How to Edit Your Podcast Like a Pro
- Angela Wolf Video
- May 15
- 2 min read
A good podcast is well-edited to ensure that it tells a story, stays engaging, and is entirely free of dead air and mistakes. This might sound a little intimidating, but never fear! Keep reading for our top podcast editing tips for smooth audio and professional sound.
1) Find the Right Software for Your Needs
As with any project, it's crucial you have the right tool for the job. Professional podcast editing is not one size fits all, so it's important to know exactly what you need. If you're looking for an all-in-one, bang-for-your-buck option, we suggest Adobe Podcast, which offers recording, editing, and enhancement tools. We love the "mic test" feature, which ensures your setup is clean before recording. The podcast editing suite also includes "transcription-based editing," which makes edits by altering the AI-generated script. This isn’t necessarily the cleanest way to edit your podcast, but it is the fastest and easiest. You'll get the most out of Adobe Podcast with a paid subscription for the Adobe Suite, so be sure to check out your options here. If you're looking for the highest-quality way to edit your podcasts, we highly recommend Adobe Audition or Avid Pro Tools. On the other hand, for entirely free software, we'd go with Audacity or Garageband.
2) Clean up Mistakes and Background Noise
This might be a no-brainer, but we really can't stress enough that listeners will hear a difference. Unwanted audio is not only distracting from the content of your podcast, but also hurts retention for new listeners. If your audience isn't already invested in you and what you have to say, they're a lot less likely to have patience for poor editing. For refining your podcast audio to be free of background noise, we highly recommend Adobe Enhance Audio. Additionally, it's crucial to note that a significant part of editing--whether video or audio--is pacing. Not only does your podcast need to be free of distracting noises, but also have a good pace. Remove the slow parts of the recording (like tangents and dead air), considering what both your audience and new listeners would be interested in.
3) Adjust Voice Audio Levels to -3db
This one might sound a little nit-picky, but it's crucial to professional podcast editing. Like dead air and unwanted background noise, the wrong audio levels can turn listeners off. To be sure your podcast audio is mixed correctly, always use your editing software's loudness meter, Just relying on how the audio sounds to you may be tempting, but it's completely unreliable. For the best podcast sound, voices should be maxing at -3db. It can dip down to -6db, but you don't want it any quieter than that. Any music should hit -12db when played by itself, or -24db while played under someone talking.
At AWV, we offer podcast editing for clients who want to focus their time on producing and recording their podcasts. This also helps prevent a backlog of unedited episodes that a lot of beginner podcasters face. We use the Adobe Suite for both video and audio editing.
Angela Wolf Video offers corporate video production services near Philadelphia, PA. Do you have a specific video question? Schedule a free video analysis call at bit.ly/callawv
