Why Is Remote Recording Software So Unreliable?

Summary

---

Buzzcast: "Why Is Remote Recording Software So Unreliable?"

Date: May 30, 2025
Hosts: Dave Jackson, Stephen Hackett, Kevin Finn
Theme: The recurring technical and reliability issues with remote podcast recording software, and an open discussion about possible reasons and solutions.

---

Overview

In this lively roundtable, the Buzzsprout team draws parallels between solving escape room mysteries and unraveling the persistent frustrations with remote recording software. They explore why, despite the high cost and promises of “studio quality,” even the top tools remain less reliable than podcasters would like. The hosts invite feedback and insights from listeners, software creators, and fellow podcasters about their own experiences and potential workarounds.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Escape Room Success Sets the Tone (00:00–03:10)

• The hosts kick off with a fun story about their recent escape room victory, lightly comparing the team problem-solving experience to tackling tech mysteries in podcasting.
• Quote (Stephen Hackett, 00:21):
  “This kid… was like, we need, like, 40 clues and only, like, a couple people have ever finished the room. And then we were in it, and we completed it with, like, 20 minutes left, no clues yet used.”
• They humorously admit the escape room staff might compliment every group to encourage bookings.

2. Remote Recording—A Persistent Mystery (03:17–05:12)

• Segueing from solving puzzles, Dave Jackson frames the episode’s core question: Why are remote recording tools unreliable, buggy, and often expensive?
• Quote (Dave Jackson, 03:30):
  “There’s another mystery… why is [remote recording software] so buggy and terrible and expensive?”
• Kevin Finn pushes back ("I feel like that’s a bit much”), but all agree that even top-tier tools are far from flawless, especially considering their cost.

3. High Stakes: Podcasting vs. Other Industries (04:03–05:55)

• Dave draws a parallel to wedding photographers—just as a missed wedding moment can’t be recreated, missed podcast recordings waste “once-in-a-lifetime” guest content.
• Quote (Dave Jackson, 04:28):
  “If that recording gets messed up, the stakes are high… you’re gonna miss some magical moments that you had the first time.”

4. Support Woes & The Nature of Frustration (05:12–06:03)

• Kevin shares support horror stories from Podcast Movement, comparing their hosting outages to the higher emotional stakes with recording tool failures, where lost audio stings far worse than server downtime.

5. Browser Reliance—The Root Issue? (06:03–08:06)

• The hosts unpack how most recording tools (Riverside, Squadcast, Clean Feed, Adobe Podcast) rely on web browsers, while Zoom pushes users toward a standalone, installable client.
• Quote (Dave Jackson, 06:59):
  “Zoom… push[es] you to download the software… because then they don’t have to rely on the browser. But Riverside and Squadcast… you just run that through the browser.”
• The browser-as-platform is seen as fragile; browser updates, versions, and quirks add unpredictability, increasing the potential for bugs.

6. Personal Experiences: Audio Glitches & Lag (08:06–10:50)

• Stephen describes routinely encountering audio garbling—especially when hosts talk over each other—despite remote tools promising isolated, local tracks.
• Quote (Stephen Hackett, 08:41):
  “There’s so many ends of sentences… I have to cut out every single episode because it gets garbled… it’s just a weird thing that’s been happening for… over a year.”
• They unpack the technical confusion: Local recording should prevent “garbling” from cross-talk, yet it persists—suggesting flaws in either implementation or browser-dependence.

7. Latency, Music Use, and Tool Tradeoffs (09:31–11:09)

• Dave credits Clean Feed’s low-latency design (critical for musicians) but notes its lack of video—problematic for Buzzcast which values visual cues (hand signals, energy checks).
• The group jokes about side-effects of in-person recording, highlighting the physical risk to gear.

8. Why Not Standalone Apps? (11:26–12:17)

• Dave wonders why “installable software” isn’t the norm, especially given browser volatility.
• Quote (Dave Jackson, 11:26):
  “Why are you still deciding to rely on a browser as the main, like, powerhouse engine driving your podcast recording solution?... it’s pretty high stakes.”

9. Why Developers Favor Browsers (12:17–13:11)

• Kevin Finn theorizes that browser-based tools are more platform-agnostic, easier to deploy and support across Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile, etc., whereas Zoom’s multi-platform approach led to feature bloat and, arguably, a poorer user experience.

