What are the best ways to edit dialogue in a podcast?

Most dialogue editing requires very simple features - cut, trim, delete, etc. This means that you can choose an editing software that suits your level of expertise and budget. Already have an Adobe subscription? Try Adobe Audition. Find the Audacity interface too busy? Try GarageBand. However, some more advanced plug-ins like mouth click removal or de-noise may require a more advanced software.

Don't waste a ton of time trying to choose "the perfect one". Grab one and dive! Especially at the beginning you'll end up in decision fatigue over the 5% of differences that don't matter to a novice. I recommend a teacher. Audio engineers are some of the best folk out there, and they'll gladly help someone enter their fold for less than the cost of you spending 10 hours figuring it out on your own. Lesson: having a robust community of like-minded audiophiles and a decent (paid pro) software is far better than reinventing the wheel yourself. The hours you waste DIYing it will line the halls of sound Valhalla. Save some time. Be more concerned about the learning than the program. Lean more on the people than the endeavor.

In podcasting, this is significantly overrated. You're not cutting the next Thriller album. You're properly representing what should already be stellar content. You can't save the episode in post. The content is good or it isn't. Care more about the content than the filler words. Don't spend 10 minutes restructuring and redacting the episode and then 3 hours pruning the vocal shrub. The teenager using Descript will hit the auto button and get very close to you in less than a minute of work. I've yet to meet someone (that wasn't unhealthily obsessed with audio) who stopped listening to a podcast because of some filler issues. And most are listening on 2x anyway. So there's all that attention to detail that will never be heard.

Infelizmente, esta é ainda uma quest?o que muitos criadores de conteúdo deixam para depois. No entanto, a qualidade de som de um podcast é absolutamente fundamental. O "conforto de escuta" é essencial, para quem escolhe ouvir um podcast.

Don't just clean the audio, sculpt it. Beyond removing unwanted noise, use equalization to boost clarity in specific voice ranges. Imagine carving away muddiness from lows and adding crispness to highs. A sprinkle of compression can smooth out uneven volume, like taming overly enthusiastic bursts or boosting quieter moments. Think of it as adding polish to your voice, making it sound consistently engaging for listeners. Remember, subtle adjustments are your friend – overdoing it can turn even the most captivating voice into a robotic monotone.

This is where the magic happens, but not how you think. An audio engineers voodoo doesn't just extend to editing. It's about the room, microphone, voice types, etc. The list is expansive. If you're not capturing the audio yourself, you should be working very closely alongside those who are. Otherwise, you'll spend a lot of time accomplishing very little. There are approximately eleventy billion plugins that will help you accomplish parts of this efficiently. Make sure you have individual tracks, that you're accommodating for individual voice types, that you're matching loudness, and that the pacing and volume are consistent. Easy enough, but this is where it starts. Lastly, time is a factor. It will never be perfect. Be done.

Suit the pace and flow to the type of podcast. Quick, snappy cuts with no pauses works great for YouTube videos, and may work well for information-dense, short podcast episodes, but it could get fatiguing to listen to over an hour. Longer episodes or interviews benefit from a more natural approach and being given more time to 'breathe'.

If you're doing a visual podcast or interview, don't have both speakers in the same camera frame, have a camera for each. This gives you more freedom in terms of editing because there are fewer sequential elements. You can cut, mix, and match footage for more focus and better pacing this way.