u/FewFoundation9923

Hi everyone,

Please flag if this is not the appropriate space for my question.

I have a major challenge for which I would like some help. I am coordinating a scientific project involving several researchers conducting online therapy sessions/interviews. Since we are on a very tight budget, we cannot afford the premium versions of Zoom or Google Meet to record the calls, which I believe would be the easier way.

We have a major challenge:

1. Local Recording is mandatory: For ethical and data privacy reasons, we cannot use cloud recording. The audio must be saved directly to the researcher's computer. They will then upload that to our server.
2. OS Agnostic: Our team uses a mix of Windows and macOS. We need a solution (or a set of instructions) that works for both.
3. Double-sided Audio: We need to capture both the interviewer’s mic and the participant’s system audio clearly. Ideally we would have video and audio but due to budget constraints, we decided to record only audio
4. User Friendly: Some of our researchers are not tech-savvy (in fact, I would say none of them are), so a setup that is "set and forget" would be ideal.

Does anyone have experience with a robust, free workflow for this? I have looked into OBS, but it seems a bit complex for non-tech users. Are there simpler alternatives or perhaps a specific "dummy-proof" configuration for OBS/Audacity?

Any help is appreciated