Simple Habits That Save Hours In Podcast Editing

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Editing can be one of the biggest time sinks in podcasting, but it doesn’t have to be! We're sharing practical ways to cut down on editing time without sacrificing quality. 

We dig into recording habits that make editing smoother, why clean audio at the source is the ultimate timesaver, and how planning outlines actually makes you more flexible in the moment.

You’ll also hear tips about cutting down on filler words, mic technique, avoiding crosstalk, using markers to flag mistakes, and when to lean on AI tools like transcript editors.

Our next episode will be about creating podcast superfans! So if you have a tip or a question about that, be sure to tap the Text the Show link! 

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Episode Transcript

Alban (00:00):
Jordan.
Great job on last week'sBuzzcast.
Going around talking to all thespeakers, getting all of their
feedback, that was great.

Jordan (00:07):
Thank you.

Kevin (00:07):
I loved that episode.
It was so good.

Jordan (00:09):
It was a lot of fun to put together.

Alban (00:11):
It's nice to talk to somebody who spent, you know,
probably a week putting togethera 25-minute presentation,
really thinking about it, andthen you go up and you say, hey,
try to give it to me, you know,in as short, concise of an
answer as possible, and what youend up with is some very
actionable and really helpfultidbits from podcast movement.

Kevin (00:31):
A lot of people do these things for, like the Apple
keynotes, like over the years,I've just gotten to the point
where I'm a little bit overwatching the two hour Apple
keynote thing but, I just waitfor the next day, for somebody
or Apple or somebody to puttogether like a super cut, and I
felt like that's what you did agreat job of doing, like you
took a whole conference that'slike three or four days and in
20 minutes you gave us the bestof the best of everyone's talk,

(00:52):
and so I think that's so good.

Alban (00:54):
It might be something for us to keep doing, to like make
that a.
You know, when we come backfrom a conference, we've all
gone to a handful of talks,We've probably given a handful
of talks and we try to connectwith.
You know, 10 speakers say, hey,give us the one or two
takeaways, and for everyone whocan't go to conferences, I think
that's a great way to feel likeyou know, included, but also,

(01:14):
like they learned, probably someof the more valuable things.
You'll never get the interactionwith the other podcasters,
which we think is a very bigpiece of it, but you can get a
lot of the education.
Actually, on that note, PodcastMovement and Sounds Profitable
are doing a merger and one ofthe big things they're doing is
that all the talks are now goingto be live, so they're going to

(01:35):
put them, I think, on YouTubeso that anybody can watch or
listen to them.
A lot of conferences do this.
They realize the big draw isyou go there to interact with
people in real life.
There is something specialabout being there in real life,
but for the education piecewhich is even good for the
speakers as well is that goes onto YouTube.
So Jordan gave a really goodtalk, tom gave a really good

(01:57):
talk, and I think both of thosewere filmed and if they are,
we'll definitely have to link tothem so that everybody can
watch them.

Jordan (02:03):
Yeah, and yours too.

Alban (02:05):
I don't know if mine was filmed.
I did the podcast primer withAdobe Podcasts the first day.
Not a hundred percent sure.

Jordan (02:12):
I saw cameras in the room, so I think it may have
been.

Kevin (02:15):
Okay, it might've just been Alban's entourage, though
he always has a cameracrew that always followed him
around.

Alban (02:21):
That is one of the funny things at these marketing
conferences is everyone's seenthat Gary Vee does this, where
he has someone filming him allthe time oh my gosh.
But they're just normal peoplewho also will hire video people,
and so you're kind of like halfthe time like are you famous
and that's why you have anentourage, or is like this your
friend?

Jordan (02:40):
I'm pretty sure that's what the Kardashians did too.
They would like tip thepaparazzi off when they were at
certain restaurants and stuffright.

Alban (02:47):
Well, you've got a bit of that at Podcast Movement.

Jordan (02:50):
One of the other things that you cannot get from the
YouTube videos is going to bethe parties, and this year there
was a party specificallycatered to you two.

Kevin (03:01):
Yes, I thought it was very nice of iHeart to throw a
party specifically cateredtowards Alban and I.

Jordan (03:08):
That's how it felt.

Kevin (03:10):
It was the pickleball party and we had so much fun.
Alban and I were like the firsttwo there.
We were warming up on thecourts when the buses arrived.

Alban (03:16):
The only with branded pickleball hats and full
athletic clothing.
Everybody else is like playingagainst us in jeans.

Kevin (03:25):
Right, and I brought creatine gummies for everybody
so they could be pumped up.

Jordan (03:31):
Yeah, it was.
It was funny, kevin.
I've never seen you shut down aparty before.
But I mean, I left.
I think I think the wholeBuzzsprout team left and you
were still on the court playingpeople.

Kevin (03:41):
It's the only I heart party I've ever been to and I
stayed to the bitter end, to theoff the court.

Jordan (03:46):
And that was the like we we mentioned a couple of times
are like secret swag that wewere testing out, and it was the
pickleball hats.
We had these really nicebaseball caps.
I guess they weren't baseballcaps, were they?

Kevin (03:58):
Just like athletic sports caps, yeah.

Jordan (04:01):
Those are really nice, so that was a big hit.
I don't know if that'ssomething we'll continue to do
or if it's just going to bekeeping with the pickleball
theme for this year.
Maybe next year we'll havesomething different, yeah.

Kevin (04:10):
And I'm happy to report.
Now I want to be fair, becauseat the end of the night we
played a little bit of podcasthosting company v, podcast
hosting company pickleball, andso we played a few games with
Justin from Transistor.
He was new to the sport and soyou know he didn't stand much of
a chance, but he was a goodsport.
He played as good as he couldand he has his sports.

Alban (04:31):
He would dominate us in the snowboarding challenge.

Kevin (04:33):
We did a snowboarding competition He'd win, but
pickleball we took him prettyhandily.
The sleeper, though, in thepodcast hosting space was Ben
from RSScom.
Really he was playing in jeansand a button-up shirt and he
played exceptionally well.
Wow.
Still fell short of thechampionship, but played really
well.
So super athletic guy and gaveus a run for our money.
But at the end Buzzsprout comesout on top in the Pickleball

(04:55):
Challenge.

Jordan (04:56):
We saw some Buzzcast listeners at Podcast Movement
again this year, which is alwaysfun, and we actually got a
goodie bag from Sara Rosettwhich I promptly claimed as my
own.
She had one of her novels,Murder at Archley Manor, and it

(05:16):
looks like it's so funny becauseshe included all these like
bookmarks in here and stuff andshe's got Sara Rosett Mystery
Most Charming and it's I can'tdo the math on it, but like it's
a lot of books, it's an entirepage full of books that she has
written.
So I guess I have a new readinglist to keep up on now.

Kevin (05:34):
That's so great.

Alban (05:35):
Thank you, Sara, If you could have put both of you on
the spot.
There's gonna be some prettybig changes to podcast movement
going forward with this merger.
One of them is going to be thepodcast movement will be in New
York and evolutions is now goingto be part of South by
Southwest.
But beyond the things we know,what's a wish that you have?
That podcast movement couldchange.

(05:56):
That would help make it betterthan ever.

Kevin (05:59):
I'm going to steal my wish from.
It originally came from JamesPod news, James Cridland.
I was speaking with him and hesaid if they would restructure
the time of the week thatpodcast movement falls on so
that Thursday and Friday weremore industry tracks and Friday
night into Saturday and maybeSunday morning were indie
podcaster tracks, I think they'dget a lot more indie podcasters

(06:20):
to show up at that event.
It's very hard for somebody whodoes podcasting as a hobby or
side hustle or a side project ora passion project to take off
in the middle of the week fromtheir nine to five to go pursue
something that's really in thehobby category for them.
And so because of that, overtime we're seeing less and less
independent podcasters show upto podcast movement.

