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How Bad Editing Can Kill Your Podcast · Your Mic

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  Just like with bad audio, bad editing happens to good podcasters.
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  Welcome back to Your Mic.
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  My name is Freddy Cruz, founder of Speak Podcasting.
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  If you want to chat pods, you want me to edit yours, hit me up.
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  Freddy with a Y at speakpodcasting.com.
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  And bad editing, it's a two-fold problem, okay?
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  On one hand, you've got a podcast host that records something,
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  whether it's on Zoom or Riverside or in person at their favorite podcast studio,
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  and they don't even bother playing it back.
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  They just upload the file.
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  They don't even do what we call trimming the heads and tails,
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  you know, the beginning and the very end.
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  So if you hit record and maybe it takes about five to 10 seconds
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  to actually start the episode, okay?
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  The head and likewise at the very end,
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  thank you for coming to the show.
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  Thank you for listening.
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  And then there's five seconds of tail, right?
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  And so the heads and the tails don't even get edited,
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  much less the 10 seconds of pregnant pause for no reason or if the dog is barking in the background
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  by the way i actually like it when dogs bark in the background it's when the amazon guy comes
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  and maybe he's taking a couple minutes too long to find you know to to fill out his form or whatever
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  it is they do at your door and the dog is actually in the same room as you and it's overbearing and
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  you just power through the podcast episode instead of stopping it.
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  Or maybe you stop the recording of
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  the episode.
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  You keep recording, but you stop the episode, the conversation, and you wait for the
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  dog to start barking.
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  Like, oh, I'm so sorry.
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  Sparrow tends to get like that when people are
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  there.
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  And so you're rolling tape, but in post-production, you leave it in because there
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  is no post-production.
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  Or maybe you have an emotional moment where the guest is crying and
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  these things happen.
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  They've happened during our client shows.
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  There's a way to maintain that
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  humanity and that emotion, that rawness, that storytelling component.
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  Silence is golden,
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  just like when you're at the movies.
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  Enjoy the silence is not just a Depeche Mode song.
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  You want
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  to maintain that silence.
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  You also don't want to keep 30 seconds or 40 seconds or 50 seconds of
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  pausing in case your guest has to regain their composure.
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  You can chop that down and let and
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  tighten it so that the moment is between five and eight seconds.
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  And you maintain that humanity
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  without risking your listener changing the podcast because they thought that there was
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  something wrong with the episode.
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  And this is something I've covered in previous episodes
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  of Your Mic.
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  And it's something that I've talked about on occasion on my social media channels is
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  that silence is fantastic.
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  When it's overdone, just like when you're over editing, it can sound
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  really, really bad.
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  Now, speaking of over editing, there are so many AI tools and I'm a fan of them.
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  I also prefer editing podcast episodes on Pro Tools.
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  I've been doing this for decades.
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  Before
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  I was ever podcasting, I was editing audio on Pro Tools.
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  I love it.
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  I love getting in there and
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  zooming all the way in and deleting a certain word or phrase or making sure that I'm not
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  clipping a tenth of a second of a breath.
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  That's how passionate I am about editing audio.
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  If you're
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  starting out and you're fresh into your podcast journey and you don't have the budget or bandwidth
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  to hire somebody like me with Speak Podcasting or even a freelancer who you can hire for dirt
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  cheap overseas, you don't want to overdo it.
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  These AI tools are amazing because they can get rid of
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  the silence.
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  They can get rid of filler words like, you know.
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  They can get rid of the ums and the ahs.
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  the is right but the problem is these tools are not perfect so what ends up happening is you have
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  breaths getting cut out you've got half of an um staying in your podcast episode if all you're
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  going to do is click the magic edit button or the ai remove filler words and ums button and it's not
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  perfect and don't get me wrong i'm a fan of perfectly imperfect but if you're editing an
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  episode and you want it to sound polished, deleting half of an um or half of a breath or editing every
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  single moment of silence and making your show sound robotic, that sounds just as bad as not
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  listening in post.
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  There is something that I remember a friend of mine years ago would talk
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  about and that is letting an episode breathe.
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  You let it breathe.
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  So if somebody is asking a question
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  of a guest.
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  And I'll give a fictitional question answer exchange.
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  Freddie, at what moment in your
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  life did you realize you're the villain in your own story?
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  It had to have been when I was 16.
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  So you compare that with Freddie.
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  At what point in your life did you realize you were the villain
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  in your own story?
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  Oh, when I was 16.
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  So you see the difference there.
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  When you allow for that space,
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  You're not just giving your guest the opportunity to sound measured and thoughtful in their response,
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  because especially if they're taking a few seconds to answer your question,
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  you want to honor that because the guest is measured.
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  The guest is deliberately taking time to answer that question and not just,
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  boom, I better give them an answer because, oh, the clock is ticking.
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  Plus, if it's an interview that's supposed to sound like a conversation, but you're editing every single pause that's longer than two seconds, it really sounds more like a ping pong instead of an actual chat amongst friends.
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  And I want you to think in terms of hanging out with a buddy and maybe you're in the car.
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  Two of my favorite people to drive with in the car will be my daughters.
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  at any point while we're talking there will be pauses there'll be moments of silence now
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  obviously this is a different context so when we're in the car obviously pauses of 30 seconds
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  or silence you know moments of silence of longer than five minutes you know that's acceptable it's
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  having a consistent back and forth back and forth and back and forth for the entire duration of a
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  30-minute car trip that probably sounds exhausting i won't pretend to talk for them i'm only saying
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  So think about that when you are going through and sort of DIYing your podcast episode.
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  It also takes a little bit of the pressure off of you.
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  If you are editing your own episodes, you're pressed for time.
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  I hope this episode is giving you a little bit of a green light to back off of the editing a little bit.
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  and really only taking out what is absolutely necessary so that you maintain that humanity
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  that was your conversation with your co-host or your guest who you brought on to share their
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  wisdom and their insights.
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  And in terms of bad editing, with hundreds of thousands of podcasts
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  out there and millions of YouTube videos and all this content that is being thrown our way
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  by the nanosecond.
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  There's just no excuse to not take the time to listen back to your episode
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  after you have recorded it and fix the obvious mistakes.
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  Trim the heads and the tails, the
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  beginning and the end.
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  The long awkward pauses.
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  Not every pause is a long awkward pause.
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  Give space.
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  If there are a lot of ums and ahs, sure, go ahead, take them out.
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  If you're using a lot of those
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  filler words, then perhaps you should coach yourself into not using them as much and slowing
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  down the rhythm of your speaking.
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  That way you're not having to rely so much on using those filler
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  words.
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  Remember, I talked about when you as a host are asking the question of a guest and allowing
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  for that three to four seconds, sometimes longer pause for them to answer the question, you're
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  allowing them to sound measured and deliberate in their answer well, it works both ways.
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  And when
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  you take your time, just take that moment and think about what you're going to say and you
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  exude that authority instead of talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking
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  and talking.
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  So bad editing, what do we learn?
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  Two components.
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  Bad editing in terms of not really
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  editing and bad editing as in over editing and doing way too much so that it sounds like a ping
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  pong game and not so much of a conversation.
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  If you have any questions about this, if you like
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  some insights, I love chatting about podcasts.
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  Hit me up, freddiewithawayatspeakpodcasting.com.
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  Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Your Mic.