Setting up for a Zoom interview

Setting up your room

Of course not everyone has a recording studio in their house, but a couple of tips can really boost your audio quality.

Pick a room in your house with the least amount of hard surfaces because the sound can bounce off and create an echo. As an example think about how it sounds to sing in the shower or in the bathroom. A room with carpeting and a lot of fabric (such as a bedroom) is a great option.
Let others in the house know that you will be recording and ask them to keep noise to a minimum
Turn off any fans or humming machines. These will pick up as background noise

Headphones and microphones

If you speak into an external microphone it will make your voice sound crisp and clear compared to your built-in laptop microphone. Most people don’t have a professional microphone at home, but many people don’t realize that the microphones built into your earbuds are actually quite good. Even if you don’t have a pair of earbuds with a microphone in the cord, make sure that you use headphones for the zoom call because it will reduce reverb and echo on the recording

Zoom Settings

Hopefully you have used zoom previously and are familiar with the basic layout. Look in your email for the invite link. If applicable, please double check the mic and speaker settings to ensure that you are using your external microphone instead of your laptop’s built-in mic.

Recording locally on your computer

As your voice is processed through the zoom app and sent over the internet it can get slightly garbled and robotic. We will be recording the call through zoom as a backup, however you will sound the best if you are able to record your voice locally on your computer as well.

You can easily do this with default programs on your computer. For apple users you can use quicktime. For windows users you can use “voice recorder.” We’ve included a guide for using both apps below.

Record using voice recorder (for windows users)

Watch this video to learn about the voice recorder app

After the interview is over please send us the file that you saved locally. The file size might be too big to send over email. A good option is to upload it to a service like google drive or dropbox and send us the link.

Record using Quicktime (for apple users)

Open up the quicktime app which appears with this logo (left).

Once you have the app open, use the toolbar on top of the screen to navigate to file>new audio recording (image below)

A window will appear that looks like this. Click on the red circle to begin recording (image below)

Once you hit the red circle button the recording will start and the time on the left will start counting up (image below). Leave the recording going in the background while we talk over zoom. When we are finished with the interview you can press the stop button (square in the center) to end the recording.

After you have ended the recording the timer will stop counting up and the window will appear as below. In order to save this recording navigate to file>save and choose a location on your computer. (image below)

Any other questions?

Don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any other questions. We also have an FAQ page which explains information about the podcast demographics and purpose. We’re looking forward to your interview!