(06:40):
We are seeing so many of themshow up to PodFest which for
anybody listening like if you'regoing to go to one as an
independent podcaster, if you'regoing to go to one podcasting
event a year, I would chooseeither that or it sounds like if
you're not in the US, it soundslike the pod show in London has
become that place for theEuropean market or just outside
the US.
In general it's easier to getto but one of those two shows,

(07:02):
but Podfest in Orlando is theshow that we always go really
big on and I think there's five600 indie podcasters that show
up to that, as opposed toPodcast Movement, where I think
there was a couple hundred tops.
What about you, jordan?

Jordan (07:15):
Oh, I think mine is also aligned with the making things
a little bit better forindependent podcasters.
It's hard because I'm tornbetween two wishes, so I'm just
going to like kind of squeezeboth into one wish is that it
would be more geared towardsindependent podcasters and
independent creators than itwould be to like industry

(07:36):
leaders and stuff like that andthat, including like being on
the weekend, so it's like moreinclusive.
Also having the accessibilityof it be a little bit better for
independent podcasters where,like, ticket prices aren't
astronomical because they'repretty expensive, especially if
you're a hobbyist podcasterwho's just wanting to like
improve your craft, or maybe youlike have lofty hopes that it

(07:57):
could become a job for yousomeday, um, and you can't
invest I don't know whatever.
It is like three to fivehundred dollars to go to podcast
movement.
I think it'd be great to haveticket prices go down just a
little bit for the creators.

Alban (08:10):
I like both of those wishes.
I think mine would be that wetry to get a few kind of top
line podcasters to come out andheadline podcast movement again.
So the first year we went MarkMaron was there, roman Mars was
there, I think Aisha Tyler wasthere.
Over the years I saw AndrewHuberman and Will Ferrell and

(08:31):
Amy Pollard and Ira Glass, SarahKoenig one year just tons of
big top line podcasters and thatseems like it has decreased
over the years.
And this one there wasn'tanybody headlining, at least
that I saw and was like oh, I'venever seen them before.
I really am excited to hear howthey craft their shows.

Kevin (08:51):
Yeah, yeah, you're forgetting my favorite, which
was Terry Gross.

Alban (08:56):
I knew I was going to forget somebody.
That's funny.
That's a.
That's a bad one to forget.

Kevin (08:59):
Yes, terry Gross, yeah, she was amazing.
But I do love here, you'reright, I do love hearing those
stories from I don't know likethey're not us, right, they're
not indie podcasters in thatsense.
They're big name podcasters andthey've got a lot of production
and stuff behind them, but theydo have a perspective that is
sort of aspirational.
That's fun for indie podcastersto hear Like we're never going

(09:20):
to be as good as them, but youdo want to.
You do share this connectionwith them that, like you, create
content for the same space.
Yeah.
Anyway, the Terry gross whichshe talked about and how she
told stories about herpodcasting journey, and it's
just just an amazing keynote.
Yeah, we need more of thatstuff back.

Alban (09:36):
Yeah, so a few of those.
And then the education contentI think has always been top
notch.
People like Jordan are givinggreat talks about monetization
and Tom's talking about statsand we've got lots of those
actionable educational ones.
But I think a few of thoseaspirational ones on top, the
top line podcasters those arereally exciting for everybody,
but especially for indiepodcasters, because you get to

(09:57):
see somebody you've admired andI always walk away learning
something about how theyapproach their craft very
differently than we do, andthere's things you can always
apply, even if you know Iprobably won't ever be in that
same category of.
You know, hundreds of millionsof downloads, yep.

Jordan (10:14):
Fully agree.
Well, I guess we'll find outnext year in September in New
York city, if our podcastmovement wishes come true.

Kevin (10:22):
Yeah, and go to pod fest.
We will be there and it is somuch fun and such a great way to
connect with other podcasters.

Jordan (10:27):
I can't wait.

Kevin (10:28):
Yep.

Jordan (10:35):
Welcome back to Buzzcast podcast about all things
podcasting from the people atBuzzsprout.
So today we are talking aboutsomething that I myself have
been working on the last fewyears.
I've been producing thispodcast, which is cutting down
on editing time.

Kevin (10:53):
I'm ready.
I mean, you were just onsabbatical a couple episodes
ago, so editing is fresh to me.
Yeah, I've had a recentexperience with the joys of
editing and, if you remember, Italked about it right when you
came back.
I completely underestimated,again, how long it takes to edit
a podcast and because of thatmy schedule was thrown into a
ride for 24 hours.
Oh yeah.

(11:13):
Staying up late to finish theepisode.
But yeah, it can be difficult,I can, and there are some
workflow tips that hopefully wecan walk through today that will
help ease the burden of podcastediting and bring back some of
the joy, because it is fun.
It is fun, but it's one ofthose things that it's like it
can.
It'll consume as much time asyou give it, right.
Yes.
And sometimes a little more.

(11:34):
So we have to be on guard sothat people don't get burned
out.

Jordan (11:37):
Yes, absolutely.

Alban (11:39):
Okay, so this first one.
Um, I've been working on thismagic mastering video last week
and I have been recording a lotof bad audio.
I recorded some at the beach.
I recorded some next to a cardriving by on like a six lane
road.
I've recorded with cicadasoutside near a marsh, a bunch of
different spots, and what Icame away with was I'm very

(12:03):
proud of magic mastering.
I'm very impressed with howmuch PowerClean can clean up.
I still believe the better yourrecording can be, the better.
It's always preferable to get aclean recording, no matter
what.
Yeah.
And so things like you've gotheadphones so you don't have to
take out, you know mic bleed.
You've got soft furnishings inthe room, you've got lots of

(12:23):
stuff that's kind of refractingthe sound so that you don't get
reverb.
You don't have the AC blasting.
I recorded one in my car whereI had the air rushing over me.
Magic mastering takes it out,but the vocals naturally do get
degraded a small bit over if Ihad a real recording.
So just the better you can getat recording a clean take the

(12:45):
first time, the better it'sgoing to be when you're cleaning
up that audio and trying toimprove it.

Jordan (12:50):
Yeah, and I think along with this, we actually had stuff
from geopats abroad write inand say you know, always do a
test recording and listen backbefore starting the real thing.
And I think that this goes evenlike a step further into what
we had discussed with ourepisode about prepping guests,
where we talked about doing asound check with them, because

(13:11):
you never know, like we've we'veeven had people who you know
are podcasters and then theyshow up and they don't have
headphones on and stuff likethat.
It's just like it's sosurprising.
And so it is really importantbecause if you do get that bad
output, if you do get you know,a little bit of like echo or
things like that in yourrecording, it's going to

(13:32):
completely mess up the thing.
It's going to take hours andhours and hours of cleanup
because you're going to besurgically removing it.
So, yes, it's really important.

Kevin (13:40):
Yeah, or I mean magic mastering can help in a lot of
those cases.
Yeah no-transcript.

(14:15):
Magic mastering will pick it up.
Maybe it won't.
We don't want to run the risk,and so we've run magic mastering
as an insurance policy.
That's the way we recommendthat you would do it as well.
And then I will also say thatoftentimes people hear us say
things like this like the betterthe audio you capture, the
better chance you're going tohave of getting high quality
output to them that just seelike they see dollar signs.

(14:35):
And it doesn't have to beexpensive.
We've talked just recently twoepisodes ago we just talked
about how you can get a veryhigh quality microphone.
Doesn't mean the most expensivemicrophone, doesn't have to be
super expensive.
You can do sound treatments onyour room just by bringing soft
things into your recordingspace.
So if you record in a room thathas hard walls and wood floors

(14:55):
and it's not a very high ceilingor something and you're getting
some reverb like it's easy tosolve.
Just go get some cushions offyour couch or some throw
blankets or something.
Just soften up the environment.
And that doesn't have to be apermanent solution.
It doesn't have to be thousandsof dollars in acoustic
treatments that you buy fromsome acoustic warehouse or
something.
It can be temporary, it can bevery inexpensive.
A lot of people record inwalk-in closets because closets

(15:18):
do a great job of absorbing alot of sound.
There's clothes hanging allaround you and that's really
good way to do that.
Other things like little foampop filters to put on top of
your microphones.
They cost like $2, $3 onAmazon.
So there are ways to do thisstuff and it doesn't mean that
you have to spend a ton of moneyto capture good high quality
audio.

