I've been learning a lot about how people feel
about their podcast process and where they feel
they spend the most time. And through a winning
combination of asking my email list and talking
to people at Podcast Movement, I've learned that
many, many podcasters feel they spend too much
time editing their podcast. So for today's episode
of Podcast Workflows, it's a little... mix of
three things in podcasting, but also just a regular
helpful episode. I'm going to talk about three
ways that you can improve and speed up your editing
process. One of those things won't be a surprise.
The rest might. Let's get into it. Welcome to
Podcast Workflows, the show for people who love
their podcast, but spend too much time on it.
This show will give you short tips to improve
your process, grow your show and save you up
to 12 hours per week. You'll get deep dives on
how the best podcasters produce their show and
you'll learn a ton. So let's get into it. All
right. Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode
of podcast workflows. So three things to improve
your podcast process. The first one will not
surprise you at all. It is hire an editor. Editing
is the easiest thing to save time on, which is
good news, but the bad news is that you'll have
to make a financial investment. I think every
podcaster, almost I'll say 99 .9 % of them, should
hire an editor. There is, for most podcasters,
little to no benefit to editing your own show
long -term. I think maybe edit it in the beginning.
You have the skill. You'll know how to speak
the language and you'll know what you want from
your editor, right? You'll be able to communicate
with them more easily. But hiring an editor will
free up so much time. I read a stat that it's
like for every finished minute, it takes four
minutes of post -production work. So if you do
a 30 minute podcast, you're looking at two hours
of post -production work. Imagine what you could
do with those two hours. You could record three
other 30 minute episodes, right? So I think the
best thing for most people to do is hire an editor.
This is a hill I will die on, but I also recognize
that I cannot force people to spend money if
they don't want to. And I should also say this.
There's one more thing that I should mention
here. I recognize that there are people who want
to have a podcast and maybe they can't afford
to hire an editor. So I want to make this clear.
If you're a student, if you're a hobbyist, if
you're just messing around with friends, you
know, you and your friend have, you want to have
a phone call every week and catch up and whatever,
that's fine. I'm not talking to you. I mean,
especially if you're like a hobbyist or you're
just killing time, like just recognize that if
you're not doing it for the downloads, you're
doing it just for fun. That's great. I will say
that hobbies cost money. I don't know a single
hobby that somebody has. It's like, no, I don't
spend any money on my hobby. Right. I love Lego.
I love cigars. I play the drums. If you're into
collecting. stamps or knives or pens, you're
going to have to spend money on a hobby. So if
you're a hobbyist, I would, I would also maybe
just consider where you can invest some money
into your hobby. But again, most people that
I am talking to here, the people I'm talking
to, the ones you're listening, if you found this
on YouTube and you're like, I don't My no podcast
should make money Nor should you have to spend
any money on a podcast. This is not for you.
You can just leave Tell YouTube you don't want
to see content like this anymore I am talking
to people who are who are investing Their time
and money into a podcast because they see it
as a way to support their business build their
authority or otherwise make money for their show,
right? Otherwise make money for themselves, I
should say. So that's who I'm talking to. Maybe
I should have said that at the top of the show.
If you're just messing around or you want to
learn editing, right? Like, you know, I'm qualifying
a lot of what I'm saying because like, if you're
trying to learn editing, then yeah, record your
own podcast and edit it, right? But if you're
a solopreneur or a small business owner, And
you are you have a podcast because you have a
message you want to put out there. You want content
you want to put out there. You want to establish
your authority and develop a deeper relationship
with your potential customers. Then you shouldn't
be editing your podcast. There are a million
other things that you should be doing for your
podcast and for your business. And so hiring
an editor. is one of the best things that you
can do. Okay, with all of that out of the way,
what do you do if you want to save time and you
want to keep editing your show? Now the nice
thing about the next two things I'm about to
talk about here is you can do it whether you
hire an editor or not. Like these are just things
that will save you time. So number two is take
good notes. This is true. Whether you have a
solo episode or a an interview, right? If you
are, uh, if you're recording a solo episode and
you mess up and you want to keep rolling, clap
your hands, write down the timestamp so that
you don't have to go looking for that point,
right? Maybe you went on a tangent, right? Maybe,
maybe after I finished recording this I'll feel
I went on too much of a tangent about who this
episode is not for. And so I will, you know,
I can write down the time for that. This is largely
scripted, so I don't feel like I've gone on a
tangent. But, you know, during the recording,
take good notes for, oh, I talked about this
at this time stamp. This takes some practice,
right? This is something I've been doing for
a long time. So I'm, I'm comfortable doing that.
