Another in the series where I offer up some practical advice about setting up, recording, and publishing podcasts. This time, it’s the editing of audio.

Like recording, there is loads of advice already out there about how to edit audio and it will, in many cases, be platform, system, or technology specific. These are just the things I work to and include in my process.

Nothing beats a bit of bass. I add a bit of bass to people’s voices in the edit. Most people don’t have great quality microphones and the recording can sound a bit tinny so I add some bass to counteract that a little. Don’t add too much though; speakers can sound very ‘muddy’ as a result.

I really don’t like lip smacks erms and ahs and will spend ages removing these noises and pauses. When you edit a lot you can recognise the wave forms and do them quicker. However, the best way to edit them is to make sure you tell your guests when they’re doing these and try and get them to avoid making them!

Balancing the audio is really important. If one guest is a little quiet and the others are louder, it makes for a really difficult listen. Your target is to make them as even as possible and you’ll probably need to try a few things to make that work. Firstly, I balance LUFS – this is a loudness measure and set it to -16 which is the volume which Apple Podcasts work to. I then use a clipping fix tool to bring the volume down to remove those excessive peaks in the sound.

I’m a fan of using a fade out of the theme music. We have a common script on the Women Talking About Learning podcast and I start the episodes the same way. Adding the fade out under the opening speech makes – to me at least – a better experience than a hard cut.

I like to record a new introduction to each episode but know it can save time to have a common intro and outro. If you are going to use a generic intro and outro, make sure it is balanced to the rest of the audio; a quiet intro followed by a louder speaker isn’t a great start to a podcast. Similarly, a loud intro which becomes quiet in the content isn’t great for the listener. An imbalance between an intro and the content can also sound very unprofessional too.

I use a noise reduction tool to silence out speakers’ background noises. If they have computer fan noise, air conditioning, heating, etc, using this tool can reduce the background sound significantly and make their voices stand out. Be careful though – overuse can make voices sound metallic.

The last thing I do before exporting the podcast as mp3 is the compression. As the name suggests, this compresses the audio it has a smaller dynamic range – effectively it makes the loudest sounds closer to the quietest sounds. Always do compression last and make sure not to over-compress the audio – it can make the audio sound artificial.

These are the basics – there are loads more I use when needed including noise gates, filter EQ , etc. If you do any editing, what do you use and what matters most to you? Let me know in the comments.