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The Indie Podcaster’s Guide to Editing Without Fear · Your Mic

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  Editing your podcast or having your podcast edited by a professional doesn't make you a sell out. It means you care about your podcast.
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  Welcome to this episode of your mic. My name is Freddy Cruz founder of Speak Podcasting and today we're going to talk about
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  Editing your podcast episode. This is a conversation. I'll be it a one-way conversation.
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  Intended for people who are who are editing their own podcast episodes who might be considering
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  outsourcing and listen, you don't need a company like mine to edit your podcast in such a way that it doesn't
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  sound like garbage. There's so many tools out there like Riverside.fn. They don't pay me to say this.
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  I will say though there are other programs as well that allow you to edit your podcast audio episode
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  or even your video episode like you would a award document. All right, so the technology is there.
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  You don't need a company like mine to professionally edit your podcast but your podcast episodes do
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  1000% need to be edited if at the very least you're listening back to make sure that the entire
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  recording even happened and that it didn't cut out during a pivotal part of your episode. I mean,
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  how horrible would it be if you recorded a 30-minute conversation with your ideal podcast guest,
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  mine would be Chuck Pollanick or Robert Green, and five minutes of it got cut off because of your
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  internet connection, right? So at the very least you want to go back and listen through to make sure
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  that it that the recording even happened and that it even sounds the way you want it to sound.
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  Amazing is what I hope you hope it sounds like. But let's dive a little bit further into
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  why your episode should be edited. Of course, the flow of a natural dialogue between two friends,
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  a guest in a host if you will. Let's pretend that we're all friends. Even if you don't know your guest,
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  a conversation, a natural flowing one will have an occasional, it'll have an occasional,
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  it'll have an occasional pregnant pause. I love pregnant pauses. I've gone over this before on
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  social media where a host asking a question and allowing the guest a few seconds to answer
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  that's signaling to the listener that the host respects the guest enough to let them talk.
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  And it's signaling as well to the listener that the guest doesn't just have a scripted answer
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  that the guest is measured, that the guest really is considering what is being asked of him or her.
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  So leaving that pregnant pause between a question and an answer or between thoughts or between
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  sentences of a podcast episode can really make the difference in how the listener perceives it.
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  You notice that when you're listening to my solo rants on various episodes of your mic,
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  I'm not consistently editing out every single pause or every single breath.
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  There's a Gary Provost quote that talks about sentence length. And you can search for the quote,
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  but essentially it's, this is a five word sentence. This is another five word sentence. This is
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  blah, blah, blah. And so he talks about the importance of changing up the amount of words in
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  a sentence. And then when you are, when you have your audience at the edge of their seats and they're
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  clamoring for the next word, silence. And so it works that way, not just with the written word,
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  but also with how you dictate and how you speak, how you articulate your thoughts in a podcast
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  episode. And so you can play that same sort of a game when it comes to not just word count. I mean,
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  we're not counting, we're not counting the amount of words or letters or syllables in our sentences
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  as we talk during a podcast interview, but we can, we can as we're formulating our thoughts,
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  talk and then take a step back. We can articulate the importance of going on and making our point
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  and driving home what it is we're trying to say. And then taking a step back to really allow
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  our listener or our guest if we're asking them a question, we're formulating a thought about what
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  they said. And then we're following up, we're actively listening. And then we ask them a question.
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  So tell me more about what you just said, pause, two, three, and then they answer. And if they
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  take longer than maybe three seconds to answer, then perhaps you could clear your throat. And that's
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  another one. Let's piggyback on that clearing your throat, maybe a cough. And it's okay to have
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  one of these things. I remember back in my radio days, I did an endorsement for a local area
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  sugar company. And the ad agency for this company, the rep was talking about how they wanted to
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  sound like a natural conversation, not like you're reading a script. And I'm a big fan of sounding
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  natural. And I'm a big fan of people that don't sound like they are reading because some people
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  literally cannot read. And when I say people can literally not read, they cannot read without sounding
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  like they are reading. All right. Even I who have been in this world for decades, all right, be
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  a radio broadcasting or podcasting. I still struggle with reading a script and trying to sound like
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  I'm not reading a script. There is a distinct difference between using my captions app with the
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  not the transcription, but with the teleprompter. There's a big difference between me reading that
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  off of my app on my smartphone and me just going off the cuff. I'm holding my iPad because I do have
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  some bullet points for this episode, but I'm not reading a script. And even if I were if there was
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  an audio only podcast, there would still be a distinct difference in how I talk if I had a script.