Right. And, and there are apps that will like
sure up silence. So if you just want to like,
especially if it's a solo show, just take some
time to write it down. Uh, there's an app called
recut that will trim silences. I think Descript,
which I'll talk about in a minute, you know,
gets rid of long silences if you want. Uh, there
are countless AI. This is like a good use of
AI. Right. Oh, there's five seconds of silence.
Let's get rid of that. Right. So take good notes.
If you are interviewing someone, what I will
do is I have our shared Google Doc. I share,
I send a Google Doc to my guest before we record
with the general structure of the conversation
so that they can be prepared. This is something
else that makes editing easy. The more you prepare
on the front end, the less editing you'll have
to do on the back end. But I have a Google document
and I'll be taking notes, right? If I go on a
tangent, I will write like, you know, edit Joe
tangent 1345, right? If my guest goes off topic,
edit 14, I almost said 72, 1427 of guest tangent,
right? Or guest talks about dog too much or whatever,
right? So keeping those notes means that you'll
be able to find that stuff more quickly. Having
a few of the words. that they said it'll make
it easier to find or that you said it'll be easier
to find, especially if you're using Descript
or Riverside or whatever. And so you won't have
to listen back to the entire episode. And if
you have an editor, then you don't have to re
-listen to the episode to send edit notes, right?
You can just say, hey, around 1427, my guest
goes on a tangent about their dog. Can you cut
that out? Right? Or with Riverside, I can actually
find the entire quote and give it to my editor
if I want to do that. So I think that's number
two. Take good notes when you're recording. Yes,
this is going to take some practice. Yes, if
you're recording a solo episode, you can have
those little extra pauses because there are tools
that will just remove those pauses. But if you
want to be an active listener with a guest, then
it does take some practice. Also, now that I'm
doing more video for my show, I do need to be
cognizant that like I shouldn't be doing this
the entire time when the guest is talking because
I, we just do have a side by side right now.
We're not switching views. So we have a side
by side. So if I'm not looking at the camera,
it may be misconstrued as me not paying attention.
when in actuality I'm writing stuff my guest
is saying down. So that's like, I can touch type,
but I want to, you know, I need to practice that
a little bit more. So that's something to keep
in mind. But by and large, taking good notes
while you record will make the editing process
easier. And finally, I say use descript. If you're
going to edit now, Again, another caveat here
is I, unless they've improved something, I find
editing multiple tracks in Descript to be cumbersome.
I don't think they do a good job with it. When
I was recording in Squadcast for a while, I didn't
like the experience, but I will give about 40
% of that to me being unfamiliar with how to
do it. Also, this was a long time ago, because
again, I don't really edit my own stuff. Even
videos like this, I will, you know, I'm going
to edit this episode myself to go against everything
I just said earlier, but this is largely me talking
and I've planned the content and I have a good
setup. So I'm going to throw the audio in Logic
Pro, run it through this cleanup I already have
and then put it back into my video editor, which
is ScreenFlow. And that's it like the the the
editing process it wouldn't be you know I want
to release this episode close to when I'm recording
it and so the short amount of time it takes for
me to edit is is worth it to have the episode
ready today versus three days from now right
but anyway so Descript if you are going to edit
yourself or if you something I'll do sometimes
is I'll get the final episode back. It'll be
longer in length than I wanted it to be. Right.
