Process for producing my podcast
Over the first eight episodes of my podcast, I’ve made my editing process more efficient – however, I know there are still some things that can be done to improve it. I would love some suggestions on ways in which to make this process more efficient.
The tools I used in production are: Zencastr, Audacity, Adobe Audition, Descript, Auphonic, Echo 360, Microsoft Word, and Buzzsprout. Note that this does not include the creation of my show notes and materials to promote the podcast. That will be another blog post!
Step 1: Record Interview
OK, maybe step 1 is well before recording the interview, but I will start here. I use Zencastr to record the interview because it does a great job of recording the audio and it records the two speakers into different files. This makes it much easier for me to silence out one person while the other is talking. It makes editing easier.
One tip I have learned is to try to get as good quality audio as you can when do you do the recording. Recommend to your guest to wear a headset or use a good quality microphone. Also ask them (and for yourself too) to avoid background noises and tapping on the table while speaking. These are really hard to filter out.
Step 2: Clean noise, Level audio
I use Audacity here to clean the background noise and level the audio. I find it easier than Audition which makes me think I’m not using Audition right. If we can figure out how to do this in Audition (and ideally automate it), this would save me step.
Step 3: Combine tracks
This is my first cut of the conversation. Using Adobe Audition, I listen and cut out any conversation that doesn’t fit the interview – for example, when someone decides to start over in answering a question or if they say something and then realize it isn’t something they want to share on the podcast. This is the stage where I cut it, but also where I mix the two tracks (my track and the track for my guest).
Step 4: Remove filler words
I’ve recently discovered the power of Descript. This allows me to read through the transcript and edit out all the umms and other filler words like “you know” and “right”. I go through the entire episode and make sure the words make sense and edit out anything that doesn’t belong. What I love about Descript is that I can edit out the text in the transcript and it automatically edits out the words in the audio file. It does a pretty decent job of this!
Step 5: Remove breaths, Clean Wave, Add Intro and Outro
One thing that Descript doesn’t do well (or at least I haven’t figured out how to do it yet) is to remove the breaths. Fortunately, I can do this quite easily in Adobe Audition. I scan through the audio wave file and edit out any breaths that I see. I also fix any audio transitions that I marked in Descript as less than ideal.
While I’m in Adobe Audition, I add my Intro and Outro for the episode.
Step 6: Run Post Production
I got a tip from a LinkedIn Learning about using Auphonic to increase the production quality of the audio file. I’m not sure what exactly it does, but the result is a file that sounds better to my ear, so it is doing something.
Step 7: Create Transcript
I have access to Echo 360 and it does a pretty good job of creating transcripts. I’ve been using this in part because it is free, and because it does a good job. I can download the text file for editing.
Step 8: Edit Transcript
When I do the edit of the transcript at this point, I highlight quotes that I want to pull out as pull quotes in the blog post. I also use this pass of the transcript to identify mentions of any tools or other things that should be linked in the show notes.
Step 9: Distribute
Finally, when it is all ready, I use Buzzsprout to distribute the podcast. It automatically distributes it to the various services like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, etc. It also hosts it on their site, so I can create an embedded player to include on my website.
As you can see, I clearly have too many steps in my production process. I’m using too many tools, and switching things back and forth too much.
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