Phoning It In: Generating the Best Possible Telephone Interview Recordings (page 2)
Do the Tighten-Up
With all of the set-up work done, and a clean, compressed telephone recording available, it's easy to edit a recorded telephone interview. You can easily edit out coughs, ums, ahs and other speech imperfections if desired, using the scissors tool of any decent digital audio workstation program. It's also possible to replace the introduction and closing segments, or even a blown question, by cutting in newly-recorded audio afterwards, using the same microphone the interviewer used during the original recording.
If the interviewee on the other end of the call is tech- and recording-savvy, or if you're willing to pay for a pro to record the interview, it's possible to do what's still called a "tape sync" in the recording industry, even though traditional audio tape is rarely used these days. Simply put, the person on the other end of the telephone line will have a professional mic and hi-res recording software just as you do. They send you the hi-res recording, and you sync up the two recordings (which is surprisingly easy to do using the waveforms that the GUIs of most recording programs generate), do your cuts and edits, and - voilĂ - you have generated an NPR-quality interview.
Even without tape-syncing, you can improve the quality of your end result by giving the person with whom you are speaking by phone some simple advice. Suggest using a landline, not a cell phone. Advise putting the phone on mute while you're talking (and you do the same when the interviewee speaks). Even if you have to remind the person to take the phone off mute, you can cut that out, but you avoid the Darth Vader sounds of the interviewee's breathing into the phone while you ask a question; these are difficult to remove. Remind the person to close the door to the room, so you don't hear children announcing their potty break, and remember to repeat questions if an answer is interrupted by a plane flying overhead.
With these few hints, using a basic phone - and the right hardware and software to record it - can produce some dramatic results. And just wait 'til you add the video on top!
Ed Driscoll is a freelance journalist covering home theater and the media.
