I wanted to put together an article talking about the editing process for Dreamers Podcast that I go through in order to make an awesome experience for my listener and my guest! If you are interested in learning more please feel free to reach out to me!. I would love to chat and interact with you about your podcast!

So there is a balance that needs to be found for sure. I spend less time on my editing now than I did 3 weeks ago. The reason? I scrub  at 1.67x so I have more time to make edits. With my show, Dreamers Podcast (www.HowToDream.co) I have a different guest from a different field on every episode. I want my audience to be engaged and not put off because of a stutter or ums. I have lightened up a little bit since I have sped up my listening.

One little trick I use is, LISTEN does it sound natural? If it doesn’t, then correct it. I use Audacity, and I have several effects macroed to where my hands rest on the keyboard.

Examples:

“x” is my fast play (usually 1.5-1.7x).

“a” fade in.

“s” fade out.

“q” big skip back.

“w” big skip forward.

“1” mute track.

“2” amplify.

“`” delete audio.

You can make these edits to your keyboard shortcuts in the Options.

It saves tons of time to macro those keys to where you rest your hand. But these are the most important and most used parts of audacity. And sometimes I need to play the same spot over and over at 1x to make sure it sounds good.

Another tip is to LISTEN, to what is being said. Is the pause natural and flow well? Well that’s great but is it a bit too long? Delete some of the dead space and give it a listen. Maybe you have to put it back in there. Or how about where the person takes too many breathes in one spot. Make sure the breathes you are deleting makes sense to delete, and sound good. Deleting a breath in the middle can sound really bad. Sometimes if it’s extra long, you can cut it up and do a fade out of the breath.

Again, by listening back at 1.5x you can let some things go, and concentrate more time on the stutters and the big ums that you need to edit out. I am constantly using my fade in and out to make everything sound as natural as possible.

I want my audience to be engaged no matter what the topic of the episode is. I want my guest to sound intelligent, and have a desire to come back on the show.

And I will leave you with this, as the episode goes on, I get more liberal with my edits because the listener has made it that far. Keep that in mind when sweating every tiny edit as well.

Below is a video I recorded of me editing Dreamers Podcast episode 104. Again if you are looking for some advice or just want to chat about podcasting, please feel free to hit me up on Twitter or write to me directly!

Note: I am not sure why there is so much clicking and popping in the video. But in the final product has no clicks or pops.

You can listen to Episode 104 by clicking here.