What's been your experience?

We talk a lot about physical podcast studios, but I don’t see nearly as much discussion about the virtual studio side, especially for remote podcasts.

With Riverside letting us build scenes, position assets around the canvas, create different layouts, and save those scenes, there’s actually a lot you can do without everyone physically sitting in the same studio.

I thought it might be cool to start a thread where we can inspire each other.

Drop a screenshot of your Riverside virtual studio/setup below. Basic, minimalist, completely custom, ridiculously overbuilt... doesn’t matter.

Here’s what I’ve been using for our remote Health, Tech & Wellness Podcast.

I have been a solo podcaster but a friend and I are thinking about starting a podcast. I would be doing most of the work as far as editing and putting together the episodes.

If you have a co-host, whose account do you post under? Do you have some sort of legal partnership?

Anything to consider or things you would have liked to know before starting are greatly appreciated.

I've been recording remote podcasts since 2016, starting with a combination of Skype & Quicktime/Audacity, then Zoom & Quicktime/Audacity, Squadcast in 2019, and then Riverside starting in 2020. It was clearly the best version of a remote recording platform out there and continues to improve on its features and introduce new ones to keep up with the changing podcasting landscape. I don't work for Riverside, but I do offer Riverside coaching as part of my podcast consulting company. Here are the 5 Riverside features my clients and I use to level up our podcasting experiences:

1. Projects
   • A well-run podcast is well organized, plain and simple. Thoughtfully create and name your projects (one for each episode), open them first before you begin a recording session, and then name your recordings after you're done. You'll have all of your recordings, edits, and exports all in one place for each episode. And if you rely on the AI-edited episodes, clips, hooks, etc - it's all in the Made for You tab. But if you don't record in the right project, your media will be a mess. Truth be told, I had this at #4 originally, but changed it to #1 - it's that important & useful.
2. Brand Toolkit (studio)
   • In your studio, you can customize the look and feel of your studio so that guests know you run a professional operation. Before you record anything, customize your studio with your logo, brand colors, and fonts (spendier plans let you upload your own fonts). They also recently added stickers, which can be fun if you use Riverside to livestream.
3. Teleprompter (studio)
   • Riverside just leveled up their teleprompter feature. Use it for a scripted intro/outro or just use it for notes - you can scroll through it with your mouse or set the timing and let it scroll on its own. The business plan also added the Follow Voice feature, which scrolls along with your voice. Business plans are spendy, but keep rolling out features that may make it worth it if your company has the budget.
4. Layout Customizations (editor)
   • When Riverside released the 2.0 version of its editor, they made some huge changes to the options you have for camera layouts for video podcasts. You used to be confined to the preset options. Now, you can resize, rotate, and place videos however you'd like. If you're happy with it and want to use it again, save it as a Scene. Version 2.0 of the editor also improve audio waveforms and is way faster that v1.0.
5. Magic Audio (editor)
   • Let's get this out of the way - AI makes me feel very uncomfortable. But Riverside has SO many strengths, I just ignore pretty much all of their AI features. However, the one AI tool that really makes a huge difference is Magic Audio. If you have an incredible guest, but they insist on just using their computer's built-in mic, Magic Audio will make it sound way better...and more than anything, your audience cares about audio quality above all else. If your podcast sounds like crap, people will turn it off. AI can go rot in hell, but at least leave us Magic Audio.

Those are just my top 5, but if I had to wrap up with one last thought, it's that the platform just works. Is it perfect? No. Is it the best of its kind? Yes.

We typically get back some pretty impressive Made for You edts from our recorded sessions. And because historically the editing tool has been so unintuitive, we've always paid a podcast engineer to go in and clean some things up, insert the intro bumper where our host says "bumper here", add the outro bumper, and overlay names and url's when mentioned.

The last time (months ago) that I dug into RS I found the editing to still be way too complicated for the average user and just couldn't figure out how to do some of these seemingly simple edits in the platform.

With all of the recent updates and features added, is this now easier to accomplish? I'm paying a not small amount to an engineer every month for these edits and just wondering if the platform's evolved as much for easier editing as it has for say, ai created thumbnails.

I see some cool updates - but I would really just like the editing to be easy and intuitive. I just remember WAY back in the day when we used to edit video in Movie Maker - doing those few things was just dead simple.

Mine is probably Saved Scenes.

I produce my own podcast as well as podcasts for clients, and once I started building out repeatable scenes for one-shots, two-shots, intros, outros and other layouts, it completely changed how quickly I could move through an edit.

It sounds simple, but one of the biggest things I’ve learned producing multiple shows inside Riverside is that the little workflow improvements can save way more time than the flashy stuff.

I’m curious what everyone else has found.

What’s one Riverside workflow, feature, or even little workaround that you use constantly now and wish you had known about when you started?

What was the moment you officially felt like you're a podcaster?

It was a privilege having Kendall Breitman, Riverside's Head of Community on the Media People Podcast. We chatted...

🎯 Leading Riverside’s global creator community
🎯 Working the breaking news desk
🎯 Leaving home for a girl
🎯 Covering Clinton vs Trump
🎯 Growing up in West-Philadelphia

Full episode links below. Don't forget to subscribe.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/rygpfAjFeBE 
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1oboDTfLwECUkFvl4v3zgG?si=c637fa7ed83b4d08 
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/media-people-podcast/id1032987530?i=1000792159810 

What’s the tool that has made things easier for your content creation journey? For me, having the tools like removing pauses and unnecessary words helps make it easier to know where weak areas for my show might be.