Alban (15:37):
You know, the two things that I always check for now are
headphones and do we have theright mic input?
Oh yeah, Right, Because ifsomething sounds off and there's
a mic in front of someone'smouth, I talked to Kara on the
podcast success team yesterdayand she had her mic and she was
like my audio sounds a littleoff, Right, and I'm like I think
you've just it's set on yourcomputer microphone and you feel

(15:59):
like it's there, it's probablyrecording.
But that's the most commonfrustration is you go oh man, we
did everything right and wemade.
That one little hiccup ends upgetting worse audio.
Oh yeah.
Computers are all getting quitea bit better.
Everything is moving in theright direction.
But yeah, if you've got a mic,let's record into the mic.
That's going to be a lotbetter.

Jordan (16:20):
I mean it's funny because last episode, when I was
like wandering around thepodcast movement expo hall with
that little like ATR 2100X howmuch do we buy those microphones
for?
It was like on sale for what$35.
$39,?
I think yeah, because it wasduring like takedown and stuff.

(16:41):
So people are taking down theirbooths.
Having that dedicatedmicrophone sounded so much
better than when I was using myvoice memo app on my iPhone.
I could tell how it was almostlike tinny the audio was.
It was very sharp.
And then the sound from theATR2100X even though it was like

(17:02):
a much cheaper microphone andit was in actually a worse
environment, the sound was somuch richer just because it was
a dedicated microphone for that.

Kevin (17:12):
Yeah, and I was so impressed.
I know you weren't trying torun an advertisement for Magic
Mastering.
It was hard not to but all ofthat audio sounded so good.
I know I remember watching yourecord.
I think it was at one of theparties that you were recording
with Daniel J Lewis right, andyou were recording in your voice
memos app.
Yeah.
And a really loud Patreonparty, right.

Jordan (17:34):
Yeah, we were.
Yeah, we like stepped outsideof the Patreon party.
But yeah, it was.
It was not a good environment.

Kevin (17:39):
There's no way there's no way she's going to use this.
And then I was listening to theepisode and it was there and it
sounded great.

Jordan (17:44):
It did yeah.

Kevin (17:45):
I couldn't believe it.

Jordan (17:46):
It sounded really good, but the definitely the clips
that had the like dedicatedmicrophone were much better Like
yeah, fuller sounding Right.
Yeah, like you said, magicmastering can do a lot of heavy
lifting on that, but man,there's just something about
having a specific microphoneworks so much better, especially
if it's dynamic microphone, notcondenser, so that's.
Another thing is make sure thatyou have a microphone, which I

(18:07):
mean we talked about in theequipment episode, but make sure
that you have a microphone thatactually is specifically for
the environment that you're in.

Alban (18:13):
Right, all right.
So first tip sounds a lot likewe're helping reduce the
mastering time, like trying toimprove the audio quality.
Oh yeah, the first that popsinto my mind for editing time is
having a plan.
This is maybe the first thing Iever learned about podcasting
was you can go into an episode,whether you're the host or

(18:35):
you're the person beinginterviewed or you're a co-host,
if there's a plan.
And I'm talking, the plan doesnot have to be verbatim, it can
be five bullet points.
If there's a plan versus not aplan, massive difference in how
it goes.
You can keep three people ontrack and say, hey, are we on?
I mean, this has happened inthis recording already.
Kevin goes are we on thisbullet point or this bullet

(18:57):
point?
Because I think we're mixingthe two.
And then I went oh, you'reright, we went back and just
cleaned that up.
It's so much easier when we allhave bullet points written in
front of us, versus we're kindof hitting different tangents
and hoping we meander our wayback around to the actual topic.

Jordan (19:13):
Yeah, it's funny because in doing the planning it almost
makes you a little bit moreflexible, which sounds
completely backwards, but it'slike I know what the main goal
of the episode is, I know what Iwant our listeners to take away
from the episode and so, evenif you know we get a little bit
off track, it's a lot easier forme to get things back on track
before it gets like too off, youknow, in the weeds, and I've

(19:36):
found that it actually makes itso much easier for me to be
present during like theinterviews and during the
recording and listening to whatyou have to say and actually
reacting in real time, asopposed to if I don't have that
like life jacket of the outline.
I'm just constantly thinkingabout okay.
So after they said this, whatare we doing next?

(19:57):
What am I going to say?
How are we going to fill up 40minutes?
Now, you know.

Kevin (20:02):
Right, yeah, that's a.
That's an excellent point thatI don't think is made often
enough, which is the outlinedoesn't force you to not be in
the moment and go in the flow ofwherever the conversation's
going, and if somebody raises aninteresting point, you can go
off and go as deep as you want,because you will never have that
moment of oh, where was I goingto go next, or what was I
saying, or what was the nextpoint.

(20:22):
Like, you can take comfort inthe fact that I can have the
organic conversation off to theside, that's, off the outline,
because I'm not going to be lostof like, where do I go next
after this?
Like, the outline is thatsafety jacket?
I love that analogy and oftenpeople use it as an excuse to
not have an outline.
Like, I love the organic, Ilove to just go with the flow
and want it.
But you can't do that real wellIf you keep thinking like oh

(20:45):
well, we're only 10 minutes intothis and I want to do a 45
minute episode, so I have to bethinking about what's the next
question.
Well then you're going to missall those magic organic moments.

Jordan (20:53):
I have recently watched a thing on cave diving.
When you go cave diving youhave to have a line Like it's
just it's one of the things thatyou must have when you're
exploring caves.
And so they have a lineattached to their hip.
They'll like wrap it aroundrocks as they go diving into the
caves, because a lot of theseunderwater cave systems are just
really expansive and windy andtwisty and turny and if you ever

(21:16):
lose that line, you know you'redone.
And it just reminds me of thattoo, where you know just the
outline is almost like youalways have that line.
So when you do get off into theweeds or off into a tunnel
where you're not supposed to be,it's like okay, well, now I
know where to get back on track,I know how to get like back to
the main point here.

Kevin (21:35):
Right.
You would never be able to goas far or explore as deep if you
didn't have a lifeline Causeyou'd always be wondering like
am I going too far where I'm notgoing to be able to find my way
back?
And so you'd never get as faror as deep.

Jordan (21:46):
Yeah.

Kevin (21:47):
Yeah, beautiful analogy, I love that.

Jordan (21:49):
So, yeah, planning ahead is always good.
And then, while you'rerecording, this is one of the
points that I actually strugglewith the most and I've been
trying to learn it in the lastlike six years or however long
I've been podcasting.
I just did it now, but learningto pause instead of using
filler words.

Kevin (22:07):
Oh my gosh.

Jordan (22:08):
Oh, this one is so hard and I had to phrase it as
learning to pause, because it isa learned habit.

Kevin (22:16):
There, you said um.

Jordan (22:17):
I did it again.
I can't get out of it.

