How to make a quality podcast and a live show at the same time

Today we want to share a trick for podcasters who want to do live on Youtube or Twitch.

Introduction

For those who do not know, there are more and more podcasters who take advantage of the moment of recording the podcast to do a live show and thus be able to interact with their audience. It is a way to reuse the same content on different platforms and reach more audience. And above all, it is content that occupies basically the same time as if only the podcast was recorded without doing the live show.

One of the biggest problems with making live streams is that the audio and video are compressed. This means that the quality of the audio that is saved on Twitch/Youtube is not the best quality possible. Many podcasters want to maintain good audio quality in their podcast and therefore avoid reusing compressed audio from YouTube/Twitch.

No matter how good a microphone you have, if you do live shows, you should know that the audio will be impaired.

Solution if only you speak

If your podcast is just you talking, without guests, then you can record yourself locally (with a program like Audacity) at the same time you are broadcasting live. You will then use that audio to publish the podcast.

This option is viable if for example you have OBS or Streamyard for live and Audacity to record yourself locally.

The problem is that many of the live shows are interviews. That is, there is more than one person talking, and it is usually with videoconferencing. Here the problem is how to get the original (uncompressed) audio from your guests.

Solution for live multi-person interviews

As mentioned in the previous section, the podcaster wants to have the original audio of his guests.

This usually means that the podcaster asks their guests to record themselves, and then send the recording to them.

Disadvantages of having guests record themselves

There are several, but the main drawbacks are:

There are guests who have no idea how to record themselves. You have to explain to them what software to use and how to use it.
You depend on your guests to record themselves correctly. Even if you explain to them how to do it, some people do it wrong. It's normal, it's their first time using that software. The most typical mistake is to record with another microphone if the computer has more than one microphone.
You have to chase the guests to pass you the audio file. In many cases, you can't attach it to an email because the file is too heavy. You have to use something like wetransfer.com.
The podcaster has to synchronize the time tracks of the two audios.

Zencaster to the rescue

Zencastr.com is an online tool that allows you to record podcast interviews. Either just audio or record video as well.

Zencaster is a very good alternative to other tools such as Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, … The advantage is that Zencaster records the original audio and uploads it on delay, so the audio is of the best possible quality. And the audio is automatically saved to your Google Drive account or if you don't trust it you can download it manually.

Another advantage of Zencaster is that it is all web, you don't have to install anything on any computer. You send a link to your guests and they access easily and quickly without having to install anything.

And another advantage that we love is that it records each audio track separately (ideal if the podcaster wants to do post-editing) and that the audio tracks are aligned.

Having the audio tracks aligned allows automating a lot of the post-production of the podcast, saving a lot of time to the podcaster and allowing to use tools such as auphonic.com.

In resume, Zencaster solves all the problems that we have discussed above in the previous section. And Zencaster has a free version that works for most people.

Not everything is good, the problem with Zencaster is that it is not intended for streaming. It is ideal for podcast interviews, but not live.

Tools for making live streams

The best known is OBS which allows you to stream from your computer. The disadvantage is that you have to install it on your computer, configure it and it is a bit complex to use. The advantage is that it is very flexible and you can do many things.

Make live streams without installing anything

Streamyard is an online tool with which you don't need to install anything on your computer. It is much simpler than OBS, and is focused only on streaming.

It is very easy to use and allows you to invite anyone using a guest link without the need for anyone to install anything.

The free version of Streamyard can work for most podcasters, the only major drawback is that you see its icon in the final video.

Another problem with Streamyard is that it only allows you to have separate audio tracks for each guest if you are paying for its most expensive version.

Joining Streamyard + Zencaster

We want to have a tool that as podcasters we can use to record audio with the best possible quality, and at the same time allows us to make live broadcasts easily and quickly. And all this without having to install anything and without complicating the life of our guests (or ourselves).

The solution we have found in WebiCaster has been to combine Streamyard + Zencaster.

Step 1

Open Zencaster and Streamyard, generate the two guest links, and send them to the person you want to interview.

Important, in Zencatser you have to mark that you only record audio, no video. We do not want Zencaster to occupy the webcam (neither yours nor your guest's).

Step 2

When the other person enters the two sites, you will hear each other in duplicate.

This is quite easy to fix. In the browser tab where you have Zencaster open, right click with the mouse and select that you want to mute the browser tab.

This way both people only listen to each other over Streamyard, and in Zencaster you are just recording the audio as if it were a backup.

Step 3

Check that in Zencaster you see the voice waves of the two people, click on record in Zencaster and activate live in Streamyard.

Another option is to start the Streamyard live, greet your audience, … etc and then activate Zencaster recording when you really want to start recording the podcast.

Conclusions

You can start doing live streamings today while you are recording your podcast. You can try and do it for free, fast and simple.

There is no excuse that it is complicated or that you need some expensive software. Nowadays there is no excuse for not taking the leap to do live streaming.