Latest / Your Mic / DIY vs Pro: How to Tell If Your Editor Knows What They’re Doing

Transcript

DIY vs Pro: How to Tell If Your Editor Knows What They’re Doing · Your Mic

• 0:00
  Your podcast is not a group project, you don't just hand it off to whoever knows a little
• 0:05
  bit of audio and hope for the best.
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  You also don't need the white knuckle every edit yourself until you rage scroll your own
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  way form at midnight.
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  You need to know enough to choose the right help.
• 0:21
  So let's talk about how and to do that I want to talk about a couple of friends Chase
• 0:26
  Taylor and Mandy Pough from the Houston Bound podcast.
• 0:30
  Before they hired speak podcasting they learn to edit their own episodes in Riverside.
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  As a producer I've got mad respect for that and if you're early in your journey that's
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  the move.
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  Use Riverside, Descript, all the edit like award dock tools.
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  They're fantastic for DIYers.
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  Use your first five to ten episodes yourself.
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  Learn where you shine and where you suffer.
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  DIY is like a bootcamp, not your final form.
• 1:01
  When you're ready to hire a netter or a production company like mine, here's your first filter.
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  Walk me through your workflow from raw files to final master.
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  And if the answer is basically, oh I throw it in the Riverside or Descript delete the
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  Yoms fix a couple of gaps and export.
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  You have just met a beginner.
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  Nothing wrong with beginners.
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  I was a beginner back in the 90s, yes I'm dating myself but you don't pay pro money
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  for button clicking, you could do yourself.
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  You're hiring judgment, not a slightly faster mouse.
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  Here's where you separate real producers from people playing with presets and I know
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  that sounds pretentious.
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  Ask this word for word.
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  How do you process your master?
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  Are you running compression and or limiting?
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  What does your audio chain look like?
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  You don't need to understand every term.
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  You're listening for whether they do.
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  A pro is going to talk about things like gentle compression on individual tracks or a
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  limiter on the master track.
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  Maybe a little EQ cleanup, they might talk about Renaissance EQ 6 by the way I love Renaissance
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  EQ 6.
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  I've been using it since 1999 when I first started producing on Pro Tools, it's amazing.
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  Now they won't need 20 minutes.
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  Trust me, you don't want to go 20 minutes with an audio nerd talking about this kind
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  of stuff.
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  It's going to be like they're speaking a foreign language but they're at least going
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  to have an answer.
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  If your prospective producer or editor or VA goes silent or changes the subject or if
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  they stare at you on Zoom like you just recited the Iliad in Greek, then that is your sign.
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  Your business does not deserve somebody who's never thought about an audio chain.
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  Your show deserves somebody who knows a podcast episode isn't done just because the
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  ums are gone.
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  The master has got to translate car, AirPods, cheap Bluetooth speaker, whatever.
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  Oh, and by the way, anybody who says they'll remove all the ums in dead silence is leaving
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  out a critical piece of the episode context.
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  Not every um is removable depending on how it's said words, they slur.
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  Notice the difference.
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  I'm going to repeat that last sentence.
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  Not every um is removable and here's one that's where it's not removable.
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  Not every um is removable.
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  Do you hear the difference?
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  I'll do it again.
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  Not every um is removable and then not every um is removable.
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  Got it?
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  Good.
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  And then silence.
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  It could be the most powerful part of a conversation if used properly.
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  How bad would it be if the most emotional part of your conversation sounded choppy because
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  your producer decided to quote unquote fix the six second pause after your guest said
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  I've never told anyone this before.
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  We're also in the age where AI can strip silences, remove filler words, auto level voices and
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  if that's your budget and that's your season, cool.
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  Look at the show, but please be honest with yourself.
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  Heavy AI and I love AI.
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  Heavy AI often sounds chopped and unnatural, room tone shifts, breaths vanish like we don't
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  need our lungs, sentences, they feel rushed or robotic.
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  If you're okay with that in exchange for speed and cost, cool.
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  That's a strategy.
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  It actually is.
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  Don't let anybody tell you different, but if you're building a premium brand, you're selling
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  serious services or expecting people to spend 30 to 60 minutes with you regularly.
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  At some point, you want human ears making human decisions on top of the tools.
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  Now, hiring outside the States can be smart.
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  Please don't confuse not American with automatically a deal.
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  If you're paying almost US rates overseas and the work is mediocre, you're overpaying.
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  If you're paying rock bottom in the turnaround and promises sound magical, you're probably
• 5:39
  somebody's training ground.
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  What I want you to do is look at exchange rates, costs of living where they are, actual
• 5:46
  quality of their portfolio, that is so important.
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  Send me a link to your portfolio.
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  Anybody who's serious about editing your show is going to have samples of their work full
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  stop.
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  The goal is not to squeeze editors just because they live overseas, it's to pay fairly
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  for real skill wherever it lives.
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  And whether it's speak podcasting or anybody else, what you're looking for is respect
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  for the craft.
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  They're cool with you having done DIY.
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  They speak your language enough to build on what you learned and not talk down to you.
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  They've got a real process like QC delivery, so on and so forth, mastering awareness.
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  They know what to do to your master and why, compression, limiting, maybe light EQ on purpose
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  and not by accident.
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  They're honest about the tools.
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  Maybe they do use Riverside and Descript, hey, I love Riverside.
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  I've used Descript before, it just ran a little bit too slow for my machine and I wasn't
• 7:00
  about that life.
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  So I'm loyal to Riverside, I love the tools that don't pay me to say this.
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  I should become an affiliate.
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  Anyways, I've used the voice corrector on Riverside.
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  It's decent.
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  I like it.
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  I love all the tools that they provide.
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  It's a great service.
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  But make sure that they're using AI as helpers.
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  They're using AI to produce the podcast, they're not letting AI produce the podcast.
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  Do you hear that difference?
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  They're using AI to help with the podcast.
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  They're not letting AI produce the podcast.
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  They're clear about that final sound and they ensure that it's shaped by a human ear.
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  Do that and you're living the chase and Mandy model that they lived for the Houston
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  Bound podcast at the beginning of their podcast journey.
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  You learn the ins and outs yourself, you gain mad respect from guys like me for what
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  goes into a good episode because trust me listeners can sniff out a bad episode quicker
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  than you can skip a commercial on your favorite podcast then you're going to hand your show
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  to somebody who knows what they're doing with a master track.
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  And if you're looking for somebody to edit your show and not just run it through whatever
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  the latest AI tool does, I love this kind of work.
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  So does my team.
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  We're up for hire.
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  If you want to get the conversation started, you can shoot me an email, Freddie at Speak
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  podcasting.com, Freddie with a Y at SPEKE podcasting.com.
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  Thank you so much for listening.