10. Community Frustration & Open Call for Solutions (13:11–15:16)

• Dave confirms these issues aren’t unique to their team; Buzzsprout’s Facebook community reports similar woes with Riverside, Squadcast, Adobe Podcast, and Clean Feed trade-offs.
• Quote (Dave Jackson, 13:11):
  “We do consistently run into audio issues, which doesn’t make sense because it’s supposed to be local recordings… Are we the only ones who are having this problem? No.”
• The crew invites listeners, software developers, and anyone with better solutions to reach out—hoping to feature responses, explanations, or recommendations on future episodes.
• Quote (Stephen Hackett, 15:16):
  “Tap the text the show link in the show notes to send in your responses and we will have you on the podcast. Or you can give us some recommendations.”

---

Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “I like to think we set a record, but I doubt it.”
  Kevin Finn, 00:17

• “Why is [remote recording software] so buggy and terrible and expensive?”
  Dave Jackson, 03:30

• “If that recording gets messed up, the stakes are high… you’re gonna miss some magical moments that you had the first time.”
  Dave Jackson, 04:28

• “There’s so many ends of sentences… I have to cut out every single episode because it gets garbled… it’s just a weird thing.”
  Stephen Hackett, 08:41

• “Why are we building businesses that are dependent upon browsers that… could break your software?”
  Dave Jackson, 12:10

• “We do consistently run into audio issues, which doesn’t make sense because it’s supposed to be local recordings… Are we the only ones who are having this problem? No.”
  Dave Jackson, 13:11

• “We’re the complainers today because we’ve had a couple of bad recordings in a row.”
  Kevin Finn, 15:11

---

Important Timestamps

• 00:00–03:10: Escape room story sets teamwork tone.
• 03:17–05:55: Why the stakes are so high for recording reliability.
• 06:03–08:06: Deep dive: remote tools’ reliance on browsers.
• 08:06–10:50: Persistent audio issues and the mystery of “garbling.”
• 11:26–12:17: “Why aren’t we using better, standalone tools?”
• 12:17–13:11: Platform-agnosticism drives web app preference…but at what cost?
• 13:11–15:16: Call to the podcasting community for solutions, stories, and developer responses.

---

Tone & Style

The discussion is candid, witty, and slightly exasperated, tinged with camaraderie and humility. The hosts blend deep-dive technical curiosity with practical frustrations, opening the floor to community and industry input while keeping the vibe engaging and accessible.

---

Call to Action

If you’re a podcaster, recording software developer, or have a remote solution that truly works, Buzzcast wants to hear from you! Use their show link to comment or volunteer as a guest for a future episode on this ongoing podcasting “mystery.”

---

Summary by Buzzcast AI | For podcasters, by podcasters.

Transcript

[Dave Jackson]

So you guys did an escape room last night?

[Stephen Hackett]

Yes.

[Kevin Finn]

Yeah, we did an escape room. We may or may not have set a record.

[Stephen Hackett]

I think we did.

[Kevin Finn]

Or the people at the escape room were buttering us up to try to get us in to do a second escape room.

[Dave Jackson]

I think they always tell people they set a record.

[Stephen Hackett]

It was a little bit of a tall tale.

[Kevin Finn]

I like to think we set a record, but I doubt it.

[Stephen Hackett]

Yeah, this kid, he was like, we need, like, 40 clues and only, like, a couple people have ever finished the room. And then we were in it, and we completed it with, like, 20 minutes left, no clues yet used. And it was like, there's no way. There's no way.

[Kevin Finn]

Well, I choose to believe my truth is only 20. This is what they told us. Only 20% of people complete the room. And the average person gets a bunch of clues, and they still don't even finish. And we walked out with 21 minutes to go, no clues. And we were riding high. And they said, you did such a great job. And also, one of the things we'd like to offer you, since you've already done one room, you can get a second room for 40% off.

[Dave Jackson]

What a great deal.

[Kevin Finn]

Everyone in that room signed up again, we were in. We're like, well, we've already set one record. We might as well set two.

[Dave Jackson]

Was it just the three of you, or were you put together with another group?

[Kevin Finn]

Well, I brought one of my dear friends, John Pollard.

[Dave Jackson]

Okay.

[Kevin Finn]

So he came. John is on the software side at Buzzsprout.

[Stephen Hackett]

Yeah.

[Kevin Finn]

And then we had two randoms, and the two randoms were great. They immediately went, we're going right back in another room and we're doing it on our own.

[Dave Jackson]

Right. Swipe that card. We're back.

[Kevin Finn]

They're like, yeah, we're back.

[Stephen Hackett]

Yeah. It was funny because we went out to dinner and then we came back to do a room, and they came out and they were like, we did not complete that second room. We had so many clues, and we never completed it. And it's way too hard. It's way too hard. And we just took that as an indication that, like, okay, I got his phone number to text him when we finished the room. Just, like, rub it in a little bit, you know?

