Editor’s note: The Daily will be off next week for a spring break. We’ll be back in your inbox on Monday, April 5 with more headlines, events, and stories from the podverse.
At-home recordings are changing audio quality standards across public media, writes John Kalish for Current. Podcast producers in particular have developed new tools and DIY workarounds for less-than-ideal setups. Radio may not sound like it used to, but there’s no shortage of ingenuity in audio.
Western Sound founder Ben Adair developed Talk Sync, an app designed to record interviewees on their smartphones. The microphones we carry around in our pockets “sound better than most mics podcasters use,” Adair said. Talk Sync users include APM Reports, Hidden Brain, and Iowa Public Radio.
The basic voice memo app has become a staple of interviewee self-recording. Location matters, says PRX producer Jocelyn Gonzales, who has asked for live video tours of possible home recording spots. Next, assign a bit of homework: This page from WBUR’s Modern Love is the ultimate how-to.
Cascatelli, a new pasta shape borne of a podcast, is nothing short of a phenomenon. The Sporkful host and creator Dan Pashman spent three years engineering the ruffly wonder, writes Rob Walker. Demand hasn’t slowed since the first batch sold out two hours after being announced on the show.
In its 11-year run, Pashman’s food podcast has won Webby, James Beard, and Saveur Awards. With a large, cascatelli-obsessed audience following along, he “documented this quest — its ups and downs, its challenges and risks, its many encounters with brick walls — in a multipart series on his podcast.”
Pashman’s specific pasta-judging criteria have inspired joyful debate among thousands. Just like that, “sauceability,” “forkability,’ and “toothsinkability” have joined the internet’s vocabulary. It’s the sign of a truly passionate podcaster: “People are consuming not just the pasta, but its remarkable story.”
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