Kevin (22:21):
Here's the thing that I've pushed into this a lot over
the past couple of years andyou guys interact enough with me
that you probably feel it Maybenot on the show, but definitely
in person.
If we're having a conversation,Alban feels this all the time.
He might say something and Iwill just stare back or stare up
into the sky and I won't sayanything for a long period of
time.
I think it makes like you haveto get comfortable with making

(22:42):
other people uncomfortable, andsometimes I'll say to Alban I
don't not like your idea, I'mjust processing it, give me a
second.
And when I say a second, itcould be 20 seconds or 30
seconds, and sometimes you haveto give them the pressure relief
valve of saying I'm justthinking, I'm not against the
idea, just let me process alittle bit.
But you have to getcomfortable, not only yourself

(23:02):
taking pauses and not using thefiller words, but you have to
get comfortable not onlyyourself taking pauses and not
using the filler words, but alsothe fact that when you pause
for a beat or two and you're nottalking, you're going to make
the person that you're talkingwith uncomfortable as well, and
so you got to get comfortable.
On both sides.
That can be a little disruptiveto an interview.
So I do think one of the thingsthat you could do as you're
about to enter into aconversation with somebody who
you don't speak to very often islet them know up front hey,
this is something I'm working onin my conversational technique

(23:24):
and stuff, so we might have somelong pauses.
Long pauses are easy for me toedit out, a lot easier than it
is for me to try to edit out awhole bunch of filler words or
rambling talking while I'mtrying to figure out my point at
the same time.
And so I think my opinion andI'd love to hear your guys's as
well but I think, like just letthem know up front, hey, as
well.
But I think, like just let themknow up front, hey, we might
have long stretches in ourrecording session 30 seconds or

(23:46):
a minute where we're justthinking about things or we're
verbally processing a point, andthen we're going to say, okay,
let's go make that point now,now that we've got clarity on
it.
But then in your editingworkflow you're just taking out
this whole two minute chunk.
You're not trying to cut a wordhere and a word there and an um
there and an ah there and thenmake it flow, which is very
difficult to do in editing.
It's a lot easier to go in andsay, oh, this whole two minutes

(24:06):
gone and the rest of theconversation flows beautifully.

Alban (24:09):
Sometimes those pauses can work in your favor too,
because they signal, hey, Idon't have anything I have to
say right now.
And if you're interviewingsomeone, they may think, oh,
there's another point here.
But I didn't want to be rudeand just, you know, talk for
five minutes straight, and sothen they jump in with the
second point.
And.
I mean, maybe this is like whatinterrogators do, where they

(24:29):
just kind of sit in the room andthey don't say anything.
Right, some hard hittinginterviews will end up just
being like there's just apregnant pause and it's just
quiet and then somebody fills itand it's almost always the
person who's being interviewed.
They're like oh, I guess I amsupposed to say something else.
Okay, I did it.
I just can't take it anymore.

Kevin (24:51):
I had to rob the store You're like oh, gotcha Right,
and it's not rambling thatyou're trying to get at.
But you are sometimes givingthem the space to say all the
things they need to say andmaybe somewhere in their
response becomes something likea happy little trail that you
want to follow, like that wasunexpected or something like
that.
And it's just because you gavethem the space to kind of fully

(25:12):
flush out the answer instead ofquestion answer.
Question answer questionanswer.
Yeah.

Alban (25:16):
One of the things, jordan you so you just mentioned
filler words Something we dooften is when we flub a line I
do this a lot where I have twodifferent words in my mind and I
just say like half of each ofthem, and so it's not a real
word, and I go hold on, we stop,all of us are quiet for like a
second.
I go back to the beginning ofthe sentence and I say it all

(25:38):
again, and it's a little awkwardin conversation, but it makes
the editing so much easierbecause now you're not trying to
piece together words that areall kind of mixed together into
the same waveform.

Jordan (25:51):
I've actually, you know, with the guests that we've had
on, happy to Help.
I've communicated to them priorto the recording.
Hey, if you like, flub a line,if you stumble over something or
you say something and thenchange your mind about how you
want to word it, just take abeat and then restart.
And I would say probably eighttimes out of 10, they do that.

(26:13):
They will follow that becausethey have faith in me that I
have told them.
If you mess up, I've given themclear instructions.
Here's exactly what you do andI will tell you it has made
editing so much easier withguests.
Even if they're not familiarwith recording podcasts, they
understand.
Okay, she told me to do this,so I feel secure that if I mess

(26:34):
up, she's going to fix that,because I've given her the space
to fix that line.

Kevin (26:38):
Yeah, some of our past presidential candidates could
have really used your editingexpertise.
I just make the joke as, like,this is not that like you're not
having people on your podcastto have a gotcha moment with
them.
Like, maybe there's a fewpodcasters out there that are
aspiring investigativejournalists that are trying to

(26:58):
get gotcha moments with people,but for the vast majority of us,
that's not what we're doing.
We're trying to have peoplecome on our show who are going
to provide some valuable insightto our audience and we want to
make them look as good aspossible.
And so, if they do flub a lineand they don't feel comfortable
about it and they want torestate, like great, we want you
to feel confident and happywith the recording and we want
to make you look and sound asgood as possible.

(27:20):
And so, yeah, putting people atease ahead of time.
Anytime you're on with a newpodcaster, there's lots of
apologies.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I just I'm trying to get mythoughts together.
And the more you do podcasting,the more you remember.
Oh, yeah, no, I know thatfeeling.
I know that feeling, but we'reall just trying to make each
other look and sound as good aspossible and we want you to feel

(27:45):
good and we want to feel good,and so redoing a line or
flubbing a word or misspeakingJordan gave great advice there
Take a beat.
Yeah.
Relax, we're all on the sameteam here, we're all going the
same direction, and then restateit, and even if you have to do
it two or three times, that'sjust part of the game.
Yeah, we've joked before, likewhen we get to the section, none
of us are really good at likereading the fan mail that comes
in, and so when we do thosesegments where we're reading fan
mail, we flub lines all thetime and sometimes there's typos

(28:07):
in there and all that kind ofstuff.
We do that stuff, we domultiple takes of that.
Yeah, and that's why editing isso important, because no one
would want to listen If we weredoing the show live.
It would a terrible live show.

Alban (28:16):
We're not good at live All right.
So something else we do andwe've gotten much better at this
the longer we podcastedtogether is avoid crosstalk.
Crosstalk is when two peoplewant to talk at once, and you
know it's notoriously hard forpeople who are editing a
transcript to get crosstalkright, and so they'll literally
just put a crosstalk because of,like, no one's hearing
anything, but it's a badrecording.

(28:38):
It's not enjoyable to listen totwo people talk over each
other.
You don't get any informationand it just sounds bad, like you
don't have something clean topublish.
And crosstalk is not just twopeople arguing or two people who
started talking at the sametime.
It can also be affirmations ohyeah, totally agree, good point.
Affirmations oh yeah, totallyagree, good point.

(29:04):
It's very easy to hearsomething you agree with and
jump in with oh good point.
And you want to be kind and saythat and you do that in normal
conversations.
It doesn't make for goodpodcasting, and so I think we
will do more nods and then we'llwait until the person's done
and then we'll jump in with theaffirmation.

Jordan (29:19):
This is another thing at the top of my Jordan must work
on this in her podcastingjourney list, because I'm a very
affirmative listener.
So there's a lot of like Ooh,oh, uh-huh, love it.
Yes, absolutely.
Like I do that the entire timeand thank God for recording on
multiple tracks.
This is where it comes in handy.
I could mute my RODECastertrack of myself just to make it

(29:44):
easier on myself and editing,but then I worry that like I'll
miss an affirmation or like alaugh, something that felt
natural in the moment, like Ijust I have that in the back of
my head, but I will say, thepodcasts that we record where we
are in studio together, or likethe happy to helps where people

(30:04):
are in studio together,podcasts and Q and a things like
that.
What happens is when you are instudio, you start getting that
mic bleed and there's nothingyou can do about it.
I mean, there's just there's.
There's absolutely nothing youcan do about it.
But when you have someone thatis in studio that does that
affirmative listening orcrosstalks, it's so hard to
clean that out, and so it is alearned habit to not do that and

(30:25):
to give space.

Kevin (30:27):
I do think there's a little bit of a art form there,
on both the podcasters side andon the editor side.
So let me, let me dive into ita little bit.
As Alban said, it's not greatwhen you're listening and
somebody is who knows,explaining something, talking
about making a point, andthere's a lot of affirmative
listening going on.
It can be distracting, butthere is a bit of the.