[Kevin Finn]

He really did. He said, let me one of you guys take my number so you can text me if you guys were able to get out of here.

[Stephen Hackett]

Here. And I'm like.

[Kevin Finn]

And his wife was telling Jordy. She's like, pay close attention, Attention to detail. We're like, I think that's actually like a prerequisite for all these rooms. But we paid attention. We barely got out.

[Stephen Hackett]

Barely. We had like 13 minutes left. I sent him like, a couple pictures of us in all our glory, having finished the thing and was just like,

[Dave Jackson]

yeah, I have not done a lot of escape rooms, maybe three, I think, in my life.

[Stephen Hackett]

But.

[Dave Jackson]

But my theory, in my vast experience, is that the smaller your group, the more likely you are to complete it quickly and efficiently.

[Kevin Finn]

I'm with you.

[Dave Jackson]

I think the more people you have in there, it's just more confusion.

[Stephen Hackett]

There's too many clicks in the kitchen,

[Kevin Finn]

and you've also got people who don't share that. They have a clue. So there's one point we're trying to get something through in this other room, and a guy's walking around with a cane. But I don't know this guy, so I think he just has a cane. And then he's like, we could maybe use this to reach in there. And we're like, is that a prop? He's like, yeah, I found it over there. Like, dude, we don't know.

[Dave Jackson]

You don't act like you just need a cane.

[Kevin Finn]

So I'm with you. I think that maybe keeping the group smaller is probably a better idea.

[Stephen Hackett]

Yeah. So you haven't guessed. I'm in Florida. We're in the studio recording this time.

[Kevin Finn]

This is a live, in person podcast recording.

[Stephen Hackett]

It's weird.

[Dave Jackson]

Yeah, it's rare for us. But I feel like the work that you guys did in the escape room last night was, you know, solving mysteries is a good setup for what we should talk about today.

[Kevin Finn]

What's this mystery?

[Dave Jackson]

Being that we typically record remote. We use remote recording software today. We don't have to. And last night you solved mysteries. There's another mystery that's plaguing podcasting right now, which has to do with remote recording software. And why is it all so buggy and terrible and expensive?

[Stephen Hackett]

Wow.

[Kevin Finn]

I. I feel like that's a bit much. I don't know if it's terrible buggy.

[Dave Jackson]

It' a bit much. But I think even the best tools that we've used we've still had problems with. So I don't want to say they're all terrible, but they. They all have issues once in a while, right?

[Stephen Hackett]

Oh, yeah.

[Dave Jackson]

And it's pretty expensive software. So when you're paying, you know, $30 a month roughly, for the software, you shouldn't, like, run into problems on the regular, especially with things that are. It's like, high stakes. I think One of the worst businesses to possibly ever be in would be like a wedding photographer. Like, you think about the anxiety level of a wedding photographer. I don't know what all you're paying for with a wedding photographer, but I think part of what you're paying for is that they can't mess up. Right. Like you have one wedding on one day, it's super expensive. They have to get all the shots. Like they've got to get whatever the, the bride kissing the groom and the cake cutting. And if they don't get that shot, like you're not going to reenact it. There's no way to fake it. Maybe with AI someday in the future, but where things stand right now, you missed that shot, you're gonna have a very unhappy customer. Right, right. And that is kind of the same thing with this remote recording software is that you're gonna have guests on, you're gonna, they're gonna tell their story, they're gonna give you an hour of their time or two hours or whatever. If that recording gets messed up, the stakes are high. You don't wanna have to redo that. You don't wanna have to go back to that guest ever and say, can we record it again? And even if you do, you're gonna miss some magical moments that you had the first time.

[Kevin Finn]

Oh, yeah, somebody. I was at Podcast Movement and she did support for one of the remote recording software with people who just get really mean or mad in support. And I was like, man, I don't feel like we have tons of customers who are like over the top angry. And then I thought about it and went, yours is much more high stakes. I was like, even if Bruz Sprout went totally down for an hour, we'd say, oh my gosh, that was our mistake, huge fault. But all the episodes are live now. The worst thing that happened was listeners didn't get to listen for an hour. But if Squadcast or Riverside or Zoom or any of them go down for a minute and you were in a recording now it's painful.

[Stephen Hackett]

Oh, yeah.

[Kevin Finn]

It's a much more high stakes game.

[Stephen Hackett]

It really is.

