Podcasting · Tutorial · July 8, 2026 · 6 min read
If you record a remote podcast over a normal call, everyone gets squashed into one compressed stream — and when one guest's mic pops or their WiFi drops, it drags the whole episode down. The fix is to record each guest on a separate track. Here's how to do that free, in the browser, with no downloads for your guests.
Why separate tracks change the whole edit
When a call app mixes everyone into one file, you're stuck with it. You can't lower just the loud guest, cut just the co-host's cough, or clean just the one person on a bad mic — every change hits everyone at once. Separate tracks give you a knob per person: fix their levels, trim their tangents, and clean their audio on their own layer while nobody else is affected.
The other big win is quality. A live call compresses video and audio hard so it survives the network. That's fine for talking, but it's not what you want in the final export. Recording each person locally, in their own browser, keeps their full-quality camera and mic — not the squeezed version that traveled across the internet.
What you need
- A browser (yours and each guest's) — Chrome, Edge, or any modern one
- Your guests' emails or a chat where you can drop a link
- Five minutes to test before the real recording (always worth it)
No app installs, no accounts for guests, no dongles. Everything happens in the tab.
Step 1 — Start a session and invite your guests by link
Open /record and start a multi-guest session. You'll get an invite link. Send it to each guest. When they click it, they land in the session in their browser, allow their camera and mic, and appear as a circle next to you — no install, no signup. You can have several guests in at once.
Step 2 — Get everyone set before you hit record
Do the boring checks first. Ask each guest to pick their real mic (not the laptop's built-in one if they have a headset), check their framing, and say a test line so you can eyeball levels. If someone needs to show slides, they can screen-share — you approve it as the host, so nothing pops on screen without your say-so. You can also mute or hide a guest, or swap the shared screen mid-session.
Step 3 — Hit record (this is where local per-participant recording kicks in)
When you start recording as the host, two things happen at once:
- The live session — everyone's circles, the shared screen, the host↔guest audio and video — is recorded as the composite, the way the show looked live.
- At the same time, each guest's browser also records their own camera and mic locally in full quality and uploads that track separately. That's the clean, per-person version — not the compressed composite.
So you end up with a separate, full-quality track for each person, plus the composite as a reference of how it all lined up. Record your episode, wrap up, and stop.
Step 4 — Download the separate tracks and edit
After the session, grab each guest's separate track. Drop them into the editor and you've got one layer per person. From here you can trim dead air, cut a fumbled answer from just one guest, and balance who's loud. If a guest was on a noisy mic, run Clean Audio on just their track — the rest of the episode stays untouched. Because every track started recording at the same moment, lining them up on the timeline is quick.
Honest note on what's live and what's next
Separate downloadable per-person tracks work today — that's the new part, and it's real. What's not here yet is server-side auto-sync and compositing of those tracks; that's a planned next step, so for now you line the tracks up yourself in the editor (fast, since they all start together). And if a guest's upload hiccups, there's a per-guest download fallback — the guest can pull their local recording and send it to you directly, so nobody loses a track.
How it compares
Local per-participant recording is the whole pitch of tools like Riverside.fm, Zencastr, and Squadcast. They do it well — but they're standalone "recording studio" products that run roughly $15–$24/month, and they stop at the recording. There's no editor built in. You record in one place, then take your tracks somewhere else to actually cut the episode, clean the audio, add captions, and make clips.
EZ Web Streams does the per-participant local recording and the editing and the clipping in the same browser tab — for free to start. You invite guests by link, get clean separate tracks, then edit, clean audio, caption, and pull short clips without exporting to a second app or paying a monthly studio fee. It's one tool instead of a recorder plus an editor.
Record your next episode with clean per-guest tracks
Invite by link, record locally in full quality, edit in the same tab — no install.
Start free →FAQ
Why record each guest on a separate track?
Separate tracks let you edit each person's audio and video on their own. You can fix one guest's levels, cut their coughs, or clean their mic without touching anyone else. A single mixed recording locks everyone together, so one bad connection drags down the whole episode.
Do my guests need to install anything?
No. Guests join by clicking a link in their browser and allowing camera and mic. Their browser records their own camera and mic locally in full quality while you talk, then uploads that clean track separately. Nothing to download, no account to create.
Does EZ Web Streams auto-sync the separate tracks for me?
Not yet. Today you get separate, downloadable per-person tracks in full quality — that's the part that's live. Server-side auto-sync and compositing of those tracks is a planned next step. For now you line them up in the editor, which is fast because everything started at the same moment.
What happens if a guest's upload fails?
There's a per-guest download fallback, so no one loses their track if an upload hiccups. The guest can grab their local recording and send it to you directly. You also still have the recorded composite from the live session as a backup reference. The Free plan records up to 5 minutes at 720p, unlimited, forever. Pro is $7.99/mo.