Thanks for agreeing to be on Fun with Bells!
I want you to sound your best! Please see the tips below so we capture a great recording of your voice.
To prepare before the recording:
Pick the best place to record from – Guard against an echo-filled bad audio by avoiding hard surfaces. Record in a quiet room with lots of soft furnishings, closed curtains and carpets.
Avoid extraneous noise during the recording – Make sure all potential noise-makers are turned off or taken care of ahead of time:
- phones
- children
- pets
And try to sit still, don’t bump the table, click pens or anything else that might make a noise.
Use the best microphone that you can – This is important because listeners can listen for longer without getting fatigued if the audio quality is better.
The microphone that is built into your computer will pick up too much noise and your sound quality would not be good. Depending on your phone connection, using a telephone line will be much better than using your computer’s in-built microphone.
Please see further information here when choosing which microphone to use.
For further information on getting good audio quality, see this information from our transcription service.
Alternatively here’s a funny cartoon about getting the right audio set up.
If you are using a telephone
Whilst this will not produce the best quality audio, it will be the simplest to set up. If we are recording by telephone then skip down to the section on ‘The Recording‘.
If you are using a separate microphone, headset or earphones
Use headphones or earphones – Otherwise I get a terrible echo where your mic will pick up my voice in the recording. Closed over-the-ear headphones or in-ear canalphones are better.
Update Google Chrome – Copy and paste chrome://settings/help into the Google Chrome browser on your computer to see if a Chrome update is available.
Our recording software (Riverside.fm) requires the most up-to-date Chrome. If you do not have the newest version, we might lose the audio to a popping noise.
Set up your computer – Turn off all non-essential programs on your computer – to minimise technical glitches during the recording.
If possible use a hard-wired Internet connection (rather than wireless). Although it won’t affect the recording, using a hard-wired Internet connection will help ensure that Internet glitches won’t affect our being able to hear each other clearly.
Set your microphone level – Go to your computer’s sound settings and set your input level to about 50% of full volume.
Microphone technique – Speak directly into the microphone but not too close (about 2-4″ or for a headset, keep the mic at the jawline).
Using Riverside.fm – our recording software – To start it off just click on the link that I email to you.
The recording:
Before we record the interview, we’ll do a separate sound check session.
At the end of the recording
I’ll ask you a standard 2 questions:
- Apart from where you regularly ring, which is your favourite ring of bells or location to ring in? and why?
- Has anything remarkable happened to you, that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t taken up bell (or handbell) ringing?
Unless we are on the telephone, then after I have stopped the recording, there will be a short time, during which we will still be able to chat, where Riverside.fm needs to be kept open to upload the audio.
Remember to enjoy yourself
The recordings can be edited, so if you get tongue-tied or your mind goes blank, it’s no problem. We’ll just regroup and start again. If you have any questions beforehand just email me, Cathy, at funwithbellspodcast@gmail.com
Photos and links
Please can you forward the following to funwithbellspodcast@gmail.com :
- Your ringing biography for the show notes
- 1 – 3 photos of you, maybe in the context of ringing, and / or something referred to in the interview
- the URL’s for any links that you mention in the interview
If you have any questions, you can always contact me at funwithbellspodcast@gmail.com