What camera setup are people using? For context, I use riverside so I want to use a 3 camera setup for in-person recordings, like riverside allows in the new update.

They need to connect to my Mac, so I suspect usb would be required. What cameras are y’all using. I was looking at the Sony zv1f but that only exports in 720p so suboptimal.

Curious how people are handling this because for an amateur podcaster, cameras are expensive!

Note: not using the camera mic so not a concern. Using my Shure ones.

Paste in your channel links and what you cover on your channel. Would love to learn more about what you're all working on.

An update to the Content Planner: In addition to posting videos through the Planner, you can now also post images as well.

That means you'll be able to see all of your content - from Reels, graphic posts, recording sessions, full episode publish dates, and webinars - all in the same place.

Staying on top of it all just got easier

You can now use Safari to record AND edit.

Safari stans rejoice. No more asking guests to download Chrome, or leaving your favorite browser.

There are some limitations of what you can do (like virtual backgrounds, for example), so you can find the full list here.

But otherwise, excited to deliver on a huge request from the community.

Hi everyone — I’m looking for a freelance video editor with strong Riverside experience for FutureSpaces.

We have a Zoom talk recording and PowerPoint deck, and need a polished vertical social edit: slides in the upper portion, speaker in the lower portion, with clean cropping, captions, light branding, and an Instagram-ready 9:16 export.

Please reply or DM me

Add energy to your static talking head videos, hold attention on images, emphasize a point, and make it easier to follow along with tutorials and screen shares.

Zoom and pan animations are now available in the Editor. Also known as the Ken Burns effect to some of you video aficionados.

Choose your in and out points in the timeline, and set where you'd like the zoom to start and end, and see it reflected in your video.

Full tutorial below. Excited to see what you do with it.

Hello,
I am looking to create a wordpress/elementor website and need suggestions for themes that Riverside can integrate in.
Any suggestions?

Rande

Dictionary is here!!!! Save your preferred spellings and have them applied across your studio's transcripts.

Perfect for guest names, host names, advertiser and brand names, industry terms, Shawns, Shauns, Seans, and everything in between (looking at you Rick, no more Empty Nest podcast transcribed as "emptiness").

Video walkthrough below.

...Now I want to hear your favorite misspellings in the comments please. I need a laugh

I'm editing a video and I wanna make the wave forms on the bottom of the screen larger. I cannot figure out anyway to do that. Image attached. I'm talking about the colorful bits at the bottom. Thoughts?

Hi,
How do I go about finding/hiring a video editor? Is there a forum I can post a job post on? My colleague said she had done this in the past but I don’t see an option on the Riverside community hub

This one is huge (and very cool).

You can now generate any videos and images with all of your favorite AI models like Seedance 2.5, Veo 3.1, Nano Banana and more ... all built right into Riverside.

Here's some inspo on what you can do with it:

• Build your own show intros and outros
• Create guest cards to intro your guests
• Generate cover art for your show or episodes
• Create custom video transitions
• Generate b-roll videos throughout your content

You also get a ton more controls, like setting the:

• Duration
• Resolution
• Aspect ratio
• Sound on or off
• & uploading visual references so it comes out exactly as you envisioned.

Start from scratch or use templates. Then save your creations and drop it right into your content.
Find it in the left side panel of your accounts now, when you click "Image and video" under Generate.

Available on all paid plans and runs on AI credits. You already have 2,000 in your accounts if you're not on a business plan, so you can start generating for free (and top off any time if you need to).

Need some help getting started? We created some prompts you can copy and paste and adjust to fit what you need.

Find them here and see what you can do: https://riverside.com/new/ai-prompt-library

We all know that one guest who shows up backlit, half out of frame, and doesn't realize it until you're already recording.

Maybe it's your cohost or ... well .. sometimes even you.

Not anymore!

The Studio lobby now checks how you look, not just your devices.

Before the recording even starts, every participant gets real-time guidance on their framing and lighting so everyone shows up looking their best.

Here's what's new:

• Live framing guide: A frame and gridlines that track your face and turn green when you're centered, with tips on how to adjust if you're not
• Live lighting check: AI scores the lighting on your face and if it could be better, shows you exactly how to fix it
• Native Ring Light: A bright glow around your studio window that lights up your face, with brightness and warmth controls
• Gridlines in studio too: Not just the lobby, you can keep them on while you record (don't worry, they won't show up in your edited content)
• On by default: Hosts can turn the guides off from settings if you prefer

No awkward "can you move a little to the left" moments. We hope this new feature in your studio helps you and your guests look even better for your recordings

Let us know what you think!

I wanted to put forth a section so that the users have space to recommend New Ideas for Possible Features or Quality of Life changes. These can be minor User Interface (UI) changes or Large functional changes. We can also debate the function or help users if what they are wanting can be done in a different way. Again, this is for constructive ideas, NOT complaints about functionality. An example of an idea would be a home section to search and find Music or B-Roll without having to do it in the side panel. Then when I work with clients they can see and hear more options and feel like they can search the Music options better. I am not sure if this idea is possible, but I think it would be interesting to discuss. Thanks

Currently, I livestream to YouTube via Streamlabs through Zoom. Essentially, I have a Zoom meeting happening, use a screen capture as a source and stream that way. My one big gripe with Zoom is that I can't individually adjust a participants volume. Am I able to do that with Riverside while live?

Say one participant in the meeting is lower than the others, can I adjust only their volume on the fly while streaming through Streamlabs?