[Dave Jackson]

And I do think there is a lot of complexity in the problem that they're solving is it's more complex than just podcast hosting. Right. You are doing something live, even if you're not live broadcasting out to the world. You are trying to capture something live, real time. So if there is a technical glitch, then that has just messed up that thing that's happening in that moment. I get all that but it seems like all of these companies, whether you're. Well, not all of them, but most of them outside of Zoom. But Adobe Podcasts, Riverside, Squadcasts, Clean Feed, those are the ones that come top of mind. They're all solving this problem through browser technology. Right. They're trying to record video and audio, and they're utilizing the browser as like, the fat client for the software solution. And then they're all piggybacking on the capabilities of the browser to make that happen. They're adding their own special sauce in addition to what's happening in the browser to do local recording and stuff. But they're really.

[Kevin Finn]

When you say fat client, you mean like fat file system, like the thing that's on the computer?

[Dave Jackson]

I mean, like installable software.

[Kevin Finn]

Yeah.

[Dave Jackson]

So like, if you want to run Zoom, you can just run that in a browser, but they really push you to download the Zoom software and install it on your computer, I'm guessing, because then they don't have to rely on the browser. They control everything. But Riverside and Squadcast and Clean Feed and stuff, they don't like, you just run that through the browser. You don't have to install anything on your computer to use that software. So they are heavily dependent on what's going on in the browser. And browsers get updated regularly. Again, this is in our business, so it's just a bit of speculation, but browsers get updated regularly. Lots of people run different versions of browsers. We can put two computers side by side that are both completely up to date. And you might see the browser version is just different by like some tiny little number at the end of a very long string. Yeah. And these softwares are utilizing that to do all this recording, plus the local stuff, plus the syncing of the files at the end of the day. And I feel like it's just, I don't know, more fragile, I think, is the way I'm thinking about it than it probably should be for software that costs $30 a month, you know, professional, whatever they say, studio quality recording for remote podcast interviews. That's how this stuff's all being sold. But I don't think it's. Is that. I think it's, I don't know, not as reliable as it should be.

[Stephen Hackett]

Yeah, I will say, you know, I mean, we use Riverside for Buzzcast, and I'm just so confused by it. And like I've said before, I'm not technically minded. And so they record locally and then it uploads to the browser when it's complete. But the Thing is, is like almost every single episode we record, if we talk over each other, which we do every. A lot, the other person who is either like, starts talking or the person who's currently talking while someone else starts talking, their audio gets garbled and distorted. And so there's so many ends of sentences or something like that that I have to cut out every single episode because it gets garbled. And it's such a weird thing that's been happening and it's been happening for, like, I don't know, over a year, maybe two years, like a long time. But I just accepted that that is the flaw with recording remotely.

[Dave Jackson]

Why?

[Kevin Finn]

Why is that? Because if it's recording it remotely, it shouldn't really matter if it's uploaded later on. Like, what is the garbling come from?

[Stephen Hackett]

See, that's what doesn't make sense to me.

[Dave Jackson]

Yeah, it absolutely should not.

[Stephen Hackett]

And my audio shouldn't be affecting your audio, Kevin. No, it just doesn't make any sense. And we lag because we're so far. Like, I'm in a completely different side of the country. And so, yeah, sometimes there's a lag and sometimes I will start talking because I think one of you guys aren't talking, and then I'll realize and I'll stop. And then the first part of whatever you're trying to say is completely, like, messed up.

[Kevin Finn]

Yeah. So that's like a speed of light issue, right?

[Dave Jackson]

Yeah, not really. I know what you're saying, but it's not really a speed of light issue. It is an Internet traffic issue. Yeah, it is latency.

[Kevin Finn]

There's going to be some latency, right?

[Dave Jackson]

There will be some. I think Clean Feed is the software solution that's done the best in, in terms of low latency remote recording. And because their focus has been there, they have become the solution for a lot of, like, Hollywood studios, a lot of symphonies, a lot of musicians use them. Because musicians have to be like, if I'm playing bass on a track and you're playing drums on a track and Jordan's playing guitar, is that one of

[Kevin Finn]

the track beats for?

[Dave Jackson]

It's one of the main use cases.

[Stephen Hackett]

I didn't know that.

[Dave Jackson]

Is that they are really good at low latency recording so that you come in at exactly the right time and so you can hear the drums playing and you know when to come in. And so that's less important in podcasting. But if latency is extremely high, that it does become a problem because there's awkward pauses or something like the Conversation doesn't flow as naturally as it should be. So Clean Feed could be a good solution for the latency issue. But Clean Feed doesn't offer video. And like, for Buzzcast, we don't need video, but we do like to see each other when we're recording. We don't need the video recorded, but we do like to see each other. Because there's times we'll give each other hand signals, like, you know, up your energy level. Like, you're saying good stuff, but we need to up we.

