I can't tell you all the tools that I've used or subscribed to in the past to record podcast interviews remotely – and I had problems with all of them. It didn't matter how good my connectivity was or the quality of the hardware… intermittent connectivity issues and audio quality almost always made me toss the podcast.
The last decent tool that I used was Skype, but adoption of the application wasn't widespread so my guests almost always had challenges downloading and signing up for Skype. Additionally, at the time I had to use a purchased add-on for Skype to record and export each track.
Zoom: The Perfect Podcast Companion
A colleague of mine was asking me how I recorded remote guests the other day and I let him know I used Zoom‘s meeting software. He was blown away when I told him why… an option in Zoom allows you to export each visitor as their own audio track. Just go to Settings > Recording and you'll find the option:
When I record an interview, I always save the audio to the local computer. Once the interview is completed, Zoom exports the audio to the local recording directory. When you open the destination folder, you'll find each track is in a folder that's nicely named and then each participant's track is included:
This enables me to quickly import each of the audio tracks into Garageband, make the necessary edits to remove coughs or mistakes off the track I need, add my intros and outros, and then export for my podcast host.
Zoom Video
I'd also highly recommend keeping your video feed on during a podcast! As I'm speaking to my guest, I believe the video cues we take from one another add a ton of personality to the conversation. Additionally, if I ever wanted to someday publish the video tracks of my podcasts, I'd have the videos as well!
For now, maintaining my podcast is enough work, though!
