How to Edit a Podcast: 7 Do's and Don'ts

Did you know that digital audio made its grand comeback amidst the 10% fall in podcast downloads?

Social media start-ups helped ignite a new generation of vast audio content consumption. This bright future of the podcasting industry led to an increase in podcast creators.

Are you among them? Are you sure you're following the right recipe in editing podcasts?

Read on if you want to know how to edit a podcast efficiently and effectively and produce quality audio!

How to Edit a Podcast: 7 Dos in Podcast Editing

Whatever your niche or length of your podcast is, adopt standardization. Create a file naming and folder structure that you're most comfortable with and stick to such. Doing so makes it easier to locate audio clips, making podcast editing more efficient.

Standardization is one of the many podcast creation tips you need to embrace to create quality podcasts. Other editing tips include setting a time limit and creating a podcast flow. Let's discuss more of the seven dos of podcast editing in the following sections.

1. Do Set a Length for Your Podcast

Before you edit the podcast, decide on how long your podcast episode will last. This will give you a clear time limit which can serve as your guide in editing the content of your podcast.

Podcasts can last from 20 to 60 minutes. If you're new to the podcast world, it's highly recommended that you keep your podcast under 30 minutes.

2. Do Listen and Take Down Notes

Most podcast editors believe that it's time-efficient to listen to the podcast as they edit. However, if you start trimming off conversations without listening to the rest, you might remove statements that are later on referenced in the conversations. As a result, you get the extra workload of redoing the whole trimming process.

If you don't want to listen to the whole podcast but rather read it, then our editing software may be able to help. Hipclip is able to provide users with a transcript of your work.

So, you can read and listen through the podcast to make editing easier. It also helps to take notes by highlighting parts of the texts while reading your podcast's transcripts.

3. Do Create a Story Line and Flow in your Podcast

As you edit your podcast, keep in mind the story that you want to tell your listeners and focus on that. Hence, identify parts of the conversations that don't align with your storyline and cut them out. Scan through your audio content and cut down any chatter or random tangents.

Moreover, when you edit podcasts, ensure that there's a natural flow in the conversation. You want your podcast to sound as if the conversation is happening in a living lounge of your home. Make sure to remove unnecessary noise, words, pauses, and markers.

4. Do Create a Memorable Theme Song

Look back to your favorite TV show; what are some of the details that you remember about it? Aside from the storyline, most people remember the show's theme song.

Adding a jingle or a tagline in your intro and outro makes a great way to brand your program. Moreover, it's a fantastic method to set the mood and hype your audience as you start and end the program.

5. Do Place Background Music in Your Podcast

Another way to enhance the mood of your podcasts is to add background music. Notice how the eerie background makes horror movies more thrilling? You can do the same to your podcast program.

Add music within the conversation to amplify the story you're telling. Music adds drama and excitement to your podcast. Such helps you invoke certain reactions from your audiences which can lead them to become regular listeners.

6. Do Organize Your Tracks and Use Tone Equalizer

There are many applications on your device that can record your voice. However, this free software can capture a lot of extra background noises, making it bad for a podcast. Listeners want to hear nothing extra aside from your voice and music.

Use Hipclip to clean the sounds of your recording. Our software uses an AI to help remove any pops, hums, and clicks to make your podcast sound much cleaner.

7. Do Use a Compressor

It's only natural to encounter guests that speak more quietly than the host. Hence, unpleasant sound fluctuations are quite common in podcast recordings.

As a result, listeners would have to adjust the sound volume to hear the podcast comfortably. However, this won't be a problem if you use a compressor.

A compressor can bring the loudest and the quietest sounds closer together. This reduces the dynamic range of sound levels in your recording, making it easier to listen to.

Remember to clean up any tonal problems in your recording before using a compressor. Compressors can highlight even the least notable tone issues in your recording.

7 Don'ts in Podcast Editing

The tips above are only a fraction of the basics that you need to cover if you want to know how to make a podcast or how to edit a podcast. You also need to jot down editing practices to avoid to help reduce editing mistakes. So let's discuss the seven don'ts in podcast editing in the sections below.

1. Don't Go Overboard with Your Plugs

Podcasts are a great way to make money through paid advertisements. Yet one of the fastest ways to kill your podcast program is to turn it into an advertisement platform.

Note that listeners tune in either to learn about something or for entertainment. Hence, make sure that you lean your resources towards that.

It's fine to drop one to three advertisement plugs to fund your program. However, take the necessary steps to make the plug sound more natural.

While editing, find the right time to insert the plug. If you can't, dedicate a one or two-minute break to drop all your advertisement plugs.

2. Don't Delete Every Crutch Word

There's this misconception among podcasters that they need to make their podcasts sound flawless. Hence, they delete every crutch word such as "uhm" and "hmm." It may be easy and necessary to remove these uhms and hmms but being on a constant watch for "like", "you know", and the like can be more tricky.

Thus, you don't need to get rid of every crutch word, as they're what makes a conversation real and natural. Instead, only delete crutch words that are distracting or if they're way too many of them.

3. Don't Edit Word-Per-Word

Remember that you're editing to keep the flow of the conversation natural. Hence, there's no need to edit word-per-word as you'll only be wasting your time. Instead, edit sentences so that they're complete and straight to the point.

4. Don't Combine Sound and Content Editing Tasks

When you edit a podcast, separate content editing from sound editing. First, edit out unnecessary contents such as lengthy pleasantry and out-of-the-topic statements. Then, proceed to remove any audible distractions.

5. Don't Fill Your Podcast with Sound Effects

Sound effects can help spice up your podcast and make it more entertaining. However, the key to successful sound effects lies in knowing when to add and how much to add.

Having sound effects every ten seconds will sound irritating to listeners. Hence, you want to find a balance between timing and the appropriateness of the sound effects. For actual examples of effective use of sound effects, listen and learn from successful podcast programs.

6. Don't Be Too Confident

Take a break for at least 30 minutes, then listen to your edited podcast one last time before uploading. Double-check to ensure that you've removed every unnecessary content and audio issue.

Listen to your podcast using headphones to get a clear sense of how the mixing and mastering edits are. You can also have someone else hear the edited podcast if you want objective feedback. Whichever it is, don't get too ahead of yourself and learn to re-evaluate your work before posting.

7. Don't Be Afraid to Invest in Quality Editing Software

You'll be extremely surprised by how great editing software can impact your podcast. We're not saying free editing software is useless. They make a decent tool when it comes to trimming and merging recording.

However, that's as far as their capacity can go as they often don't offer advanced sound mixing options. This is a great loss since mixing is critical in balancing the frequencies in your recording.

Why Hipclip Is the Perfect Podcast Editing Software For You

Do you know how to edit a podcast efficiently? The answer is - Hipclip!

Hipclip allows you to transform raw content into a best-selling story as it's a script-based editor. It's no boring soundwave editor - Hipclip lets you edit a podcast as if it were an email. Whether you're a podcaster or a video creator, Hipclip will empower you with its impressive editing features.

So sign up today and get access to editing software that allows you to automatically improve sound quality and get rid of awkward pauses, unnecessary sounds, and silences in a flash!

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(Photo by Kate Oseen on Unsplash)