Record a podcast episode

Open a podcast and choose Record. Choose Solo to keep the existing simple recorder: allow the browser to use the microphone, then record one or more takes. Takes let you stop and restart without discarding the whole session. Arrange the usable segments into the episode before publishing.

Choose With other people to create a Podcast recording session. Give the session a name and optionally select an episode draft.

The room opens with the session name and a recording deck. The deck shows the take number, elapsed recording time, current state, and buttons for the available actions. People and Your microphone are below it. A recording session can contain several takes. A take is saved audio; it is not a published episode.

Copy the invite link for each guest. A guest can join without a Magpie account. The host can replace an invite link if it has been shared with the wrong person. A note beside the link says how many people a session holds; that limit is set for the whole site, not per session, and it is fixed when the session is created.

You can hear and talk to each other in the session before recording starts; the live conversation does not wait for a take to begin. The deck says when you can hear one another.

A sound plays when someone new joins, so you do not have to watch the page while you wait for a guest. Turn it off with Play a sound when someone joins under the participant list; the choice is remembered in that browser. Nothing sounds once a take has started, so it cannot reach the microphone of anyone recording without headphones.

Each person's row shows what their browser reports: whether they are ready, whether they are recording locally, how their upload is going, and Connection unstable if the live conversation to them is not working. Being the only person in the room is not a connection problem, and a person who has just joined is given a few seconds to connect before anything is reported.

Each person chooses a microphone, watches the level check and records a short private test, then chooses I'm ready to record on the deck. That button stays unavailable until the browser has a working microphone. Choose I'm not ready to take the mark off again.

Once everyone is ready, the host uses Start recording, then Pause, Resume and Stop take. A co-host can use the same controls. Other guests see the recording state and that the host controls pause and stop. Only the commands that apply to the current state are shown. Pause keeps recording in the same take; Stop take ends it. When recording is active, the deck shows Recording now with a red light beside the timer.

Once recording starts, participants hear one another through the live conversation, while each browser records only its local microphone in short chunks, saves them locally before upload, and retries uploads if the connection temporarily fails. If the call becomes unstable, local recording can continue. Keep the page open until Magpie confirms that your audio has uploaded.

If a take stays on Recording ended with an incomplete upload, ask the participant named on the page to reopen the recording link on the device and browser they used. They can choose Resume upload if that browser still has saved audio. After five minutes, the owner can choose Use received audio if an upload cannot be resumed. Magpie uses only consecutive chunks it has already received. Audio left in a browser is omitted and cannot be added to that take later. The review page marks tracks finished this way as Received audio only. If no audio was received for one participant, the take can still finish with the other participant's audio. The empty track is marked No audio received and is not included in downloads or the combined preview. If the stopped take has had no new audio for 30 minutes, opening the room finishes it with received audio automatically when your own track is complete and the received chunks are usable. If your own upload is incomplete, check for saved audio in that browser before choosing Use received audio. If everyone closed the room without pressing Stop take, opening it after 30 minutes without a recording heartbeat or incoming audio ends the take at the last observed recording activity and checks the received audio. A browser that is still recording or uploading keeps the take open.

Once a take is finished, the room shows Download all tracks (ZIP), Listen and adjust, and Record another take. The invite and microphone controls are hidden until you choose Record another take. Download all tracks (ZIP) prepares a ZIP of available aligned participant WAVs and session-markers.csv, then starts the download. Those WAVs use the initial session timing; saved adjustments are included in new combined exports. Open Listen and adjust to check the combined recording and adjust timing. The download section on that page has each participant's WAV and aligned WAV. They may still be preparing when a take first finishes. If they remain unavailable, Contact support. Downloads are private to the Podcast owner.

Listen and adjust prepares a combined MP3 preview when the tracks are ready. Play that preview to hear the participants together. Timing controls are directly below the player. If a voice is ahead, use Move later for that participant; if it is behind, use Move earlier. If the preview ends before the recorded audio does, do not use it in an episode. Contact support to have the retained source chunks rebuilt. Each click changes the offset by 100 ms and prepares a new preview. Offset moves a whole track. Drift changes alignment gradually; use it when the voices start aligned but separate later. The exact offset and drift values, individual players, volume, mute, sync points, and trim are under More controls for that participant. Timing adjustments are saved separately from the original recording and can be undone or reset. Review can play the generated participant tracks and combined MP3 through private owner-only links. The combined export mixes participant tracks together on the session timeline and applies saved synchronization adjustments; it does not play each speaker one after another. Download an aligned WAV for external editing, or prepare a combined WAV when you need a lossless mix. The original source track remains available separately. In review, use mute, solo, and volume controls to inspect individual tracks. Save track mix settings when you want volume or mute changes included in a new combined export; these settings do not change the original recordings. Review also shows a compact waveform for each track. If timing evidence is incomplete, review labels the track Timing needs review. For difficult recordings, open Advanced timing and trim and enter two matching moments from the reference timeline and a participant track. Magpie uses them to calculate both the starting offset and gradual clock drift. The same Advanced area can trim unwanted silence at the beginning or end of a track. These changes affect new combined exports; the original recording is preserved. Choose Use as episode to add that mix to the associated draft, or to create a new draft when the session was not linked to one. Publishing remains a separate action. After a take is ready, the host can choose Record another take in the same room. The original invite link remains valid unless you replace it. Earlier takes are preserved. Everyone sees the same shared elapsed recording time; time spent paused is not included. While recording, the room shows whether each participant's local recorder and upload are healthy. A weak call connection does not by itself mean the local recording has failed. If a browser is reloaded after a problem, reopen the same recording link. Magpie checks for locally saved chunks and offers recovery by resuming their upload. Keep the page open until it confirms completion.

