be honored if you'd leave me a review in the Apple podcast app. Until next time, I'm your host Haylee Gaffin clocking out
