Best Podcast Recording Setup for Remote Interviews
What to use, what to skip, and the one setting in a remote podcast recording setup that matters more than any piece of equipment you buy.
Remote interviews are now the default format for most podcasts. The gap between a good podcast recording setup and a bad one is mostly decisions, not money. This guide covers what both ends of the call need, what to leave out, and the one setting that matters more than any equipment you buy. Get these right and your editor spends time on the conversation, not on repairs.
Record locally, not over the call
This is the setting that matters most. Riverside, Zencastr and SquadCast record each participant's audio on their own machine at full quality and upload it afterwards. A Zoom recording captures the compressed, dropout-prone version that survived the internet. That version carries every glitch, every robotic syllable and every moment the connection dipped.
This one choice affects quality more than any microphone either of you buys. Local recording also gives you separate tracks per speaker, which lets an editor fix one voice without touching the other. If someone coughs over your best answer, a separate track means the cough comes out and the answer stays exactly as it was said.
What a podcast recording setup needs
You do not need a studio at either end. You need a handful of things that each solve one specific problem. The table below is the whole list for a typical two-person remote interview. Everything on it is about capturing a clean, separate voice for each speaker, because that is what post-production can work with.
| Item | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Local recording tool | Full-quality audio, one track per person |
| Dynamic USB microphone | Rejects room sound in an untreated space |
| Wired headphones | Stops the other voice leaking into your mic |
| A soft, furnished room | Less echo than any plug-in can remove |
| A short test recording | Catches problems before the real take |
Microphones for an untreated room
A dynamic USB microphone, such as a Shure MV7 or an ATR2100, is the sensible default for a spare room. Dynamic microphones reject room sound far better than condensers. That matters enormously when neither of you has an acoustically treated space. Speak close to it, a hand's width away, and keep that distance steady through the conversation.
Send one to important guests. It costs less than re-recording an episode, and it removes the biggest variable on their side of the call. A guest on a laptop's built-in microphone will sound like a guest on a laptop, however good your own setup is.
Headphones on both ends
Headphones are not optional, for either party. Without them, each person's speakers feed back into their microphone. Your voice then appears on the guest's track, slightly delayed, underneath their own speech. That echo cannot be removed cleanly afterwards. Wired headphones are safer than wireless ones, which can add delay and sometimes switch the computer to a poorer microphone.
The room matters more than the gear
Soft surfaces beat expensive equipment. A room with a carpet, curtains and a sofa will out-record a bare office with a better microphone every time. Hard walls, glass and empty floors bounce sound back into the microphone, and that reflection is very hard to take out later. A wardrobe full of clothes genuinely works.
You do not need acoustic panels. Cushions, a duvet over a chair or a bookcase behind you all help break up reflections.
Noise is the other half of the room. Close the windows, switch off fans and air conditioning if you can, and move away from fridges and humming chargers. Constant low noise is easy to ignore while talking and tiring to listen to for an hour. Ask your guest to do the same before you start.
A checklist before you hit record
Run through this before every remote interview, not only the first one. Most ruined recordings come from one item being missed on the day, not from the wrong equipment. It takes five minutes, and it is the cheapest insurance a podcast has. Share it with your guest too, so both ends of the call are checked.
- Separate tracks per speaker are switched on
- Headphones are on, at both ends of the call
- A thirty-second test recording, listened back to
- Phones on silent and notifications switched off
- Windows closed and noisy appliances turned off
- Microphone input level checked so loud laughs do not clip
What to skip on the way in
Mixers, interfaces and audio processing on the way in are usually unnecessary for a remote interview. Anything that processes the signal before it is recorded is a decision you cannot undo. Record it clean and let post-production handle it, where every change can be adjusted or reversed.
- Noise suppression switched on inside the call software
- Compressors or effects added before the recording
- Recording only the mixed call from Zoom
- Changing microphones or positions halfway through the episode
Helping a guest who is not technical
Most guests are not audio people, and that is fine. Send a short note a day before with the recording link, a request for wired headphones and a quiet room, and a suggestion to join ten minutes early. Use those minutes for a test recording. It is far easier to fix a setting before the interview than to repair the audio afterwards.
Getting the recording edited
A clean remote recording with separate tracks gives an editor room to do careful work: level matching, noise control, removing the cough and keeping the answer. Our podcast audio editing starts from $45 per episode, with a 24 to 48 hour turnaround. If a recording has already gone wrong, audio restoration can often recover more than you expect.
For a show that also needs video, clips and thumbnails, see our full podcast editing services. Not sure what your recordings need? Send us a sample episode and we will tell you honestly what can be fixed and what to change next time.