(30:49):
This is where I'm saying theart form of it.
As podcasters, I think we'regetting slightly better at this,
having three people on the showconsistently for weeks and
weeks and weeks, which add up toyears and years and years.
We've gotten a little bitbetter at like hey, if I'm
making a point and I'm going for30 seconds, I don't need a lot
of affirmations in that toremind people that this is more
than a solo podcast going on.
Right now that you're listeningto, there are other people
here.
So if I'm going two or threeminutes, it's fine for you guys

(31:11):
to interject a word or a yeah,uh-huh like here and there.
It's not terribly distractingand it reminds people that this
is, you know, conversation.
There's more people in the roomeven though this person's
talking way longer than theyshould.
Like I am right now and on theediting side, jordan does the
same thing.
So when she's editing thepodcast, I think she might be
cutting out some of those thatfeel disruptive.

Jordan (31:30):
Oh, I cut out a lot.

Kevin (31:31):
And then she's leaving the ones in that are additive
Right.

Jordan (31:34):
There's some people that are really good at marking when
there's a mistake and sothey're not like actually
listening through the wholething, and so they will see a
spike in the waveform and thenthey know that that is like a
cue to cut.
Some people clap in themicrophone or they do like a
snap or they make some sort oflike sound.
When it happens.
One of our Buzzcast listenerswas using a dog clicker and they

(31:58):
had one of those like dogtraining clickers just right on
their desk.
Do you know what?

Alban (32:01):
I'm saying, oh, I remember that the click was like
loud enough that it would showup in the waveform, but they
didn't really hear it that loudin the recording.

Jordan (32:07):
Is that right Like that?

Kevin (32:08):
I don't know, but it probably just creates a very
distinguishable waveform, Likewhen you're looking at it
probably.

Alban (32:14):
Yeah, I mean that's the whole point of all the claps,
the clicks, the snap thing thatwhen you say action when movies,
it's because they all aredistinctive and they show up
really sharply on the waveform.

Kevin (32:23):
Yeah, those are good tips.
We haven't talked about mictechnique, but I would like to.

Jordan (32:28):
Yes.

Kevin (32:28):
Because this one is tough, especially for new
podcasters or people who youhave on your show who don't
podcast very often andtypically.
We have two big problems withmic technique, maybe three.
One you're too far away fromthe mic, so I'm pulling back
from my microphone right now.
Obviously, that sounds verydifferent.
Second is I could be way tootight.
We have people on our team whodo this because we tell them you

(32:52):
have to be tight on yourmicrophone.
These are dynamic mics.
They're not designed to captureyour voice from far away, so be
close.
Well, then they get real closeand then they whisper and you
sound like Delilah right now.
I know I'm giving likerelationship tips at night.
There is a special type of showthat this works for, but it's
not all shows.
It's probably not your show.
It's that.
It's that ASMR stuff.

(33:13):
So it gets too close to the micand then whispering it's.
It's sort of like a nails onchalkboard type thing.

Jordan (33:22):
Sorry to our listeners for doing it to them.

Kevin (33:28):
The other thing that can happen is we want to talk across
the top of our microphone.
We don't want to talk rightinto it, because that's where
you get the plosives.
Even with a good microphone anda good pop filter, you can
still get plosives if you'reblowing air straight into the
microphone.
So talk across the top of it.
Any other tips from you guys?

Jordan (33:41):
No, I think that's about it.
This is.
Another thing that Icommunicate with guests is if I
hear them like I don't knowplosiving all over the
microphone, I don't know how toput it.
If there's just like plosivesall over the place, I will stop
it and I will say, hey, we gottachange the way that we're doing
the microphone here, becausethere's been so many times where
I didn't say anything.

(34:02):
And the way that you clean upplosives is you highlight the
plosive and then you do an EQsetting.
It's called like kill the micrumble and you basically just
have this massive drop off andyou have to do it for every
single plosive.
So if you have an hour longpodcast with somebody, there's a
lot of P's and B's in a podcastand you're just going to end up

(34:23):
doing that for every singleplosive and it takes forever.
So that is definitely somethingthat I also communicate with
guests.

Alban (34:31):
For mic technique, I think, make people wear
headphones, because headphonesare how you self-monitor.
So you notice, when you get toofar away you actually hear it
in your own ears.
Oh, all of a sudden it gotquieter.
And then when you get reallyexcited and you hear it got
really loud.
You went oh, that got a littletoo loud, or you might hear your
own plosives, and so it'suncomfortable to tell somebody

(34:55):
hey, once again you've gottentoo far away from the mic.
Hey, it looks like we need toadjust the way the mic's
pointing.
If you have to say it, you haveto say it.
But what's even better is if,subconsciously, your guest or
your co-host is making thoseadjustments, naturally because
they hear that they made amistake and it draws them back

(35:16):
into kind of that sweet spotwhere they're getting the best
recording.

Jordan (35:19):
And they pause and they say it again, so it doesn't have
any of that stuff right.

Alban (35:25):
That's our best case scenario right there.

Jordan (35:28):
All right, so let's move into when you've finished
recording.
Now we're actually into theediting workflow.
I was kind of doing someresearch on this to see what
people had to say, and there wasa great post from Alex Phantom
Editor on see what people had tosay.
And there was a great post fromAlex phantom editor on the
podcasting subreddit and I lovethese.
These make me so excited.
It says I analyzed 50 plusresponses.

(35:49):
Here's exactly how long podcastediting really takes and some
key takeaways.
And so they basically said thebasic conversational podcasts
are a 1.5 to 1 ratio.
I think that's if you are avery fast editor.
I think casual editors orperhaps like beginner or

(36:10):
hobbyist editors, are probablygoing to be closer to like a
three to one.

Alban (36:13):
Yeah, I mean this is these are all the people who
responded in our podcasting, somostly indie podcasters and
maybe their standards are alittle bit different.
But what is that?
I mean 1.5 or two to one,that's, your show is 30 minutes
long and it takes you 45 minutesor an hour to edit it.

(36:34):
And I think it's good to atleast have these benchmarks,
because people come into itimagining well, the recording
takes an hour, everything elseis going to take about another
hour.
Maybe I spent 10 minutesthinking about the episode.
So we're looking at like twohours and 10 minutes total for
the week and those numbers justend up being quite a bit off.
So here you're saying yeah, youmight.

Jordan (36:54):
You probably need to budget two hours for that edit
of a one hour podcast, hours forthat edit of a one hour podcast
which I look at that and Ibased on my editing I'm very
meticulous with editing, so Isaw that and I was like man,
that's really low.

Alban (37:08):
Well then I scroll down and the kicker is even further
down.
Yeah, it really is based on thetype of show.
So these are basicconversational podcasts, but
complex narrative shows,probably closer to what you're
doing Jordan six to eight toone.
So that means for every onehour of recording.

(37:31):
That's not a one hour show atthe end, that's just one hour of
recording.
You're doing six to eight hoursof editing.
That is massive.
And then when you scroll down,I feel like this is something
we've just said hundreds oftimes.
But now we've got some dataPeople who are doing a video
podcast with B-roll.
You'd think, okay, that soundslike it's going to be basic

(37:51):
conversational podcast range.
No, it's for every one hour ofrecording, four to seven hours
of editing.

Jordan (37:58):
I believe that for sure.

Alban (38:00):
Totally different beast, yeah Right.

Kevin (38:02):
There's so many variables at play when we're talking
about editing.
But here's like what I learnedjust recording sorry, editing a
month ago was I forgot, like howto be streamlined, I forgot how
long some of this stuff takes,and so I was 15, 20 minutes into
editing and looked at the clockand I had just been in the
zone, lost track of time and I,you know, burned two or three

(38:24):
hours and I've gotten throughlike 15 minutes of the episode
and I know we have an hour and ahalf or so of recording
material and we're trying to getdown to anywhere between 45
minutes and a little over anhour and I'm like, oh, I'm
looking at a solid eight hoursof editing here, but I can't.
I can't call it an audible atthis point because we can't have
the first 15 minutes of theepisode edited one way and then

(38:44):
the last half edited anotherway.
Like the first 15 minutes issuper clean and every um and ah
has been taken out and just theright amount of pausing between
speakers and topical changes,and then the whole back half of
the episode is a little bit morerelaxed or sloppy, because I'm
running out of time.
You can't do that, sorry, paidtribute to the golf guy.
But you got to dance with thegirl you brought, like once you

(39:06):
start the edit, that's, you gotto stick with her until the end.

