Riverside.fm records locally on each participant's machine and that detail changes everything about audio quality

I produce a podcast with remote guests and the audio quality problem has always been the hardest part to solve. Internet connection quality varies, participants are on different hardware, and the result is often that my carefully edited episode sounds inconsistent in a way that is difficult to fix in post. Riverside.fm solves this at the source and the way it does it is worth understanding properly.

The key design decision is local recording. Rather than recording the call as it streams over the internet, Riverside records each participant's audio and video locally on their own computer at full quality, up to 4K video and studio-quality audio, and then uploads those files to the cloud. The internet connection quality affects the call experience but not the recording quality. That distinction matters enormously in practice.

The built-in teleprompter is a feature I use for every episode. I keep interview questions and topic guides there and can read from them while maintaining eye contact with the camera because the text is displayed directly over the lens. Scroll speed is adjustable. It is a small thing that makes a visible difference to how natural the conversation looks on camera.

The Media Board lets you play sound effects, clips or custom audio during live recording. I use it for intro jingles and transition sounds that get baked into the recording rather than added in post.

Participant roles are well thought out. Guests join as standard participants, people you want present but not recorded join as Audience, and if you have a producer managing levels and settings they join with Producer access without appearing in the recording.