Picking up where we left off, you have your podcast recorded and your editing notes at hand. Where do you begin? Naturally, you will want to edit that inevitable little bit of silence at the start of the recording but this will lead to a problem that will get progressively worse. If you remove just a second from the beginning of the show you’ll shift all of your editing times by one second. That’s not too bad, you’ll find the edits still, but after a few edits suddenly you’ll be hunting as the times will be a vague reference rather than a specific point in time. When it comes to audio editing the best practice is to begin at the end, it won’t matter how much you remove because all the subsequent edits will still be at the correct time you recorded on your edit sheet.
Podcasting – Tools of the Trade
Two of the most important tools I have with me when recording a podcast are not audio-related items at all; pen and paper. Editing a program is one of the most powerful tools for making a listenable program the podcaster has at their disposal. Without a guide on when and what to edit you’ll be forced to listen to the program again, in its entirety, which can be time-consuming and tedious. So rather than using something electronic we keep it simple and just use a pen and paper. Just a quick note including the time and a basic description of the reason for editing is all that’s required. My page will often say something like “3:19 cough” (self-explanatory) or “5:20 double take” (that brief start to a sentence you almost immediately rephrase). These are the types of things that are easy to miss in editing as they are not visually apparent in the waveform when editing but make it easier to listen to the show, especially while wearing headphones. The second main use for the pen and paper is to write down notes you wish to convey to the host or to a guest that you don’t wish to say out loud. Sometimes it’s as simple as the current length of a segment or a reminder of a question the host wanted to ask. Sometimes it is to remind someone to “stay on the mic.” Stopping a recording to convey messages is one of the worst things you can do as it almost always affects the “flow” of the conversation as it reminds everyone involved of the recording aspect of what you are doing, and once the “flow” is gone it is very difficult to get it going again.