A Simple Tip for Better Interview Recording with Pamela
I just finished an interview with Charles Stricklin of the WordPress Podcast. It’s content for the Professional Podcasting Course. We did the call over Skype and recorded it with Pamela. I’ve used Pamela quite often for such interviews, but apparently not as much as Charles who uses it to record his show, The WordPress Podcast.
Charles shared a great tip with me today, so I thought I’d pass it on to you. It fixes the fact that your Pamela recordings have both people all mashed together on the same track, making it harder to edit and adjust volume.
Pamela allows you to separate each person on to separate tracks, one on the right and one on the left. That way you can import and edit them separately. This allows for easier volume adjustments and post-processing with effects.
Here’s what you need to do.
- In Pamela, go to Tools > Options in the menus
- Click on the Call Recording tab on the left
- Click on Additional underneath that tab
- Under Two-way call recording mode select Save sound in stereo mode
Keep in mind, this is really only ideal for a two-person conversation. If you have more than that, you’ll be on one track and everyone else will be on the other. If nothing else, you can throw a Pamela recording in The Levelator as a quick fix if you have multiple people in the audio all at different levels.
Give that tip a try and let me know how it works for you.
June 27th, 2008 17:46
I believe this option is only available in the paid version.
June 27th, 2008 18:02
On the Mac I do the same sort of thing with CalRecorder
June 27th, 2008 19:17
I’m using this feature of Pamela and it’s quite useful. Better yet was CallBurner which would separate incoming and outgoing sound not into different channels but different files. But Pamela has some extra features that I’m using (besides the fact that it is cheaper than CallBurner).
June 28th, 2008 10:07
Yes, I did this for my Joshilyn Jackson interview and it made the editing process so much better…BUT, obviously, I needed to go a further step in my Audacity editing to bring the voices back to mono ~ Oops! Hate to annoy listeners with one voice in each speaker–Live and learn. I think that’s covered in Podcasting for Dummies, but if you’ve posted on this too, Jason, let me know.
Sidenote: I thought the next time I recorded in Pamela, it would automatically use the stereo setting, but somehow (maybe when I rebooted my computer??)Pamela went back to the mono setting (default??) and my next recording was back to the original format. Kinda a pain to check each time, but guess that’s what I’ve got to do.
PS Jason, thanks for interviewing with me last week. I’ll get that edited and posted and let you know…appreciate you!
June 29th, 2008 01:23
Good stuff! I never heard of this little app before so I downloaded it and made a skype podcast today…sure enough my voice was louder than my guest’s. So I came back to re-read your post. I tried to follow the steps 1 -4, but I didn’t have the “Two-way call recording mode”. I guess that isn’t a feature in the free basic version.
So instead, I went to “throw a Pamela recording in The Levelator as a quick fix”, but my Pamela recording was a mp3 and Levelator only accepts .wav and .aiff files. Advice?
**I love your stuff and your work on IBM
June 29th, 2008 15:32
@John and @Jeremy,
Yes, this is only a feature in the paid version of Pamela. If you’re going to do regular interviews, is definitely worth springing for the small price to get the Pro version.
The free version also limits you to 10 minutes of recording which is essentially useless for interviews.
June 29th, 2008 17:18
Jason, what about my question in regards to putting an mp3 into Levelator?
June 29th, 2008 19:57
The Levelator only processes WAV or AIFF files. MP3’s sound quality is so bad compared to either of these two, that I maintain your original source file should be either WAV or AIFF file, and mixed down or exported to MP3.
June 30th, 2008 02:48
@Jeremy,
As Charles pointed out, The Levelator only works with WAV files. You have to set Pamela to save your recordings as WAV if you plan to use The Levelator afterwards.
With any MP3s you already have recorded, you can put them in Audacity and convert them to WAV. It’s best not to convert or edit from MP3 files if you can help it.
June 30th, 2008 10:42
thanks
July 3rd, 2008 13:56
Does Pamela give you the ability to fire off audio files during the recording like Ubercaster?
July 8th, 2008 13:17
@Matt,
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “fire off.” I’m assuming you mean inserting sounds effects etc. Pamela is not designed for that.
It’s purely records what is coming in from Skype. You could get fancy with your set up and mixer to make it happen, but if that is what you need you’d be better off with one of the programs designed for that such as Ubercaster.
July 8th, 2008 16:42
Ah, understood. I’ve been looking for a Skype recording solution, so this sounds like the one. Thanks.
July 15th, 2008 20:14
There is another program that records skype calls in stereo (you on Right, Other on Left) It’s called Call Graph (www.callgraph.in) It works well. It is FREE. And it automatically saves call under contact info and allows you to “tag” call notes and search oll of your recorded calls.
July 29th, 2008 07:07
On jeremy’s point about audio file conversion: Audacity works great of course for audio conversion. I also use the free version of Switch from NCH for conversion to and from mp3/wav/wma:
http://www.nch.com.au/switch/
This also allows you to convert batches of audio files. Be careful during installation that you don’t select to install the trial versions of all the other software from NCH.
August 12th, 2008 13:32
Pamela User? Check This Out…
If you are using Skype and Pamela to record interviews or discussions for your podcast show, you might be interested to the tip shared by Jason Van Orden which he learned from Charles Stricklin of the WordPress Podcast.
Pamela has cap…
August 17th, 2008 09:59
Jason, what kind of equipment do you and Charles use when recording your Skype/Pamela interviews?
I tried using my mic with a compressor attached…sounded odd, to say the least. Studio mic minus compressor? Or just a basic headset mic the way most folks use Skype?
August 18th, 2008 01:36
@Peter,
I’d probably take the compressor out of the chain in this case. Depending on your settings, it could bring up the noise floor that sometimes is inherent to the phone and Skype. I use my Mic into the mixer into my laptop via USB.
Normally I do some post-processing, but not usually in the case of the Skype calls unless the Levelator is needed.
August 30th, 2008 15:51
Hey Jay! Funny, I actually did this for the first time recently with my interview with Mari Smith at http://tinyurl.com/5z7blo
Then I brought it into Audacity to clean up each of the tracks, changed them to mono, and created a single mp3 file. Worked like a charm.
Honestly, I was SUPER impressed with the quality. Doing it via skype had me a bit worried, but I made sure and closed any other applications running on my pc, same with the person I was interviewing. Don’t know if that made a difference but the result was really good. I was happy!
Andrea Kalli
http://www.productivitypodcast.com
http://www.virtualassist.net
August 30th, 2008 16:11
[...] http://www.jasonvanorden.com/better-interview-recording-with-pamela#comment-39435 [...]
September 1st, 2008 04:33
I have been using Skylook - which is a paid version which integrates nicely with Microsoft Outlook - and you can record in wav-format and you get a file for “this side” and “Other side”. I prefer this from Pamela, because Skylook works behind Skype and Outlook whereas Pamela works “in front of” Skype - if you know what I mean.
September 1st, 2008 14:01
Karin - Oh, that’s right! I forgot about Skylook. I’m an Outlook person and provide training and support for it. I also do Outlook tip videos and LOVE to do video demo/reviews on things that integrate with Outlook. I’ll have to check out Skylook and maybe do a video demo. Thanks for reminding me about it!
Andrea Kalli
http://www.virtualassist.net
September 6th, 2008 11:50
[...] credits Podcasting consultant Jason Van Orden for the tip. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Andrea Kalli Discusses Podcast Quality with Skype, [...]