The FaceTime of Remote Podcast Recording with Riverside.FM – Daring Creative Blog

PODCASTING

The FaceTime of Remote Podcast Recording

If you record remote podcasts where you have guessed that are not physically in your presence and by the way, that’s probably how most of you are recording your podcasts, especially in this time of covid. You’re going to want to check out Riverside.FM.

Typically, when you record people on a podcast (let’s say you use Zoom) the audio that you hear and the video you see is compressed down to save bandwidth. Even when you record your meetings, unless you’ve ponied up for a business license you are still getting sub par, low resolution recordings.

Introducing Riverside.FM

Ever searching for the perfect solution for my podcast recording workflow, I turned to Google and came upon Riverside.FM which advertises high-quality 48khz audio and up to 4K video recording for podcasts. Per guest!

So I signed up and checked it out (they have a free trial so you can try this out yourself, up to 60 minutes of recording).

Here is what I found:

The quality of the audio and video recording was awesome. As advertised, this is a higher caliber of recording solution than Zoom.

Another thing I really appreciate about Riverside.FM is that it’s extremely easy to use from the guest perspective. Invite a guest to your podcast and they only have to click on one link. It does require Google Chrome for the local recording aspect of it, but most recording solutions like Riverside.FM do as well (Cast, ZenCastr).

Riverside.FM has a number of roles you can assign when in its studio mode. A producer can manage the technical settings of getting everyone sounding great, the host can run the show, guests can provide their subject matter expertise and you can even invite live-call in guests or have attendees watching (and listening) along.

If your podcast has a Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube page associated with it you can also live-stream the show to them as well, although the video quality for this is capped at 1280×720 (720p). Hopefully this is something that can be upgraded in the future.

Also notable is the fact that Riverside.FM will create a composed video feed of your show that you can upload directly to your choice of video services. This is a time saver for sure that will save on post-production for your podcast, but is also capped currently at 720p which limits is usefulness.

I’ve reached out to the company on this, and it is a limitation put in place to save bandwidth. Again, I hope this is something which changes as time goes on and with more feedback from podcasters so stay tuned!

All in all, Riverside.FM is an impressive option for high quality recording of your remote podcast guests, and should definitely be considered as an alternative to using Zoom. It truly feels like the FaceTime of remote podcast recording, and that is a great thing!

Podcast projects

Moment Super Fish Eye Lens

Photography

Playing with the Moment Super Fish Lens

Photography, iPhone, Moment, Filmic Pro

One lens was enough for me to decide I wanted another.

After buying Moment’s wide lens I went ahead and grabbed the super fish. This would be the first time I’ve used a fish eye lens on any type of camera, but I’ve seen enough vloggers use them and the effect is pretty cool.

To recap: Moment’s a cool company in Seattle that specializes in lenses for mobile phones. I definitely recommend checking our their YouTube channel because they have a lot of great instruction there. I also really, really enjoy the two hosts of the videos. They have these really great personalities. Hell, I bought the lens just on the strength of their channel, and have another lens and case on the way.

Anyway back to the lens. It’s pretty cool! Not as heavy or impressive looking as the wide lens, it will still look pretty awesome being connected to your case. Like I said, this is the first time I’ll be using a fish lens so it will be interesting to see what I can come up with.

Here are some initial photos I’ve taken with the lens, and i’ll be updating this as time goes on.

Moment Wide Lens

Photography

Playing with the Moment Wide Lens

Photography, iPhone, Moment, Filmic Pro

My conversion into iPhone filmmaker is complete! Well, not exactly but I have been enjoying my new wide angle lens from Moment.

A few weeks back YouTube started recommending videos to me on iPhone videography, which was probably fortuitous considering my adventure with the Canon C100 was short-lived. Nonetheless, I’m excited to see just how far I can take my videos, especially the ones for work, with just my phone.

Moment’s a cool company in Seattle that specializes in lenses for mobile phones. I definitely recommend checking our their YouTube channel because they have a lot of great instruction there. I also really, really enjoy the two hosts of the videos. They have these really great personalities. Hell, I bought the lens just on the strength of their channel, and have another lens and case on the way.

