We've recorded 33 episodes of Product Hunt Radio so far (plug!). I prefer to do them in person (in part because it leads to a better conversation) but often there are technical or audio quality issues recording remotely. How exactly does PodClear produce "crystal clear" recordings? cc @andrewwarner, @mijustin, @ryanlawler
@andrewwarner@mijustin@ryanlawler@rrhoover Hey Ryan! It essentially automates the process of a double ender. It records locally on each participants computer (with no limit to the number of participants) and uploads it to our servers after the call is complete. The results is uncompressed audio from all ends of the call, which is a dramatic improvement over plain skype audio. Thanks for the awesome site!
@rrhoover@marcoarment@mijustin Hey, Justin! I'm a Co-Founder of PodClear. Thanks for sharing this, it's great to know there's a need to be met here! We've certainly been welcomed with open arms by the community which has been awesome. Don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions. @PodClearTweets or email hannah at hannah@podclear.com.
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This sounded and looked all awesome, until I got to the pricing. Did I really read it right that it costs basically $4 per recording? So for $8 per month you're limited to only being able to do 2 recordings?
That sounds super in-flexible and expensive to me.
@_jacksmith Hey Jack, that's actually just dummy information! We are experimenting with pricing models at the moment and don't have anything set in stone (still a learning process). We'd love to hear more feedback on that! Thanks!
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@hannaherg ok cool. I don't know if you need to limit yourself to podcasts; it should surely be a great tool for things like sales calls etc also. I think really, to make your product a core product, you don't want to limit your customers' usage; instead you want to make it part of their core workflow.
@_jacksmith That's a great point, the pain point is most clear in podcasting but it would apply to a bunch of different use cases. We are niching down early on so we know where to focus our energy but it's certainly interesting to think about all of the other use cases we will approach in the future.
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@hannaherg whilst it's cool focusing on a niche, if you make the product somewhat open. you might be surprised how users end up using it.
@_jacksmith That's really great advice. We will definitely give it a shot!
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My first reaction to this is "OMG OMG OMG OMG" as the concept of an app that makes recording and editing double/multi-enders easier is something that's been lusted after for a while now in the podcasting space.
Will definitely give this a go when I record my next podcast but until then I've got some questions:
1. You mentioned that you'll provide uncompressed tracks for each of the participants, what format will that be?
2. In a future version you'll also be providing a mixed version, how exactly are you handling that?
In the past to do a traditional double/multi-ender, I and the other guests/co-hosts would record their own end of the audio into their fav app and then I would also record the mixed audio from Skype using Audio Hijack Pro so that I had a reference track.
Even with this ref track, and after lining up all the tracks in Logic, throughout the recording, these tracks would get out of sync slightly due to delay/latency, etc, I'm assuming the mixed track would counter for this, but will you also add/remove segments to the individual tracks so that when I pull everything in, it's perfectly synced from start to finish?
Sorry about the long comment :)
@smithjw Hey James! Definitely appreciate the enthusiasm! We are excited to see how the podcasting community engages with PodClear.
To answer your questions:
1.) The uncompressed tracks for each of the participants will be in .wav format. We might experiment with .flacc but it's not completely supported by all editing softwares.
2.) We are handling drift with a pretty cool algorithm that consists of 30% magic and 68.5% caffeine (if you're curious we can chat about it), but rest assured it's a problem we're well aware of and are actively solving. :)
Tweet at us when you record your next podcast with PodClear, we'd love to hear it.
I think the multitrack recording is incredibly helpful for editing. We use it at Mixergy to raise or lower my volume so it'll match my guest's.
But that already exists in other programs.
What's really missing is a feature that Google Hangouts has. With G, my guest's audio and video are recorded before they arrive at my computer, so the recording is clearer.
I couldn't tell if you guys do that. Seems you might.
I'm excited to see you improve interviewing software. It's still too much of a pain to record and edit an interview.
What we need is something so simple that the interviewer can forget about the software and concentrate on the most important thing: the conversation.
@andrewwarner Totally agree! PodClear essentially makes it dead simple to do a double ender, both for you and your guests. What's cool about this and makes it unique from call recorder is that you get an independent uncompressed track for every guest in the call as well as a mixed version (coming in our next release). Excited to have you try it out, we are huge fans of your podcast! Feel free to reach out to me with any questions hannah@podclear.com
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This is really interesting and relevant to us. Shall follow your progress carefully. Plan on trying it out too.
We are a desktop application for Mac and Windows that allows for double or multi ended recording of remote interviews using any chatting application you choose. The application supports unlimited collaborators and provides uncompressed audio files for each speaker on individual tracks as well as a mixed and mastered version.
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