5. Minimal editing makes a big difference

With some minimal editing you can create a more enjoyable listening experience for the listener. 

Granted, there's a learning curve, but small efforts will make a big difference and they're worth learning. Don't let the word "editing" scare you. Basic skills are easy to learn and some software (ex. Descript, Riverside) will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.  

Your podcast does NOT need to be perfect, so don't get caught up in a perfect edit. Just focus on a few key things. They'll make a big difference. 

mentioned in this episode: Auphonic and Magic Mastering

Chapters

• 0:23 Is editing controversial?
• 3:04 Minimal editing without perfectionism
• 4:56 When to remove filler words
• 6:32 Be mindful of long pauses
• 7:55 Be mindful of volume levels
• 8:24 Enhance your sound

Transcript

Transcript via Descript. (Semi-edited)

[00:00:07] Angela: Hello friends, my name is Angela and I want to welcome you to the space where we talk about podcasting, sharing our voice and life behind the mic. Today on the podcast, I'm kind of doing an impromptu thing. I didn't plan to record this today, but something came up and I thought it was kind of important to talk about.

Is editing controversial?

[00:00:23] Angela: It's... I don't want to say like controversial or anything like that. It's not so much that, but controversial under the podcasting umbrella, I guess, because the topic is about editing. And in the time that I've been podcasting, I found that there are really two distinct groups on this. There's a small set of folks who say, I don't edit at all.

I just record and I upload. That's it. I want to get it out. And then there's another group of people like myself who do take the time to edit to whatever degree, you know, maybe it's, A minimal edit, maybe it's a big edit. It just depends on the person, their comfort level with editing and what they want to do, right?

But the reason I bring this up today is because I posted something on threads and one person's response was a little curious to me. So I wanted to talk about it more. Actually, let me read the thread. Hang on real quick. Okay. This is what I posted: while I appreciate some podcasters don't want to edit, they just want to upload an unedited version of the podcast.

You're not doing your listeners any favors. It takes little effort to remove awkward pauses, blips, ums, uhs, etc. Your podcast should value the listener experience. At the end of the day, we're asking folks for their time and attention. Try to make it more enjoyable. So I posted that and I mostly got positive responses from fellow podcasters, but I did get this one person who said, well, you know, if you have good content, you don't have to worry about editing at all.

And then they said, no amount of editing is going to make up for bad content. And while both of those are true, of course, that's not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is there are some people who just want to record an episode and upload it. Period. And I do understand the reason for doing this.

I know quite a few people who do this, to be honest, and I don't think it's bad, necessarily, because I totally get the mindset behind it. You know, the reason people are doing it is to try not to get hung up on perfection and just publish the episode, right? Just to, just to do it. Because sometimes we get stuck in the mindset of perfection and otherwise we might never do it and just getting it out is a practice in and of itself and I absolutely agree with that. I mean, I have so much to share with you guys about how I have gotten caught up in the editing loop of perfection that is an entire episode in and of itself.

I mean, believe me, I've been there and you're going to hear me talk about this in the next episode, but that's why this topic is so important to me because when I first started podcasting, editing took me hours. I was trying to remove every little tiny sound that wasn't a part of the conversation and I don't want anybody else to struggle with the things that I struggled with.

Minimal editing without perfectionism

[00:03:04] Angela: So I have found that two things can coexist. I don't think you have to spend hours editing at all. I think there's a way not to focus on perfection and just get the episode out. And also edit so minimally and the end result is just better than a completely unedited version, to be honest. And let me give you an example of this.

There have been some episodes of podcasts that I've listened to where there is the longest pause ever. And I've looked at my iPhone or on my car, wherever I'm listening. And I'm like, did this stop? Like, did something happen? Like, it's this big record scratch, right? And it's just because the pause is just way too long.

I mean, we do that when we're talking to somebody on the phone too, right? When somebody doesn't say something for a while, you're like, hello, is anybody there? You don't want that in your podcast. So that's one example of trying to pay attention to like the small things. Right. Another example is if there's a podcast I'm listening to where the host is really, really loud and the guest is really soft, it's just not enjoyable to listen to, right?

Like, if I'm constantly turning the volume up or down on my phone or in my car, it's frustrating and it honestly makes me not want to listen. So those are the things I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the content of the story. I'm talking about the way we share a story. So I want to share with you a few little things that don't take a lot of time.

And believe me, I want to encourage you not to spend a lot of time on your edit because podcasting doesn't call for that level of perfection. And it's taken me a long time to get to a place where I've learned how to balance a good edit, not a perfect edit, but a good enough edit with minimal effort. And I think you can do a few key things that don't take a lot of time and still maintain the authenticity of the conversation, but also help to clean it up a lot.

When to remove filler words

[00:04:56] Angela: And it makes a huge difference for the listener. So one of the big things, of course, is. Removing ums and uhs in a conversation. I honestly don't mind leaving in ums and uhs, unless they're excessive. I mean, I had an episode once where my guest, I kid you not, my guest said, um, after almost every other word, and obviously I did not want to keep that in the final episode because nobody wants to listen to that.