Alban (39:11):
The golf guy.

Kevin (39:13):
Sorry, there's a.
There's this golf video I watchand the best golf advice I ever
got was like, don't try to fixyour swing on the course.
Like you got to go to the rangeor work on your swing
different, but once you're atthe course you show up with that
swing you got to.
You got to dance with the girlyou brought.
That's the same thing in theedit.
Like, once you start that edit,you're in the process, you got
to go with that.
You can't have.
You can't change the edit.
How you're editing eight hours.
That's not sustainable.

(39:33):
Next time I'm going to give youknow I got to go faster.
So I can't be as stringent uponevery um and ah or every
stumbled word I'm trying to fixor whatever it is.
That's taking a bunch of time.
You want to make an adjustment?
Do it in your next episode.

(39:53):
You can't do it halfway throughan episode.
But that's where you have toimprove.
You have to, like, do aself-analysis at the end, just
be like okay, we recorded for anhour.
The final episode was a halfhour and it took me four hours
to edit.
Is that sustainable?
Yes, it is.
Then great, you've got yourediting process down and run
with it for a while.
But if it's not, if you're likeit's just taking too much time,
it's not fun, I'm going to burnout.
I don't have that down to twohours.

(40:17):
Then figure out, like listenback to your episode, what can I
do?
Is it that big of a deal ifthere's a few ums and ahs in
there or a few plosives that Ididn't get out?
It's probably not as big of adeal as maybe you think you are.
But again, it's your creation.
Like you, only you candetermine that and only you know
how much time you have.
But we have to scope thesethings so that they are
sustainable and they areenjoyable and so that you do

(40:38):
keep podcasting.
Ultimately, that's the goal,and most people are doing this
for fun and enjoyment, and so wehave to find that balance, and
that's going to be personal foreveryone.

Jordan (40:46):
There's actually a.
It's so funny.
I love it when this happenswhen, like, the stars just align
and James Cridlin will havesomething that is relevant to
our recording.
The day of recording.
In Pod News there was a blogpost by Matthew McLean that says
15 podcast editing tips from 15years of production, and one of
the tips he had I thought wasactually really cool and it said

(41:09):
remember, you can edit awayfrom the screen.
And what he recommends doing isan editing tip that I haven't
heard before is listen to thepodcast while you're out walking
around, and he uses an appcalled Edit Point to drop notes
and markers into the audio fileso he knows what to do once he's
back at the computer.
So instead of editing with hiseyes and staring at the waveform

(41:31):
all the time which I mean it'sexhausting, you know, if you do
it too much, you actually can gowalk around, get on your
Peloton, you know whatever, andlisten to it and then make the
edit points while you're justlistening.

Kevin (41:43):
Yeah.

Jordan (41:43):
Okay.
So if we're trying to cut downon editing time, some efficiency
hacks that I have heard of andI have used the first one is to
edit at 1.5 or 2x speed for theinitial pass.
So a lot of times what editorswill do is you just do like a
quick, rough pass and just cutout.
You know if the person pausesand they restart a statement,

(42:06):
just things like that, or ifyou're discussing what to talk
about next the triage phaseright.
Yeah, yeah.
So you just like do a roughpass at the two X speed and then
you can do like the fine editat normal speed.
Use templates for intros andoutros EQ.
You can do like the fine editat normal speed.
Use templates for intros andoutros EQ, compression things
like that.
I have templates built into myeffects rack in Adobe Audition

(42:28):
for each and every one of us.
We all have our own speciallittle things that I will do and
it has saved me so much time.
Keyboard shortcuts are a hugetime saver.

Alban (42:39):
You know, one tool that I think I would use after working
with Adobe podcasts last weekwas I was so impressed with how
Adobe podcast made it easy to gothrough and just delete out
whole sections of the podcast,to kind of do that triage, as
Kevin called it.
We recorded something live, soI was there and I saw, you know,
when we actually loaded it intoAdobe podcasts, like half of

(43:02):
the stuff in there was notactual content.
It was directing the people howto do the interview.
Somebody was checking their mictechnique, there was this
random little side tangent, andJay who was running the section
just highlighted those wholesections backspace.
It was all gone.
Wow.
And I went.
You know you could listen tothat at 2x and you your time up,
but the best was when it wastranscribed.

(43:25):
Then he was able to just go anddelete whole sections and they
weren't like the cleanest cuts.
Like he's going to go do somemore refinements later, but you
know this whole paragraph is notever going to make it into the
final and it's out in.
You know, in two minutes it wasall gone.

Jordan (43:43):
Yeah, that would be a huge advantage to someone who
was recording and like outsourcean editor, because a lot of
times what they'll do is they'lllook at the transcript and they
will do notes.
My friend who edits like a lotof podcasts, she says that some
of the clients she has they'llhave a transcription of the
original recording and they willlike put a line through stuff

(44:04):
and, you know, say, cut thisout, whatever.
If they were doing a first passat it and just cutting it out
themselves instead of like handdoing all these notes and then
passing it on to her to dolater, that would actually be
really cool.
And I think that a lot of thetranscript editors were a little
rough like five years ago, butit seems like they've improved
dramatically in the last fewyears where they're getting a

(44:26):
lot more refined, but they'restarting to be like a really
good option.
Kevin, what did you use to editBuzzcast?

Kevin (44:32):
I used Hindenburg Pro.

Jordan (44:34):
That's right.

Kevin (44:35):
I still love it.
They do transcript-basedediting, but I'm not.
I still prefer the waveformthing, but it's time intensive,
so it just depends likedifferent strokes for different
folks.
I like that.
Yeah.
Again, I spent way too much timeon it.
I don't like how much time ittook, but I do find it
enjoyable.
Just like a lot of things thatyou know designers, creative
type people do is oftentimes weget caught up in the details,

(44:58):
like a lot of the things I wasdoing in that edit are things
that only I would notice.
Yeah.
But there's some personalsatisfaction that comes along
with that, that I'm creatingsomething to put out in the
world.
I'm gonna listen back to it,I'm gonna know, oh, how hard and
difficult that edit was andlook how beautiful it sounds.
At the end of the day, most ofyour listeners will not pick up
on that.
So if it gives something to youto spend that amount of time

(45:22):
and put that level of I don'tknow care into your creation, if
that's part of the enjoyment,then go for it, but for a lot of
people it's not.
I'm always surprised at how manypeople we run into who
outsource their editing, and Ifind it surprising because to
me, while it is time intensive,it's also very enjoyable At the
end of the day.
We all don't have that time toindulge in that, and there are

(45:43):
people who are very good at itand enjoy it and are hired
specifically to do that, and onour team that's Jordan.
But yeah, I'm just surprisedthat so many people outsource,
which tells me that this is notfor everyone.
Yeah, right, yeah, and sohopefully there are some good
options and, like you said,transcript editing is becoming
better and better and better, somaybe we're close to the day

(46:04):
where you can have the best ofboth worlds.
You can just edit thetranscript and it still sounds
just as good, or clean, or veryclose to a professional editor
painstakingly merging waveformstogether to make it sound
perfect.

Jordan (46:16):
Yeah, I think you're right.

Alban (46:17):
One final point here came from Chris from Podtastic
Audio.
Editing gets easier when youget better at content creation,
find tools that suit you andmaster them.
Yeah, you can constantly beswitching tools and trying out
every new thing that comes out,or you can just get better at
the ones you're using, and sowhether you're like Jordan and
you're building stuff indifferent EQ settings for

(46:39):
everyone's voice and you'relearning all the quick buttons
to hit so that you can make acut real quick and delete
something, or you're Kevinworking at Hinderberg or you
know whatever you're comfortablewith, that's going to keep
getting faster and faster.
The worst thing to do can be tobe the person who switches
every episode, trying to findthe perfect tool, and the
perfect tools can be the oneyou've used for over a year.