[Kevin Finn]

That's like. That's like the most common hand signal, actually, that Kevin gives out, right?

[Dave Jackson]

Or once in a while, one of

[Stephen Hackett]

us will do a. Alvin just knocked.

[Kevin Finn]

Here's the issues with in person recordings. I'm in the studio. I bumped into a table behind me and knocked over four podcast microphones.

[Stephen Hackett]

How much money is that on the floor right now?

[Kevin Finn]

This is a lot. This is a rode broadcaster, a PR40, and a rode podmic.

[Dave Jackson]

Okay, okay, hey, let's put this stuff aside. Let's get back on topic.

[Stephen Hackett]

All right, here we go.

[Dave Jackson]

All right, so the question I'm posing to anybody who's listening who works in the podcast world is why are we doing things this way? Like Adobe podcasts, right? Adobe, huge company, infinite number of, like, technical resources. Why are you still deciding to rely on a browser as the main, like, powerhouse engine driving your podcast recording solution? Why are we not just, you know, delivering like, installable chunk of software like Zoom has done that just becomes really reliable and does what it's supposed to do, does local recording and syncs it up after the recording is done, like, uploads it to a place that whoever's going to edit that episode can download it? I don't understand it. Again, going back to the wedding photographer analogy, it's pretty high stakes. Why are we building businesses that are dependent upon browsers that get updated sometimes multiple times a day and could change at any given moment and could break your software?

[Kevin Finn]

My guess is the browsers are more platform agnostic or closer to being platform agnostic. If you're trying to do an iPhone app, an Android app, a bunch of different PC apps, a bunch of Mac apps, a bunch of, like, random Linux apps, and you're like, Chrome's already figured out how to get installed on all of those, and it will pretty much give me the same capabilities across the board. I'll take consistency and even if I lose a little couple nines of reliability. But what I don't want to have to do is try to build custom Apps for all of them. I mean, I feel like Zoom did that for video recordings. Zoom became the best video, like software to talk to people, but then they added like so many features that the product degraded and now it's like, I feel like I use it way less instead. Now I use whereby which is in the browser. I don't know, but I imagine that's probably the reason. Right?

[Dave Jackson]

Yeah. I mean, we see a lot of discussions around this topic in the Facebook community that we run for Buzzsprout and it seems like this is not a problem that's unique. I don't want anybody to feel like we're harping on Riverside. Riverside is the tool that we use currently to record Buzzcast and we do consistently run into audio issues, which doesn't make sense because it's supposed to be local recordings. There should not be like digital audio artifacts unless one of our computers happen to be like slow or out of date or whatever and the computer got bogged down and caused some sort of digital artifact. But that's not the case. We run very high end computers. They're all brand new. We're not running anything else while we're recording. Yeah, all the. Jordan, like, we just talked about this before we recorded last time. She completely reboots her computer before we record. Like, we do all this stuff and we still have these problems. And we also see in our Facebook community that people who run squadcast have these problems. And we tried a test episode on Adobe Podcast and we ran into a little issue and like, we haven't tried Clean Feed because again, Clean Feed doesn't have the video side and we like to see each other. But are we the only ones who are having this problem? No. Other people in our Facebook group are. So what is the solution? I don't know.

[Kevin Finn]

But flying Jordan into the office,

[Dave Jackson]

which has its own set of problems, like Alvin bumping into a bookshelf and knocking over all the microphones. All right, so there's, there's the mystery. I don't know that we have a solution, but I, you know, I think it's a good opportunity to open it up to feedback from anybody who's listening. Like, if anybody from Riverside is listening and you can explain some of this, like, drop us a comment, like maybe we can have you on the show to talk about what are the challenges? If anybody from Adobe Podcasts or Clean Feed or anybody who wants to come on, I'm sure our audience would love to hear. And if you're a podcaster and you found a solution that really works well for you and you love it and you never switch and you never run. Any problems, let us know about that.

[Stephen Hackett]

Absolutely.

[Dave Jackson]

Maybe we need to give it a try, something different.

[Kevin Finn]

Yeah. This is definitely a problem that you have for any feature launch is that the people who talk about it are the people who something broke. And for the person who's like, wow, everything went smoothly and easily, I'm so happy. They're always the ones who go on and move on with their life and do something else.

[Dave Jackson]

Right.

[Kevin Finn]

So we're the complainers today because we've had a couple of bad recordings in a row.

[Stephen Hackett]

That's true. That's right, though. Tap the text the show link in the show notes to send in your responses and we will have you on the podcast. Or you can give us some recommendations. And until next time, keep podcasting.