To Zoom, or not to Zoom?

Amber Beels 0:02
Are you using zoom to record your podcast episodes, I don't know of a better way. Let's talk about it. You're listening to practical podcast Tips. My name is Amber Beels. And today I'm going to cover Tip number six, choose zoom, or not to zoom, is zoom, really the best way to record your episodes. Let's talk about that.

Amber Beels 0:25
So thanks is 2020 and the pandemic, everyone is very used to zoom, everyone is very familiar with it. That was the go to platform for when we couldn't meet in person when everything had to be done from home and you wanted to have your regular meetings, or you wanted to have conferences, Zoom was the answer. And I have to say that Zoom really did step up when they needed to, because Lord knows, I don't think they were expecting that they were not expecting so many people to use their platform all at once all the time. So is a really good platform. It's great for meetings, it's great for webinars, it's great for conferences, it is a really great platform. And the fact that you can record a meeting and be able to reference it later, is an amazing feature. It really does work in it's just, it was really there for us when we really needed it. And people are still using it to this day. I mean, it's it's very much incorporated into our lives now. And you know, that's great. I know a lot of people for their podcasts, the format that they have requires guests to be on their podcast, and a lot of guests are remote. And because Zoom is so familiar, and everyone knows how to use it. Even if you're not all that technical of a person, you probably have used zoom B in the last few years. And so you know how to use it or at least know how to use it enough to get by. But is zoom really the best way to record your episodes? I mean, if you really think about it, how many times in a conversation. Have you seen zoom cut out because internet isn't always reliable, people are going to be cutting out due to a poor internet connection, their screens going to cut out, their audio is going to cut out I've seen people where they share their screen, and then they try to play a video and Oh, my goodness, the framerate is just awful. And it seems it would work in theory, but it never really works all that well in reality, and you know, it just it really wasn't meant for that. So what can you use, instead of zoom? To record your podcast episodes or to record your remote interviews? Well, with Zoom, you don't want to do that, because it cuts out. And I already mentioned that. But you know, have you ever noticed if you're watching like a video, and the visual is bad, you can kind of handle it, you can still keep watching it as long as the audio quality is good. But if your audio quality isn't all that great, you're gonna lose the attention of your audience. And you don't want to do that, especially for long form platform like podcasting. So you want to have something that's a little higher quality. Okay, great. Say Amber. That's awesome. Now tell me what the answer is. Okay, so Riverside, we love Riverside riverside.fm is what we use for all of our clients is what we use for our own podcasting. We love Riverside. And the reason why is because it can record locally to your computer, your tablet, your phone, wherever you're recording, and then it uploads it to the cloud. So what does that mean? That means that even though you may be looking and seeing that you're cutting out because you have a poor internet connection, you can be reassured that it's actually recording locally to your device. And when you as you are recording, it's uploading straight to the cloud. So when you're done, it will have it'll keep uploading until it's done, you can be confident that it is high quality, and that there isn't any cutouts even though you saw it during your recording, you can be rest assured that the actual recording is going to be high quality because it was done locally. And it does that for your podcast guests as well. And what's nice about Riverside is that it is very user friendly. I know that there's a lot of people who are interviewed and they're not the most technical people they're not techies you know they barely know zoom but you know with Riverside they have a very user friendly interface with you know, clicking a little box like are you wearing headphones are you not and then it has a little record button has a countdown and lets you know when it's done uploading at the end so that you can leave your web recording the interface and go about your day. And it's just a really great platform. And what's nice about it is that you can have up to eight people. Now I wouldn't recommend having eight people on your podcast left a lot of people to manage. However you can have including yourself so you can have up to seven guests. And that's really great. So if you want say you have a co host and you want to interview couple that's for people right there, Riverside can definitely handle that amount and be able to record high quality files. And what's nice is that it's going to record locally to everyone's devices, and then be uploading it to the Cloud automatically. So they don't have to send you a file, you don't have to worry about grabbing it from them, you can be rest assured that everything's gonna be uploaded to your account, you can grab it later for editing and processing, whatever you want to do with it. It's just a really great format to be able to use a great platform. They are an Israeli company, they've been around for over two years now. And they are constantly doing updates and just improving it. And adding new features, they just came out with a phone app that you can actually use your phone to record episodes, which is amazing, because sometimes you're just out and about and you want to record an episode. Now you can do that through your phone. And it also records video. So if you want to do podcasting, it does both. So you can have both your high quality video and high quality audio. And it's all captured locally and then uploaded to the cloud. So it's an amazing software. And you know, it's pretty affordable. It starts at $7.50 a month. And that's for, I believe, two hours of recording a month. Now if you need a little bit more, it goes up to $15. So you can have a few more hours of recording, which is really not that bad. It's a really great interface. We use it for all our clients. They all love it. We use it for all our interviews. And sometimes we even use it in place of zoom. It's just, it's just a really good place to be able to record your podcast episodes with ease knowing that your episode is going to sound amazing, and that you don't have to worry about cut out. So in closing, I suggest using Riverside over zoom. So to zoom or not to zoom. I say no, no zoom, not to zoom. So anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I hope you found it valuable check out riverside.fm That'll be in the show notes. And I'll see you guys next week.

Amber Beels 7:10
Hey, thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, please feel free to leave us a review. It really helps out the show. And I'd love to hear how it helps. Also if you know someone else that could benefit from it, go ahead and share it with them. Thanks again and I'll see you in the next episode.