Editing your Podcast

Editing your Podcast

Image Credit: flaticon.com

Step 1: 
Choose your editing software 

It's worthwhile taking some time to consider what software is the best fit for you to use to edit your podcast. There are an abundance of different options at a range of difference price points, below are a few key considerations you should make when picking which to use. 

·        Subscription vs one-time licence payment- many of the most popular audio editing software programmes are subscription-based based such as Adobe Audition however there are some great alternatives which you can buy a one-off lifetime licence for.

·        Software compatibility: Windows, Mac OS, IOS or Android

·        Required features, does your chosen software enable you to record different microphones into separate channels?

Step 2: 
Editing your podcast

Editing a whole podcast for the first time can be a daunting prospect but a long as you follow these key steps you will end up with a finished product that is ready to be published.

1.)    Set the loudness of your recordings to the podcast standard which is ITU-R BS.170-3 Loudness, then set Target Loudness to -16 LUFS. This will ensure that your podcast is the same loudness level as other podcasts.

2.)    Listen back to your recording and cut out any sections with unwanted background noise.

3.)    Cut down your content, try to listen from the perspective of your ideal intended audience which you identified in the first blog.

4.)    Add an introduction and outro to your podcast, make sure you clearly state the name of your podcast and what the focus of the episode is.  You can also include a short hook section(highlights from the episode) to draw your listener in example here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0knUuVbrpN1ydOa7NoCOt8?si=gJEeTPv2RpS9UuG7ZNU2ZQ

5.)    Add background/transition music, try to keep this to a minimum and ensure that the level is low enough that it doesn’t prevent your listener from hearing your content.

6.)    Make your transitions seamless by adding fades in and out.

7.)    Add metadata to your Podcast, this will help your listeners find your podcast when you publish it.

Step 3: 
Exporting your podcast

 

Once you are happy with your final edited podcast it is time to export it ready for it to be published.

Here is a checklist of the settings you should use to export your Podcast:

Ideal podcast export settings:

·        Format MP3

·        Bitrate 128kbps

·        Sample type 44.1 KHZ

·        Bit-depth 32-bit

Step 4: 

Checking your final edited podcast

It is extremely important that you check your podcast before publishing it, here is a list of the main things you should check for:

 

·        Is the audio clean and free of distortion?

·        Is there anything missing (music, effects, fades etc.)?

·        Is the recording the right length?

It is also worthwhile listening to your recording on a variety of different devices and speaker/headphone setups to ensure that it will sound good regardless of what your listener is playing it back on i.e. car stereo, speaker system, laptop, phone with budget headphones.