The hardest part of doing these podcasts is coping with lag.

Lag screws everything up. It delays reactions to jokes, it causes people to talk over each other.. It also makes for a nightmare when trying to edit (which we will get into on Tip#3).

IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, you should try to ELIMINATE LAG. With so many calling plans available, if you intend to do a show LONG TERM, I reccomend the following.

ELIMINATE LAG with a common telephone patch.

If there are 2 or 3 of you on a show, call each other (three way or standard call) and listen to each other on the phone, while recording yourselves each at home. Then send the files to whoever is doing the editing to sync up.

We sync up in a manner similar to that black and white clack board you see before movies.

count down together.

5-4-3-2-1 MARK!

When the editor gets the files, all he has to do is line up the words MARK on each person's track and PRESTO.... the rest of the audio will be synced up.

THIS DOES NOT WORK WELL if you are using skype. skype's lag is not consistent and can very anywhere from a half a second to a full 4 seconds.

It makes for a MISERABLE editing, and again throws off your timing which is CRITICAL if you're trying to be funny or even combative.

I know this isnt easy or economical for some of you calling between countries, but if you can, you will find your shows sounding MUCH BETTER both froma timing standpoint and the audio quality, since everyone will be submitting clean, locally-recorded audio instead of the watery skype sounds we've all come to expect from many podcasts.

I dunno. The Livecast uses Skype and we count down before recording, and it works fine.

It took my friends a while to overcome Skype issues but I believe they got some good long distance casting going after a few tries.

Thanks Doc, keep it coming!

I dunno. The Livecast uses Skype and we count down before recording, and it works fine.

there was some lag when I was there, and people were talking over.
but I guess it doesn't matter if you can sinc it out later...

I dunno. The Livecast uses Skype and we count down before recording, and it works fine.

With the Younglings (where I'm calling from Europe) the lag can be very bad, there' really nothing I can do about it, but it means that I spend about 3 hours editing :sad:

there was some lag when I was there, and people were talking over.
but I guess it doesn't matter if you can sinc it out later...

I think that was the crappy service we were using to broadcast it. During editing, I really noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

With the Younglings (where I'm calling from Europe) the lag can be very bad, there' really nothing I can do about it, but it means that I spend about 3 hours editing

I guess I'm lucky that the Livecast crew lives relatively close to each other. I would imagine that a Cross-Atlantic Skype call would have some lag

I just use audacity + phone call. Don't want to mess with skype because I'm comfortable with what I'm doing now =D

I apologize for my ignorance but how would I, or do some of you record a cellphone call on the computer. What connections would one need to make that happen?

well we use skype on our t for teen cast, and it works fine. we do NOT record the conversation of skype, we only talk on skype and send the audio file that the other ones recorded single handedly to me, then i put it all to gather in audacity

we (try to) use skype and just record with audacity as well, it works pretty well, just remember not to try saving it to and external harddrive

So how do I go about recording my phone call from my cell phone? One of our co-hosts is over in England, and we really need to improve our lag. Jokes tend to become ruined, and people interrupt alot. We are currently using Audacity, and that is working well, but lag is still a problem.

So how do I go about recording my phone call from my cell phone? One of our co-hosts is over in England, and we really need to improve our lag. Jokes tend to become ruined, and people interrupt alot. We are currently using Audacity, and that is working well, but lag is still a problem.

use a nice microphone to record your voice onto audacity while you are on your phone call. The phone call is merely a means to have an almost lag free conversation with your co-hosts. All of you need your own mics and recording software.