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[Josh Anderson]

There will probably never be a better training on how to get studio quality skype interview recording quality that beats my own $1k hardware setup:

http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=skype-for-interviews-1198388936660724-2

For those of you with short attention spans like myself... I promise you that this is 20 minutes you will want to sit through all the way to the end.

Its phenomenal and better education than you can get anywhere on not only skype recording but an important understanding of how to improve voip quality.

| View | Upload your own

[David Thompson]

Hey Josh,

this is an excellent find man
great link, I've already stared
tweaking my skype app for
maximum quality.

--David

[Virginia Culp]

Josh - you mentioned studio quality.  They called it broadcast quality and there's a huge difference.

It's also interesting how they define "broadcast quality".  In particular since most info product marketers are neither tv stations or radio stations.

As much as there's some great technical info here, sorry guys but I respectfully don't agree with everything they said.

1st of all, as a consumer, I truly hate it when I purchase an interview and the "guest expert" is on the telephone or voip.  The audio just plain sucks.

Who's got the big sexy mic?  The guy asking the questions?

Who's got the tiny little voice in the background (usually muffled)?  The guy doing most of the talking.

While this solution is great for quickie interviews, I wasn't impressed with the quality of the recording of the guy at the other end.  I still found that for a paid info product it's inadequate.

When you're talking about a live TV show or a live radio broadcast and someone is calling in, this ISN'T an info-product.  It's not something you plan to sell - especially for $49 and up.

What makes it appear even worse is when the host jumps in with a question, our ears readjust to the good quality sound.  And then once the guest expert replies, he becomes very hard to comprehend again.

The very 1st info product I bought was $97.  The host was in a studio (sounded great) and the guest expert sounded like he was a million miles away.  He was SOOOOO hard to hear.

This was a $97 CD set that I bought and the lack of quality blew my mind!  Based on the 8 figures this company claims to have made one would think they could afford a better quality recording than that.


The interviews I conduct are studio quality at both ends.  While it's more work to do ... the quality is far superior.

The internet is NOT perfect and is also subject to brown-outs.  Sound packets CAN get dropped and all kinds of other issues.

Almost weekly I'm asked to clean up an interview recording that's truly hopeless.

[/rant]

Ginny

[Josh Anderson]

Hi Virginia,

The discrepancy is "studio quality" I actually meant "broadcast quality."

It should be pretty obvious from the conversation and presentation (listen/view above) that the discussion is about "broadcast" and not in studio recording where both participants are in studio.

In other words this thread is about how to improve interviews where the host and interviewee are in two different locations and not in studio.

If they were both in studio or even both in different studios then you are definately right... you can improve quality by using studio mics and recording systems.

But in this case this discussion is not about Studio recording but rather why Skype is a better choice for broadcast interviews than the traditional phone methods and not about "studio" based interviews.

"1st of all, as a consumer, I truly hate it when I purchase an interview and the "guest expert" is on the telephone or voip.  The audio just plain sucks."

Most of the time you are correct... but if you listen to the (whole) presentation above which was created using voip you will see that they were able to obtain excellent broadcast quality using voip.

A majority of the time in radio broadcast the interview is not done in the studio... and the average web publisher cannot travel to or bring their interviewee in studio and usually both parties do not have access to a studio.

So I suggest reviewing the presentation above because it is a great example of "broadcast" quality for remote interviews far beyond the traditional methods and above the norm   

When you can produce "studio quality" on both ends... but when you cannot... which is a majority of the time in the broadcast industry... why not use this method that from the example above produced great results.

If you want to post and explain how you are able to get "studio quality" results on both ends I am sure people reading this thread will be very interested in that as well 

[Paul Gram]

Good Skpe stuff Josh, thanks. I will say that as much as I like top quality stuff, as someone who creates and sells audio/video and as a consumer who purchases them, it's all about the content. I would take a lower quality recording with amazing content all day over an amazing recording with crap for content.

[Virginia Culp]

If you want to post and explain how you are able to get "studio quality" results on both ends I am sure people reading this thread will be very interested in that as well

I'd be happy to share that Josh.

I have an interview scheduled in the next day or so and will share all the details once it's all done, as well as post the example so you can hear the difference.

Ginny

[David Thompson]

Hey Josh,

I just did my first interview ever using skype
and the video you posted about how to make
skype better totally help me to get the quality
I needed to get this interview done and sounding
amazing thanks bro...

The interview was about info product creation
it's for a new project I'm working on.

--David

[Josh Anderson]

You're always one of the fast action takers that applies stuff and reaps the rewards David.

I am glad it helped.

My buddy Scott Lundergan and I were chatting about how often we share cool stuff in forums with people and answer their questions and how few realize just how valuable the info is and actually use it.

They miss out on that "aha!" Moment of discovery where improvement is realized.

[Alan Petersen]

What a fantastic resource. Here I thought it was Audio Hijack causing a poor audio quality on a recent skype to skype call when it my settings. Plus I had like a million apps running during the recording!

Thanks Josh.

[Josh Anderson]

You're welcome Allen. This one really was a gem for certain.

[Ron08]

I tried my first recorded call on Skype a month or so ago and I was amazed at the improvement over
phone lines. The other person I was interviewing sounded like he was right next to me.

This video has more tips that I'll use for my next call that will improve the quality even more.

thanks for posting it.

Ron

[AnneMarie Callan]

Josh

Thank you for this information.  The video has tremendous info on.  In fact I had an update for Skype over the last couple of weeks, so will check this out.  I know at least two other people who will benefit from this.

Many thanks

AnneMarie