It's distracting, and if I were listening, I would absolutely turn it off. So in that case, I edited a lot of ums and uhs, but in general, to be honest with you, I pretty much leave them in. I don't get hung up on those, because they're a natural, normal part of the conversation. But if you do have an episode like I did, where there are excessive ums and uhs, you probably use a software that can easily take out those filler words.

Like, I used Descript, but if you use Riverside, or maybe Adobe, I think it probably does this too, there's an option where you can remove filler words really easily, so it doesn't take a lot of time. But I do want to highlight the fact that when you take out those filler words, sometimes it clips the word before or after it, and it ruins that section of the conversation.

So keep that in mind. You want to listen to your episode and make sure that nothing happened with removing those filler words, because that is a thing. And overall, you can just think like. Are these ums and uhs a nuisance or do they sound natural? And that'll help you determine whether or not you want to take the time to edit those out.

Be mindful of long pauses

[00:06:32] Angela: Another thing to keep in mind is, like I said earlier, the long pauses. If you have an audio podcast, Long pauses can be really distracting. So it might be helpful to shave off a few seconds of time from that pause. Like you still want the conversation to have room to breathe, but you don't want the listener to wonder if something happened.

So it's that delicate balance with pauses. And I found that like a fraction of a second or even a few seconds in some cases can make a huge difference. Just listen back to it and see how it sounds. It's really important that you listen to your podcast and listen to it with a listener experience in mind, you know?

So those are two things that are the easier things to edit. Removing filler words, pretty simple. Making sure there aren't really big gaps in your track, that's another thing. But one that isn't really hard, but might take a little more time, is adjusting the volume. Like I was talking about earlier, like, if you are really loud, but your guest is really soft.

There's some easy way to fix that, even if you're not a post production expert, which I am not, and depending on the software you use to edit, you know, maybe it's GarageBand, maybe it's Audacity, or like I said earlier, Adobe, um, You can manually adjust the levels for different tracks, or if you're doing a multi track editing, which I love multi track editing, it makes life so much easier, but that's a different story.

Be mindful of volume levels

[00:07:55] Angela: But you can play with adjusting the volume for each track, or even for a section of the track. So, If that's something you didn't know about, you might want to play around with it, you know, find a YouTuber who has a demo of how to do that. I mean, when it comes to your intro and outro music, knowing how to adjust the sound levels and the fade, the fade in and the fade out, they're really easy things to do and make a huge difference.

Enhance Your Sound

[00:08:24] Angela: An even easier way, though, to deal with issues with volume. Is to use an AI enhancer software. And let me tell you that when I first started podcasting, I don't even think that was a thing. So I was the one taking the time to adjust the sound on the track or within certain sections. And these tools would have saved me so much time.

I use Buzzsprout as my podcast host and Buzzsprout has. This thing called magic mastering and it basically levels out your sound. It's like six dollars a month It's a little add on and it's an audio enhancer. It's really easy Like once you opt in to pay for it, there's nothing else you have to do Like you just upload your episode it automatically adds the magic mastering levels out the sound and it's super easy And I did use it for a while and I really liked it.

I really did. But I recently discovered a new software called Auphonic. It's A U P H O N I C. I'll put it in the show notes. It's just basically the same thing. It works the same way. It levels out the sound. But it is twice as expensive. It's $12 a month, but it does extra things like it removes heavy breathing and heavy breaths, which by itself is an awesome thing.

And it just has more options than the Magic Mastering. Like I said, the Magic Mastering, you don't do anything. You just upload your episode and you go. With Auphonic, it's a little bit different. You upload the episode and there are different options that you have to decide on. It's a little more detailed, but I do like the output.

Of the Auphonic sound better. But that said for the price, the magic mastering at 6 a month, it's pretty solid. And if you're just getting started or you just want to make things super easy, I would definitely recommend it. So all that being said, you don't have to do a huge edit on your podcast to make a big difference in the end.

You could literally just focus. On those three things on removing excessive ums and uhs, if needed, you may not need to do it at all, you know, focusing on the pacing of the show, if there's awkward pauses, or maybe there's a weird sound that you want to take out. It's distracting. I've had that happen to me before.

And just dropping the episode into some sort of AI audio leveler, all that is really easy, takes little effort, and makes such a huge difference. So when you record your next episode, I really encourage you to just comb through it a little bit, listen to it with the ears of the audience, you know, let things be imperfect.

Of course, that's how they sound. It's natural. You want things to be authentic, but try to remove things that feel like a record scratch. You don't want somebody to wonder if your podcast ended, and you don't want anybody to have to worry about adjusting the volume on their end. We want our listeners to enjoy the episode, right?

It takes very little effort, and it can make such a huge difference. All right, everyone, I hope that's helped a little bit. If you have questions or any comments about this particular episode, be sure to hit the text option in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me until next time.