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by Michael Cote.
Original Post: Advice on Podcast Editing
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Between
the DrunkAndRetired.com podcasts and
RedMonk Radio, I do a lot of podcasting. While Iâm editing episode 47 here, I thought Iâd be arogent enough to write down some editing tips. These arenât tool tips so much as tips on approaches. <link to Distributing the Future tips
Cut that shit out: to me, editing is 80% deleting audio out. When Charles and I record, we can get up to 2 hours of content. Some of that is crap, but most of it is just average. For the most part, you want to cut out both the crap and average stuff. That said, I have low standards ;>
Cut out dead space. If youâre having an
ad hoc conversation like we do in the DrunkAndRetired.com and RedMonkRadio podcasts, thereâs always going to be a lot of pauses where people are either thinking of something to talk about, or responses to peopleâs questions. Thereâll also be a lot of âuh dead timeâ where someone is brain-storming out-loud, but in an incoherent way, like, âwell, uhâ¦you have the compilerâ¦and the whutzitâ¦splice thatâ¦OKâ¦I think I got it nowâ¦â and then they spew out coherent brain-storming. You want to keep the coherent brain-storming, and cut out the incoherent stuff.
Practice
in medius rex. As I recall,
in medius rex means âin the middle,â which is to say you should start in the middle of things: mid-laugh, mid-explanation, etc. A lot of times in conversation, you build up to a topic, often disclaiming a lot before hand in the hopes of fending off counter-attacks (maybe thatâs just me). One of the commentaries for
Chappelleâs Show put this another way: get in and out of a scene as quick as possible, do the joke, and exit right away. Still another way of thinking about it: everyone loves the chorus of a song, the rest is just waiting for that chorus.
Kill your darlings: this is an old writing tip. If you find yourself really liking something, question if you should include it. This is a defensive move as itâs easy to leave too many things that you like. My general rule of thumb is that if weâre repeating ourselves, even if itâs funny and/or good, I cut it.
That said, archive your darlings. While you may cut good stuff out of your show, itâs worth it to save them for later use. For example, weâve had two Out-takes episodes on weeks where we didnât record anything. They were easy to put together because Iâd archived the little darlings along the way, so I just slapped them together. Also, by saving them, itâll make it easier to cut them out of your episode, meaning youâll do it more.
Donât cut too close, or it sounds jumpy. The goal here is to keep the pace natural. If you cut too many things out â like someone taking a sip from their coffee, lots of âuhâs,â etc. â the pace starts to sound too rapid and choppy. Iâm not one of those âmaximize audio input timeâ people, so I donât relish the end result of the pace being faster.
Feel free to split one recording into multiple episodes. As Iâve noted a couple times in the show, we usually get two episodes worth of audio out of one recording. This is great, because it means we donât have the pressure to record every week.
Identify the podcast and episode at the beginning. As long time listeners will know, each DrunkAndRetired.com podcast begins with someone say âDrunkAndRetired.com Podcast, Episode X.â The thinking here is that people who canât see the MP3 description â like folks using an iPod Nano â can quickly find the episodes they want to hear. I had this problem before getting an iPod because my MP3 player displayed the MP3 filenames in 8.3 format. Weird, huh?
Try not to surf the web â or write blog posts like this ;> â while you edit, itâs distracting. I should follow this rule, but I donât.
So, now everyone can spot all those times that I donât follow my own advice ;>
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