Only downside of my purchase was that I chose the battery case, which seems to be having difficulties being recognized by the special app you have to download, and that it won’t let my external microphone work either. Other than that, very happy with my purchase.

Update: Just needed to “reset” the case.

Here are some photos I’ve taken with the lens, and i’ll be updating this as time goes on. It is just day 1 and my neighborhood isn’t exactly the most interesting to shoot.

My Bliss Station

Everyone can use a special place to create. Let me tell you about mine.

by WILLIAM SMITH

I just finished watching a really great presentation from Austin Kleon titled “How to Keep Going.” You should absolutely watch it, especially if you work in a creative profession. Even if you don’t, still check it out.

Austin outlines 10 ideas to help you keep your creative projects going, which I really appreciate (especially at this time in my life) because its something I find myself really challenged with the days. Whether it’s the aftermath of the election, scandals, family health issues or the potential for war, there are many days where I don’t even want to get out of bed, much less be creative. It’s almost like starting at negative.

That’s why I loved this one idea in the video to create a bliss station.

As it turns out, I already have my own bliss station, although I didn’t call it that, nor did I necessarily identify it in those terms. It’s my sanctuary, or my special place to just be me. To work and explore without distraction, and to have all of my things just where and how I like them to be.

I’d imagine many people have a spot like this. They might call it a home office, a studio or even a man-cave. I’ve used all of those names before, but i think i’ll call it a bliss station now.

So what is my bliss station, what does it look like and what makes it special to me?

First, it has all of the tools of my trade.

I’ve got two nice computers, an iMac and a PC. They’re showing their age, but they’re faithful. Between them, I can run any software I want, I can test designs in different browsers across different operating systems, or can play any game that I want (the primary reason for having the PC).

I control both of the computers with a single keyboard and mouse through the use of a KVM switch mounted under the desk.

My desk came from IKEA. I’ve daydreamed about getting a standing desk, but have always found more important things to invest in. But this desk is perfect for me. It’s black, its flat and it fits nicely into the corner of the room. A mesh compartment under it keeps my cables from getting tangled.

I have tons of storage for audio, video and photos through the use of three external hard drives. They’re all 3TB drives, the internal drive in both the PC and the Mac is 1TB, and I also carry with me a 1TB LaCie portable drive. This is really helpful because I’m a packrat and hate to delete things unless I have to.

One of the aspects to this space which I’m most proud of are the mounted displays on the wall. I’ve got two of them, one in landscape and one in portrait. I call the portrait-oriented display “picture wall” and use it to display all kinds of stuff. Originally, I wanted to have a big display like this turned sideways to display movie posters. That actually works well, but what is even more interesting is display web sites, social feeds, sports scores or just any other type of dynamic data.

The picture wall is driven by an old Mac mini which is tucked away behind it. I can connect to this display using a wireless apple keyboard / mouse, as well as remote desktop. One day i’d love to upgrade this particular computer, as it chugs on any type of video (its literally an 8 or 9 year old computer) after all.

A makeshift sound booth in April of 2018

I also have started to build out my own sound booth. Still have quite a bit of work to do here as it sounds terrible right now. It’s really, really quiet in there and just doesn’t sound alive enough for me to record in there. So in the meantime, I’ve placed a nice comfortable, oversized pillow that was on sale at Pier 1 Imports. It’s a nice place to sit and watch tv, a quiet place for my daily meditation or a dog bed for Sherman.

I’ve told you about some of the things in this space, but what makes it special to me? Really, it was the whole process of building it out. From painting it, to getting artwork framed, to replacing the floor and hanging the displays. I had a very specific look and feel in mind for my perfect creative space and I was able to actually replicate it pretty much exactly. When it all came together, I really felt like I brought something out of my imagination into the real world, which is really what creation is all about.

My bliss station (aka my studio, as I am used to calling it) has a no argument / no barking / no anything negative policy. Only happy thoughts, cool tunes and work happens in this space. And that makes it a place that I like to spend almost all of my time in working.