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  Okay. But back to the agency guy, he wanted these ads. There were 32 ads for sugar. And we'd be
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  talking about recipes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he would talk about coughing and how some of his
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  favorite ads that that were on the AM talk show stations that some of his favorite ads, the hosts
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  would would cough or clear their throat. And I didn't get it at the time, but I do now that it sounds
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  more as much as I really despise the word authentic. It sounds like, you know, a couple of people talking.
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  And so I see nothing wrong with the clearing of a throat once or twice or a cough once every
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  few minutes. Now, if you're clearing your throat after every other sentence, then maybe just maybe
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  you and or your guest should pause the recording and do what? Have a glass of water and or take a
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  cough drop and let that cough drop dissolve and then go about the rest of your interview.
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  Again, nothing wrong with coughing or clearing of the throat. Other noises in the background,
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  some people are really precious about whether or not a room is treated with sound proofing. I've
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  got sound proofing behind me and then to both sides of me that you cannot see. And I think to a certain
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  extent, yes, it does help. No, you don't need to spend 800 or a thousand or $2,000 on professional
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  treatments that, you know, you've got four inch thick sound proof panels behind you and all around
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  you. A carpeted room will do good enough. If there's a dog barking, no big deal. If he's barking
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  and he's right next to you and he doesn't stop, well, then that's a problem.
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  These sort of things add a layer of realism that I am really, I'm just willing to forgive.
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  Not that anybody needs my forgiveness. I'm not precious about any of this kind of stuff.
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  My opinion is just that in the world of AI, when everything is so buttoned up, so polished and
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  so professional and when there's a lack of trust in our institutional media platforms because they
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  too are so prim and proper and buttoned up and suited up with their ties and their blazers and
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  their makeup and the perfect lighting. I am of the opinion that it is a okay to have a barking dog
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  or a cat that jumps into the frame of a video episode. It adds an element of realism of authenticity
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  it adds a sense of vulnerability and it's just a okay because these things happen when we are
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  recording our podcast episodes not in a traditional setting, not with hundreds of thousands of
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  dollars of professional gear of cameras with high tech crews that know how to operate 100,000
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  dollar machines and with lighting all over the place. This is what happens when it comes to an
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  indie podcaster hosting a show. It's just what happens and it is a okay when it's not a okay is when
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  it happens incessantly when editing out every single um and every single uh and every single breath
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  makes your conversation sound more like Morse code or sound more like a conversation between
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  two humanoid robots than that is going to sound worse than any than any coughing fit or any
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  conversation which the guests in the host are humming and eyeing for just a few times during the
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  course of a 20 minute episode that'll sound worse over editing will sound worse than uh then even
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  five ums could ever sound. So something to ponder as you are wondering how much to edit how much
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  to remove do I leave those breaths in do I take them out if the conversation gets so deep and I've
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  been a part of these conversations I've actually been a guest on a show where where I got emotional
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  and it took it took about 20 seconds for me to get it together I was also charged with editing
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  that episode so I had to edit myself and I think it's okay to leave at least a little bit in
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  the full 20 seconds that's a long time for somebody who's listening to a podcast in the car
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  it's a long time for someone to hear that and be like whoa is there something wrong with the audio
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  well you know what I'm gonna give I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt oh wait that's 10
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  seconds all right time to go on and listen to something else so there's always a fine line
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  more than five seconds of silence probably a little bit too much when there when there's a guest
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  or a host that's humming and eyeing after every other sentence or maybe once or twice over the
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  course of 30 seconds that's gonna be a little bit too much incessant coughing sneezing maybe one
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  cough here and there I would say maybe forgivable now if it's a coughing fit and it totally impedes
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  on the entire conversation definitely need to remove to remove it bottom line if you have any
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  questions about this if you if you'd like to chat I would love to do so we can jump on a
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  zoom or we can jump on a Riverside video conference you can show me your screen what your workflow
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  looks like I'd be happy to do it at no charge never charge to talk so hit me up ready with the
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  why at speakpodcasting.com really appreciate you listening to this episode of your mic of you
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  found any use out of this episode any use out of these tips and you have a friend that is in
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  that hosts a podcast please feel free to share with them thanks again