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View Full Version : Recording a podcast with a smarphone



TommySulivan
09-22-2014, 01:21 PM
Who here records their podcast with a smartphone. what software and hardware do you suggest for someone doing this. Do you guys think its a good idea. The good the bad and the hideous give it to me!!

BradShoemaker
09-22-2014, 08:18 PM
I think as a short term or a "holy hell, there's [insert person you HAVE to interview] and they've granted me an interview and all I have is this phone..." solution...

As for a long term solution, a smart phone is no way to conduct a podcast. Again, as I stated in another thread, if it's all you have and you don't have the means to get better equipment or you don't want to get expensive equipment to find out you hate podcasting, then yes... use it. Otherwise you will have something that, at best, sounds like Blog Talk radio, and at worst is not listenable. Neither option is the way to go.

bdegrande
09-23-2014, 05:38 AM
I think as a short term or a "holy hell, there's [insert person you HAVE to interview] and they've granted me an interview and all I have is this phone..." solution...

As for a long term solution, a smart phone is no way to conduct a podcast. Again, as I stated in another thread, if it's all you have and you don't have the means to get better equipment or you don't want to get expensive equipment to find out you hate podcasting, then yes... use it. Otherwise you will have something that, at best, sounds like Blog Talk radio, and at worst is not listenable. Neither option is the way to go.

I agree in general that this shouldn't be anyone's first choice, but this is way overstated. Even using most phones' built-in mics it is possible to sound a lot better than BlogTalk Radio. I suspect that most of us who have done podcasts with guests have had people connect to Skype from a phone's built-in mic, and many of those sounded pretty good. With any number of small portable mics designed to work with phones, no reason why a podcast recorded on a phone couldn't sound good.

Anyway,as far as tools, iOS has by far the best ones for doing podcasts. If you are doing a solo podcast, Bossjock Studio is very useful. It allows you to play sounds as you talk, and is designed for producing podcasts quickly without editing. If you want to record and then edit, Twisted Wave is a good recording/editing program which is dead simple to use and has a number of effects like normalization and compression but is not multitrack. For multitrack editing there are a number of options like n-track Studio,but some of the best, like Cubasis and Auria, are iPad only. Hokusai is multitrack and easy to use, but it keeps the entire file in memory, so it is limited to short files.

TalkNet
09-24-2014, 01:43 AM
I would not record my entire podcast with a smartphone but if the only thing that was allowed was a smartphone than sure, I'd use it. But only if I had an exceptionally high quality smartphone. I do not want it sounding like BlogTalkRadio.

TommySulivan
09-24-2014, 04:57 AM
Talk net true but I should have been clearer in this post. I am talking about inputing your microphone or mixer and using the smartphone as a recording interface. There are plenty of apps out there that do this but i am not sure how stable they are and which one would work best for me.

Htla Talkradio
10-28-2014, 12:53 PM
No TommySulivan, just No! Bad TommySulivan Bad! :D

Anthony Hayes
02-09-2015, 06:15 PM
I do it. I have an i6 smartphone and I use Spreaker web and mobile app for my mixing. I do it as a hobby and it works fine for me. I use my headphones with the attached microphone to get a little better quality/volume control and also to mix the music, drops, etc. I Started off rough but it has evolved quite nicely into a biweekly show. Have a listen if you'd like at: http://www.memyselfandiradio.com