Remote podcast recording: a setup checklist for host and guest

Most of the podcasts I edit now are recorded remotely. The host is in one city, the guest is in another, and sometimes the co-host is on a different continent. Remote recording has made it far easier to book great guests. It has also created a whole new set of ways for an episode to go wrong.

The good news is that nearly all of them are avoidable with ten minutes of preparation. This is the checklist I share with new clients.

Choose a tool that records locally

Tools like Riverside and Descript record each person’s audio and video on their own computer, then upload it. That means a dropped connection or a laggy call does not end up in your final episode. The quality is the quality of the person’s microphone and camera, not their internet.

Zoom can work too, but check the settings first. In local recording, Zoom can save a separate audio file for each participant, which helps your editor a lot. A single mixed cloud recording is much harder to clean.

Make sure every voice is on its own track

Separate tracks are the single most useful thing you can give your editor. When two people speak at the same time on one track, the voices cannot be pulled apart. On separate tracks, each voice can be cleaned, balanced and cut on its own.

Put everyone in headphones

Without headphones, the other person’s voice comes out of the laptop speakers and back into the microphone. That creates an echo that is very hard to remove. Any wired earbuds are fine. They do not need to be expensive. They just need to stop the sound leaking.

Send your guest a short setup note

Most guests are happy to help if they know what to do. A short message the day before saves a lot of trouble. Ask them to:

• Use a laptop or desktop, not a phone, if they can.

• Join from a quiet room with soft furnishings, not a kitchen or an empty office.

• Wear headphones for the whole recording.

• Plug in their laptop and close other apps and browser tabs.

• Sit facing a window or a lamp, so their face is lit from the front.

Run a two-minute test before you start

Ask the guest to say a sentence or two and check the levels. Listen for hum, echo or a fan in the background. It feels awkward to delay the start, but two minutes here can save an hour of cleanup later. Also check that the tool is really recording the guest’s camera and microphone, not a built-in webcam they forgot about.

Keep a backup

Technology fails at the worst moment. If you have a separate recorder or a second recording app running on your side, use it. Even a basic backup of your own voice can save an episode if the main upload fails.

Wait for the uploads to finish

With local recording tools, the files keep uploading after you stop recording. If a guest closes the browser too early, part of their track can be lost. Ask everyone to wait for the upload to complete before they leave the call.

Do these things every time and your remote episodes will sound much closer to an in-person recording. Your editor will spend the time on pacing and storytelling instead of repairing the call.