Skype is an essential item in any podcaster’s toolkit. And podcasters are always looking for ways to record and save the audio produced during a Skype call. Over the years, podcasters have relied on various hardware/software combinations and techniques to achieve this goal with some methods being more complex than others.

If you’re a podcaster using a Mac and you need a simple and reliable way to record Skype calls, take a look at Call Recorder by Ecamm. Call Recorder is an application that works directly with Skype to record audio or video calls. It also comes with a collection of extras that can be used to convert your Skype recording to other media formats.

Installation of Call Recorder is pretty straight forward. Just download the installer from the Ecamm website and run it like you would any other Mac software installer. Once it’s up and running, Call Recorder automatically launches when you run Skype.

To configure Call Recorder, open Skype preferences and click the Recording tab.

As you can see, Call Recorder has several options for setting the recording format and quality. You can also tell Call Recorder to capture just audio or both audio and video and you can select a static location on your computer’s hard drive for saved files.

When you’re ready to begin recording, initiate a Skype call and when you’re connected, press the red record button in the Call Recorder window. Call Recorder will record the voices/video feeds of all parties on the call and saves them to a Quicktime file. When you’re done, you can convert that Quicktime file to any other format you may need. Call Recorder even comes with a host of simple drag-and-drop tools to help with the conversion.

No Skype call recording will match the quality of a true multi-ender production. But the overall recording quality of Call Recorder is very good. (It doesn’t suffer from super low fidelity, telephone-style recordings like many other Skype recording apps.) Even if you don’t use Call Recorder as a primary source for your audio, it can be very handy as a backup recorder.

Call Recorder is a free download with a free 7-day trial. If you use the program and like it, you can then purchase a license directly from Ecamm for $29.95. So far, Ecamm has offered all Call Recorder upgrades for free.

Finally, there was much panic last year when Microsoft announced it would shut down the Skype Desktop API that many third-party recording applications rely on. Based on feedback from the Skype community, Microsoft went back on this decision and the Desktop API is still in place. Regardless, I have contacted Ecamm support directly to ask them if Call Recorder uses the API and they have stated that it doesn’t. So even if the Desktop API does disappear in the future, you’ll be safe using Call Recorder.

Posted by Shawn Thorpe