Speaker 1: Your podcast deserves to sound amazing and the first step to achieving that is to capture a great quality recording. You also want to be recording in a way that makes editing easier and recording with software that's easy to use so that the process of creating your podcast is as stress-free as possible and you get the best result possible. And choosing the right software is key in making this possible. So in this video I'm going to go through my top five free recording softwares. I've curated a list of five different pieces of recording software. There are dozens if not hundreds out there but I've put together ones that are easy to use, easy to access and get hold of and they're free. I've included ones that you can download to your computer that you can use on mobile and that you can use directly from your web browser and I've included software that requires varying levels of technical skill. So whatever your needs for recording a podcast if you're looking for a great free piece of software to do so it'll be in this video. First up we have Audacity. Now Audacity has been around for many years. It's still free and it's still really easy to use. So you can download it on pc or mac and it'll allow you to record through a usb microphone or through an xlr microphone if you've got an audio interface. It's a digital audio workstation which means that it also has tools to edit your podcast after and also apply effects to tweak the sound. My favourite things about Audacity are that it is fast and fast to load, fast to use and simple and secondly that you don't need an account to download it. A lot of software these days especially the free ones you have to sign up and everything. Audacity you just download it it's free you get free updates. The cons of Audacity it is lacking in some of the more professional features that you'd find in other digital audio workstations even free ones. Now this might be a good thing or it might be a bad thing. If you want a more simple experience then this would be a good thing for you. Also there's no built-in support for multiple microphones. You can plug in two mics and use them in stereo if you have an audio interface but it's not sort of built in. So if you're recording with multiple mics particularly more than two then Audacity isn't going to be for you. If Audacity is your pick then click on the link in the description to download it. I've also left a link to my Audacity course that's free right here on YouTube to give you the basics of how to start recording your podcasts and edit mix them and everything. And number two is GarageBand. Now if you have a Mac then you basically already have GarageBand. It's free built into Macs. It's sort of like a simple version of their fully fledged Logic digital audio workstation. It's more tailored towards musicians but there's no reason you can't record a podcast with it. And again while it is quite simplistic it does include all the tools you'd need to also edit and mix your podcasts after recording. So the top pros for GarageBand it's free. Most iOS devices I believe have it pre-installed. And secondly that it's really simple to use and there are plenty of tutorials on YouTube to get started with it. The major con is that it's Mac only. If you're using PC then you won't be able to use GarageBand simple as that. And secondly it is quite limited in its features compared to some more professional softwares. But again if you're a beginner and you want to keep it simple then this isn't really a con. Number three we have Reaper. I'm really enjoying using this software at the moment. It's another digital audio workstation. It's a little bit more complex than Audacity and GarageBand. The editing tools are fantastic to be honest. It's got some nice built-in effects plugins like a denoise tool which is great for noisy recordings. It's free to download. Technically it's only free for 60 days. It's an evaluation trial. You can still keep using it indefinitely though. But after the free trial if you did decide you wanted to invest in it it's only something like $60 which is much cheaper than most other DAWs that normally want you to pay every month. My top pros for Reaper are that you get these professional tools for such a cheap or even a free package if you just continue it in evaluation. And it will let you record multiple mics with ease. So if you do have a more professional robust setup maybe you've got two to four speakers normally with each episode then Reaper is probably going to be easier for you to use than some of the others on this list. The main con is that it does have a steeper learning curve. It's a little bit more overwhelming but it could be the kind of thing that maybe you start off using Audacity or another more simple recording tool later on in this list. And if you do want to go for something more feature packed you can always move on to Reaper later and those skills will be transferable. We've got two more and these ones aren't DAWs so if you just want a really simple recording experience then the next two probably be more for you. And just a quick one, if you want more support on recording your podcasts, if you want to learn how to do the actual recording and what gear you need, what mics to go for, what file types you need to save your recordings in, head over to clarioncast.com forward slash kickstart where you can download our free podcast kickstart ebook that will go over all of this. It's a great little companion to have especially when you're first starting recording your podcasts. So number four is Zoom. Now Zoom's popularity exploded in 2020-2021 as one of the most if not the most popular video calling software. Now that is its main functionality but it does let you export audio files as well. So for a lot of people who are doing interview style podcasts over the internet Zoom is a great one because you can have the video call and then also save the video and also save the audio as well. Now the reason I picked Zoom for this list over Teams and Google Meet and things like that are that you can record separate files for each speaker. Now none of the other popular ones like Teams and Meet you can do that with. I don't know why but it makes editing a bit of a pain with the other ones because you have everyone on one track. But yeah for Zoom you can save a separate audio file for each speaker which makes editing and mixing much easier and gets you a better result. And that is one of the main pros to Zoom along with the fact that it's really easy to use and you don't even need to install it and your interviewees don't need to install it either to use it. The main con is that the the length of time that you can record for is limited. At the moment I believe it's only 40 minutes. You can only record up to 40 minutes then it's going to cut your call off so you would need to then call your interview your guest again to finish off the podcast or you'd need to upgrade to one of the subscription offers to record unlimited amount of time. Obviously the option for using Teams and Google Meet are still there if you just want the full length recording without having to mess around and without having to pay but I think for the sake of getting the best quality podcast possible Zoom is a better option. And also it's just a video calling software there's no editing or mixing functionality but if that's all you're after or you want to edit in a program later or you're sending it off to your editor then that's not going to be a problem for you. And number five is Zencaster or any other online recording service to be honest. These are services that allow you to make video calls very similarly to Zoom over the internet. The difference is with Zencaster and Riverside and there are a few other ones around is that it records the audio locally on the machine on on the computer rather than recording over the internet and then it uploads them so what you end up with is a much higher quality recording because it isn't reliant on either of your network connections and you're much less likely to get noisy recordings and get those horrible network glitchy sounds. The reason I picked Zencaster for this list is that at time of recording you can record unlimited audio for free whereas some of the other ones you have to pay. You can also record video for free as well but they leave a watermark over the video so you'd need to pay the subscription to get rid of that. So pros for Zencaster are that it's really easy to use same with Riverside really or all the other options and also you can get that pro quality recording over the internet. And cons same as with Zoom there's no editing or mixing functionality to most of these and also you are limited in in how long you can record for on some of them and the file formats that you can download. At time of recording again I believe Zencaster only lets you download mp3s on the free version not the full quality WAVs. So with these five options you should be able to find something that will let you record your podcast in a way that suits you. Zoom and Zencaster are great options if you just want a really easy way of doing internet calls especially if you're handing the editing and mixing over to an engineer. And then Audacity, Reaper and GarageBand are great options if you want that full featured recording editing and mixing software. Let me know in the comments section below which software are you going to be using to record your podcasts. And for more audio tips and advice hit that subscribe button and as always thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.