I remember in the early 90’s sending an email to a guy at the Album Network in the USA about a Bowie project we were working on and being amazed by receiving a reply 2 minutes later.
That might sound nuts to the net native millennials, but I’d grown up in the radio era of landlines, then ISDN – but to get a quick reply you’d had to send a fax!
At Wisebuddah we’ve been connecting around the UK and word-wide by ISDN for a couple of decades – and it works well. I’d even had ISDN installed at a holiday home in the Caribbean so I could do my NOW! Voice overs and Classic FM shows while away.
But times change and while ISDN is great I’ve loved using ipDTL recently, particularly for some of the Classic Albums documentary content we have been making for Absolute Radio.
When we recorded Stiff Records legendary label boss Dave Robinson for a programme on Ian Dury’s classic New Boots & Panties, he sat on his Macbook in Cumbria and I sat on mine in my lounge at home. The quality was far better than Skype or Face Time Audio and that an artist interview request no longer needs to be face to face to include travel time makes a massive difference. In some cases it’s the difference between getting the interview or not.
The same went for an interview we did with KT Tunstall without her having to leave her home, at a quality level that was fit for broadcast. We got to record her amazing passion and brilliant stories about Prince, for the Classic Album Club episode on Prince’s Purple Rain.
Successful connections do depend on decent broadband both ends but I’ve found that taking care with setup almost always does the trick.
I also like to use ipDTL as a TBU. It gives me the flexibility to work from home or wherever I like but be confident that I can gather the content I need.
The Chrome interface also works great to use as a local recording machine alongside my Rode NT-USB microphone. I’m a creature of habit and I like it when stuff consistently works.
We have ipDTL at Wisebuddah too, and I’m sure that it will form a large part of our plans for podcast audio in the future.
Mark Goodier, Chairman, Wisebuddah