Markers and the Soundboard are not available in the room at the moment. A take recorded while they were still there keeps them: review shows its markers, and lets you change a Soundboard trigger's volume or remove it before preparing a new mix. Review also provides the reconstructed Soundboard as a separate WAV track. Participant microphone tracks are not changed.

Remote sessions also appear under Recordings in the Podcast area. Open one to return to the room, review its takes, download tracks, or export a finished mix. Delete a recording from the Podcast area when you no longer need it. Deleting a recording removes its takes, uploads, and exports, including a session that is stuck waiting for a participant to finish uploading. The host can grant Co-host access to a participant. Co-hosts can control recording. The host can transfer host control to an approved Co-host without creating a new session; the session owner remains responsible for participant roles. The host can remove a participant from the live room. Audio already captured from that participant is preserved with the session where it can be finalized.

Enter the episode title and description. Saving a draft keeps the takes and assembly for later editing. Publishing creates the episode audio and adds it to the podcast's public page and RSS feed when the podcast is on.

Use headphones when recording remote audio through the same computer. Close other applications that use the microphone, and keep the tab open while a take is being saved. Browser privacy settings can block recording even after Magpie has permission; check the address-bar microphone control. The default microphone settings favor reliable echo and noise handling. If you use headphones and a suitable microphone, you can choose Original microphone audio in the advanced preflight settings to request capture without automatic gain, noise suppression, or echo cancellation where the browser supports it. On a phone or tablet, keep the recording page open and unlocked: mobile browsers can suspend recording when the page is backgrounded or the screen is locked.

Deleting a draft removes every take belonging to it. Download or publish any audio you need before deleting.

Record in the mobile app

Open a podcast in the app and choose Record, then Solo or With other people. Both work as they do in a browser, and a draft or session started in one can be continued in the other.

Solo records takes into an episode draft. Record starts a take, Pause closes it and saves it, and Resume starts the next one. Stop ends the take. Tap a take to play it back or remove it. Tap the episode title or description to edit it. Publish Episode mixes the takes into the episode. Drafts are listed under Drafts on the podcast; swipe one to delete it.

With other people asks for an optional session name and episode draft, then opens the session. Share the invite link from People or the menu. Guests can join in a browser or in the app: an invite link opened in the app shows the invitation, where they enter their name and choose Join session.

The app records your microphone to a file on the phone and uploads it in short pieces while you record. On iPhone and iPad the recording is a full-quality WAV, about 6 MB of upload a minute. On Android it is AAC, about 1 MB a minute. Use Wi-Fi for long recordings. Recording continues when the screen locks. On Android this needs notifications to be on for Magpie, because a recording that continues in the background shows a notification; the app asks the first time you record. With notifications off, recording pauses whenever you leave the app.

Every piece is kept on the phone until Magpie has it. If you leave the session screen while recording, recording stops on that phone; what was recorded is kept and uploads when you open the session again. If the app closes during a take, open the session again and the saved audio uploads by itself; there is no Resume upload button in the app.

Record a test records three seconds you can play back. The level meter shows while a test or a take records. Choose a microphone under Your microphone when more than one is connected. The app does not offer Turn off echo and noise processing: on Android it records with the phone's call processing, and on iPhone and iPad the recording is not processed. Use headphones.

A host can touch and hold a person to make them a co-host or the host, and swipe a person to remove them. After a take, Download all tracks (ZIP) prepares the ZIP and opens the share sheet. Listen and adjust has the same timing, volume, mute, solo, sync point and trim controls as the website; volume changes in steps of 10%. Under Download files, tap a person to share their WAV, or touch and hold for the aligned WAV. Delete a recording from the session's menu, or swipe it in the podcast's Recordings.

If the microphone meter never responds, test the selected input in the operating system first. If takes record but cannot be assembled or saved, Contact support.