Jordan (47:02):
Yeah, I mean some people might try different things.
So, like I love that Adobe hastwo different versions of their
audio editing tools.
So I mean, if you are you know,as Alban said like me and you
like having all the bells andwhistles, then audition is
great.
But if that's like reallyoverwhelming to you and you
don't have time to spend likethree hours on YouTube figuring

(47:24):
it out, then Adobe podcast isreally easy to use.

Kevin (47:27):
Right, some of these rudimentary tools, they've sort
of normalized.
Like so many people arewatching content on YouTube or
listening to amateur podcastsand stuff, and so, again,
production quality it's this,it's this huge spectrum of like
what is good, and the YouTubeand the creator economy have
done it like gone a long wayspushing forward this idea of

(47:48):
like what is good is.
I don't know it's it's.
It's a little bit fluid, butit's a lot more acceptable
nowadays to have like jump cuts,like if you're listening to
something or watching somethingand you see an edit point or
hear an edit point, it'sactually it's.
That's.
That's not what we're saying.
When we say things like, oh, youneed quality content and your,
your audio shouldn't bedistracting, it should sound
good, it doesn't mean that it'slike flawless and perfect and

(48:11):
you can't find any edit pointsin it.
That's not what we're saying.
We're saying like overall, likeI don't want to listen to an
hour of you having a podcastinterview where it sounds like
you're in a echo chamber.
That's, that's hard to listento.
But if I hear an edit point,that's not going to make me stop
listening to your podcast.
Let's be like, oh, they must'veflubbed a line or something Like
who cares?
Like I've already forgottenabout it by the time you're

(48:31):
ending your next sentence.
Yeah, and so this stuff, thispolishing, we can, we can spend
hours and hours and hours on it,but you don't have to, like I
was saying before, if you getsomething out of it, if you love
it, if this is your art form,if this is your creative
expression, I don't wanna takethat away from you.
Enjoy it.
But don't feel like you have todo that in order to have a
successful podcast, because youabsolutely don't.

Jordan (48:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
If you are draining all of yourtime in editing, it not only
can make things sound like alittle too sterile and maybe
even robotic, If you're cuttingout every single breath and
everything's just like going toofast.
That's something that a lot ofpeople run into is they want it
to sound super polished.
I did this too.
They want it to sound superpolished, and so they take out

(49:13):
every little thing and it's justgoing to be this perfect
robotic whatever track you everlisten to a podcast where you're
like whoever's speaking doesn'tbreathe.

Kevin (49:22):
How do they do that?

Jordan (49:22):
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin (49:23):
They just did a four hour rant with no breath.

Jordan (49:25):
Exactly, and it sounds a little weird, right.
And then I noticed like once Ilet things kind of you know, for
lack of better word breathe andhave space and authenticity to
it, I actually noticed that theaudio was much better.
It wasn't like overproduced it.
I actually noticed that theaudio was much better.
It wasn't like overproduced.
The other thing with that is ifyou are spending all this time

(49:47):
painstakingly cleaning up all ofyour audio, it can also just
completely burn you out Ifyou're burned out on your
podcast.
You can't podcast if you don'thave a podcast, if that makes
sense.

Kevin (49:56):
Right, we got your point.

Jordan (49:58):
If you just like completely get to a point where
you're like I hate this, I wantto quit, that's not doing you
any favors.
We got to, we got to jump ship.

Kevin (50:05):
Yeah, For a lot of people there's there's lots of
different aspects of podcasting,but the two biggest being,
like, the recording session andthe editing session.
There's also, like we talk alot about like marketing gets
forgotten and planning getsforgotten.
Okay, but like, when you thinkabout like podcasting we're
talking about like recording andediting are the two big things
that come to mind and if one ofthose two of those things are
like more exciting for you thanthe other, then lean into that

(50:26):
side.
So the recording side is superfun for you.
Lean into that.
Do the most work you can tomake that as enjoyable as
possible and get the cleanestaudio and minimize your editing
and then so when you go toediting, hopefully it's less.
If the editing side is super funfor you, then just have fun in
your recording and make as manymistakes as you want, because I
love editing and so I'll spendhours in there cleaning, but
don't get burned out Like that'sthat's the biggest thing that

(50:48):
we're trying to avoid.
So, like, as we're giving youediting tips these are mostly
for people who don't loveediting how can we make it
faster and smoother and and andminimize the effort but maximize
the joy, because there is stilljoy to be had, even if it's not
your most favorite part ofpodcasting, Right.

Alban (51:02):
One of my favorite blogs I ever read is called Speed
Matters why working quickly ismore important than it seems.
And the thesis is if you workquickly, then the cost of doing
that thing is lowered in yourmind, so you can do it more.
And if you want to do somethinga lot, you're going to have to
do it quickly because you can'timagine oh, I'd love to do

(51:23):
another episode, but then thatwill take eight hours.
I don't have eight hours, soyou put it off.
The best thing to do is tofigure out a way to do it
quickly so that every time youhave the thought maybe I should
make a, do a podcast, you canjust record right, then edit and
get it out, and there really issome value in trying to speed

(51:45):
it up and slowly layer on.
You know, oh, I'm gonna takeout every um now.
Oh, now I'm going to add eqsettings.
Now I'll add something new sothat you can keep your speed up,
so that you'd never get kind ofbogged down into oh gosh,
that's another eight hourproject.
I'll put it off for a coupleweeks, right yeah, all right.

Jordan (51:59):
So the things that we have found increase editing
time.
The things that are going tomake your editing life a lot
harder is poor recordingenvironments.
We talked about making surethat you have soft spaces.
You're recording in a placethat is nice and quiet.
It's going to make things somuch easier for you.
So if you have a loud spaceunless you have magic mastering
power clean then it's going tomake things a lot harder for

(52:20):
you.
Not checking audio up front.
So this is the thing that Stephsaid before Sometimes you don't
realize that your microphone isnot the like input for your
recording, and so you won'trealize it until you've recorded
a track and just a littletesting testing one, two, one,
two with you and your co-hostand then you listen back and it
doesn't sound right, and so it'sa really easy way to catch it,

(52:41):
rather than recording the entireepisode and catching it later
after you've put all that effortinto an hour Trying to cut
every um or breath Again.
Magic Mastering Filler Killeris going to be amazing for that
and it just makes things sound alittle bit more human.
There's times when people justuse filler words and it's okay,
and then also lack of planning.

(53:02):
This is a really big one.
If you just show up and youdon't know what you're going to
talk about and you're just kindof like wandering along, it's
going to be a lot harder to editthings down to like a tight 45.

Alban (53:11):
Yeah, so those are the five deadly sins of podcasting.
That will add to your editingtime, so avoid those.
Yeah, so avoid those.

Jordan (53:22):
Yeah, all right.
So we got some questions in fanmail and I thought we would
touch on these.
The first one is from Oscarfrom the Potter discussion.
Hey, Buzzcast, I have a fewquestions for you.
So, first off, oscar says thenew Harry Potter TV show is in
production and is the main topicof my podcast.
How can I capitalize on theincrease in popularity as the

(53:44):
release date draws closer?
Alban, do you have any ideasfor this one?

Alban (53:49):
We did an episode on leveraging current events as a
content strategy, and so let'stry to get those titles and the
topics to coincide with whatpeople are searching for now.
Oh yeah, and they may not justbe searching for you know what's
in the new Harry Potter TVshow?
I mean, that could actually beone of your titles.
But just make sure that you'rekind of hitting those current

(54:11):
events, because a lot of timeswhen people are excited about
something new coming out,they're looking for this kind of
content.
This is your opportunity to getin front of them.
So titles, discussion points,maybe see if you can get guests.
When new shows, new books, newpodcasts, new anything are
coming out, everybody isinterested in doing promotion
and your podcast could be theirpromotion.