And I maybe I didn't realize it when I sent it
off for edit, maybe adding the extra like the
ads and the intro and the outro make it longer
than I expected. I really want my episodes to
be 35 minutes and I I get close to that. If it's
over 40 though, I want to find some stuff to
trim. And so because I've taken really good notes,
I will just load the file that my editor sent
me into Descript and I will look for, oh, we
had a conversation about fountain pens here that
didn't apply to what we were talking about. And
I'll just delete that and export it again. So
there, you know, if you are, if you, if you do
hire an editor, but you want to put some finishing
touches on an episode, Descript is a really good
way to do that, especially because you do have
that final file. So you don't have to like line
up additional tracks. But if you're going to
edit yourself, then Descript is really good for
a lot of reasons, right? It can easily remove
long silences. It can remove filler words, which
I don't think I am more likely to remove repeat
words than filler words. I think an um here and
there is fine. I think if there's like four ums
in a row, then you want to fix that, right? But
people say um in real life and if it's not scripted,
there's a difference between something feeling
scripted and something being too casual and An
um here or there is fine. I think it's a judgment
call. If it's too many ums to be distracting,
then you want to edit some of those out, but
more or less you want to make a good point or
you want it to sound natural. I guess that's
my point. You want it to sound natural, like
they're not reading or, or it sounds robotic
or something. But Descript is really good for
that stuff. and then making basic edits. So I
will end with a little bit of a story because
I am familiar with editing and I have a process
on my computer for editing, but I also have really
good equipment and so I thought that was doing
most of the work for me. Something I didn't realize
that my editor was doing was cleaning up, doing
mouth de -clicking, which is like, I'm not going
to do it because it's gross. But it's like mouth
sounds right hard swallows or like lip smacking.
I can't I can't stand those sounds I'm told I
I'm I'm pretty sensitive to audio so I don't
know and that's sensitive like it makes me sad
just I hear things more And then breaths, right?
Like I take, you know, I'm taking a lot of breaths.
Breathing has replaced the ums and ahs for me.
I'll take a pause and I'll breathe. And again,
some, it's like sometimes like people breathe,
right? So you don't need to edit out every breath,
but also when you're talking to someone in real
life, people aren't breathing in your ear, right?
So I like to edit some of those breaths out.
I also like to boost the audio a little bit.
And so anyway, I thought my Rodecaster Pro 2
and my Shure SM7B were enough to just get all
of the annoying sounds out. And then I listened
to an episode I released, just recorded, edited
for content and released next to an episode that
my editor really edited and released. And it
sounds so different. So, you know, I think I
know, but I have no idea. This is the real list.
Just kidding. That's an MTV reference for elder
millennials. Or I guess for non -elder millennials
who didn't get that reference. But so now I have
a process in Logic Pro. But again, like my editor
does a better job. Right. If you really listen,
you could probably tell. which ones I edited
versus every other episode, right? And again,
it's usually just solo episodes that I'm recording
on like a Friday before the episode's supposed
to come out, something I'm thinking about or
whatever. Or these episodes, because I'm releasing
them on YouTube and I have all of the scenes
set up in Ecamm Live, it really is just about
removing, like doing mouth de -clicking and breath
control. And so like, I took some time. I set
that up in Logic Pro and we're good to go. So.
To recap here. Right, hire an editor to at least
do most of it, right? I'm a hypocrite if I if
I say I never edit this one, this one I'm going
to edit. But I'm also not combining and syncing
tracks. I don't have to fix someone else's crappy
audio. I don't even really need to edit for content
because I have a script and an outline up and
I knew exactly what I was going to talk about.
But by and large, like. My editor gets. We'll
say 95 % of the episodes that I record across
all of my podcasts. for for my local podcast
start local he gets all of them because there
are just varying levels of audio and different
equipment and he is Way better than me and it
will take way less time for him Right, but when
I am recording and I control everything I feel
comfortable throwing it into a logic profile
that I already prepared So that doesn't add much
extra time. So hire an editor. Whether or not
you hire an editor, you should take good notes,
especially if you do interviews, right? If you're
doing solo episodes, take good notes before you
record and it'll keep you on track. But if you
have an interview, take good notes during the
interview. Mark things that you think might need
to be edited when there's over talking. If the
guest says something you think would be a good
cold open stuff like that. And then finally use
Descript. This is, this is not sponsored by Descript.
I'll have like an affiliate link in the description.
Probably. I use Riverside to record because I,
I think that Riverside is better than Squadcast,
which Descript owns. But as far as editing, especially
basic edits or content based edits, Descript
is is where it's at. It's it's really good. I
think like Riverside has a built in edit by transcript
feature as well, but I don't think it's as good
as Descript's. And that's why I'm using both.
So use Descript if you're going to edit yourself.
Okay. That's it for this episode of podcast workflows.
I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know if you have
feedback leave, you know, and you're listening
in Spotify or YouTube, you can leave comments
right on the episode. If you're not listening
in those places, you can go to podcast workflows
.com slash feedback to leave a text or audio
note. So again, that's podcast workflows .com
slash feedback. Thanks so much for listening.
And until next time, I can't wait to see what
you make.