Expert Podcasting Practices For Dummies®

Chapter 17. Interviews from the Road

In This Practice

• Introducing a live interview

• Using VoIP

• Recording in the field

• Working with audio levels

Working remotely has its advantages and disadvantages over working in a studio. Although something can said for the ambiance of passers‐by and sounds of activity around you while you record a podcast on the road, you can also make a strong case for having the control over your surroundings that a studio offers: You know how your studio sounds, you keep the undesired noise to a minimum, and you can set up the best kind of background (a quiet one) for recording your content.

In some situations, though, you have no choice but to record remotely — and that's often true of interview settings. If you incorporate guests into your podcast's format, you may not always be able to do interviews in your home or studio. You may need to conduct phone‐in interviews, make use of online communication options like Skype, or work with a portable rig (more about that in Practice 16) — none of which is necessarily a bad thing; it's often good interview etiquette to bring your recording equipment to your interview subjects rather than make them come to you. In this practice, we cover the ins and outs of taking the show (in this case, the interview) on the road.

Introducing a “Live on Location” Interview

Say you have your laptop equipment or your portable digital recorder set up and ready to go. When you're recording interviews from the road, you can either launch into ...