(54:33):
So now is the chance for you totry to get a couple of cool
guests.
So I'd say, reach out and tryto get rejected by some of the
top people on the show.
I bet you'll get some of them.

Jordan (54:43):
You might yeah.

Alban (54:44):
And that could be a really big win.

Jordan (54:46):
All right.
So as a follow-up question hesaid, I find that when I search
for HP Podcasts and ApplePodcasts, the usual big shows
turn up and then a bunch ofshows that have only one or two
episodes that were published afew years ago.
Why are they at the top of thesearch engines when I have
hundreds more episodesconsistently getting published?

Alban (55:04):
Well, Apple Podcasts for search depends on lots of
things, but one of the things weknow for episode level search
matters is that the title ofthat podcast episode matches the
search term.
So I would want to go look atyour podcast and see what are
those titles look like.
Let's try to match those titlesof episodes verbatim to things

(55:26):
people might be searching inApple podcasts.
So that would be one of theareas I would be looking at for
sure.
There's a new company outcalled Pod SEO that we talked to
at Podcast Movement and it wasa couple of the guys who were at
I think they were at Spreakerand they went to start this new
company and so we were talkingwith them about, you know,

(55:47):
trying to get all the data theyhad for what makes effective
podcast SEO and writing a blog.
So maybe we bump that up to thetop of the list and try to get
some of those answers for you.

Jordan (55:57):
Yeah.

Kevin (55:58):
Can I weigh in with an opinion?

Jordan (55:59):
Always yes, we love your opinions with an opinion
Always.

Kevin (56:05):
Yes, we love your opinions.
Here's my opinion.
Is that, unfortunately, I justdon't think SEO and podcasting
is worth the what's the saying,you know?
Worth the lift, or worth thework, or investment.
Yeah, the simplest way to sayit.
You just can't squeeze thatmuch.
There's not much juice in theorange.
Let me put it that way Notworth the squeeze.
It's not worth the squeeze.
That's what I was looking for.
I'd get close enough.
Yeah.
All right.

(56:25):
First of all, apple podcastsearch is absolute garbage.
You're right, it really justsurfaces the top shows and then
I think they like give up afterthey go through the top hundred
shows and they just startspitting out garbage after that,
and so it's unfortunate.
But I do think that, like, howthey define, the top shows are
like the top 100 or the top 500podcasts in all of Apple
podcasts.
They seem to always surfacethose and then everything else

(56:46):
just doesn't get any sort ofranking.
All the rest of it just goestogether in random order.
I'm sure that's not really howit works, but that's how it
presents to me as a user tryingto use this thing to find
podcasts.
And so when I'm reallysearching for podcast specific
content on specific topics, I'vegot to go use completely other
tools like Listen, notes orChatGPT or Google, but they're

(57:08):
not podcast apps like specificsearch engines.
So I think if you do any sortof SEO for your podcast, you're
really probably the only placeyou're going to see benefit is
from those like third partytools that people rarely use, so
you're not going to seedramatic rise in your numbers.
So when anybody's trying tosell you like podcast SEO
services, maybe if you have veryniche content, you might see

(57:29):
some little bumps in yournumbers, but it's not going to
be a really effective marketingstrategy overall.
So anybody who's pitching SEOas a way to really grow your
podcast, I think it's snake oilfor the most part today in the
current ecosystem.

Alban (57:41):
I see some skepticism on Jordan's face and, yeah, I
totally agree.
There have been so many times.
People are like, oh, here'swhat works in podcast SEO.
And then they know that I havean SEO background for actual
blog content and they're likewhat do you think what is the
right answer?
And I'm like I don't think it'sthat big of a channel.
I mean it's you're trying tooptimize a podcast app search

(58:03):
that is much more basic thanGoogle.
I mean it's like trying tooptimize for AltaVista or
something where we're going backin the day to old type search
engines.
They're very basic.
I'm sure there's some data,which is why, when I talked to
the pod SEO guys and it seemedlike they knew there was some
things they could actually do,and Jordan's been doing a

(58:24):
project on this that she'll haveto report on soon.
Yeah, but I want to hear youknow if you have some real data.
I want to see it and I want toshout it out from the rooftops,
but from what I've seen yearsand years, it seems like there's
a lot more snake oil thanthere's juice worth the squeeze,
as Kevin puts it.

Kevin (58:44):
Right, and don't mishear me, Like I'm not saying don't
title your episodes as good asyou can.
I would prefer that you have avery descriptive title for your
podcast episodes instead ofsomething funny or clever.
But for me, not to the extremeof that removes some of the joy
of podcasting for you.
If you really like coming upwith funny, clever, inside joke
titles for your episodes and youthink it's a great goof and you

(59:05):
can't wait for your audience tosee your funny title, then do
that Because, honestly, theextra two or three downloads
you're going to get from the SEOtitle is not worth it At the
end of the day.
What's worth it is like are youhaving fun?
Are you connecting with youraudience?
Maybe you're going to actuallyget more of a bump because the
title is so funny and it's aninside joke and the 10 people
that listen to your podcast arelaughing so hysterically they
can't help share it, but with 10other people.

(59:26):
So maybe that is an effectivemarketing strategy.
I just don't really believe inthe big SEO opportunity exists
that some people are pushing inthe podcasting space at the
moment.

Alban (59:36):
One caveat Google still works and chat GPT uses Google
and everything is still usingGoogle search under the hood.
So you still want to rank inGoogle?
How do you rank in Google?
You've got to transcribe thesepodcasts.
You absolutely have to, and I'mnot saying it's going to be the
biggest marketing channel, butyou can do it for free.
Now Just go ahead andtranscribe your episodes, get

(59:59):
those transcripts on yourBuzzsprout website and then
Google might see it and saythat's the right answer.
It's why now, when I search forpodcasts with ChatGPT, I'm
shocked at how good therecommendations are, because
it's Google search under thehood, it runs a lot of searches
and it mostly can find mesomething that I'm really
interested in listening to.

Kevin (01:00:20):
Right, it'll be an interesting topic to really dig
into when we get there.
It's just like, mostly whenpeople are searching for stuff,
whether it be in Google or onchat or on maybe even in a
podcasting app, I don't know.
But mostly I'm looking for likean immediate, quick fix to it.
Like I've got a question, Ineed to find a website, I need
to buy a thing, I need to, youknow, figure out how to fix this
thing.
I'm just looking for quickhits.

(01:00:41):
I'm not usually going there tofigure out like, oh, for the
next month of my life I'd reallylike to dive deep into
listening to podcasts that talkabout topic X, y, z.
It's just not.
It's not really how podcastgrowth happens.
It's like you find a few showsthat you like you.
Somebody mentions another show,you subscribe maybe you listen
to that show and they launchanother show or they promote
another show or or they have aguest on, like that you know

(01:01:03):
it's just more organic and it'smore it's like how do you find
book recommendations?
Every once in a while you'll gostop into a Barnes and Noble
and walk around, or you'll go toAmazon and you'll see, like,
the new bestsellers and you'llsort of browse, but it's just
rare, it's just not a hugechannel.
So I'm not saying don't do itat all.
I'm just saying like sayingdon't do it at all.
I'm just saying like, if you'regoing to invest a little bit in

(01:01:24):
podcast marketing, I wouldn'tstart there because there's no
big.
I don't think there's any hugewins there.

Alban (01:01:27):
All right, so this sounds like a great topic for a future
episode.

Jordan (01:01:30):
I've got some opinions, jordan, literally has written on
the notepad podcast SEOpotential next episode, and I
started furiously writing otherideas for the next episode, just
in case.

Alban (01:01:44):
Another piece of fan mail that came in from David from no
Stroke Podcast.
I loved the episode with DaveJackson, especially all the tips
for content creation and thesimple analogies A really
wonderful episode.
Yeah, we agree, we really lovedhaving Dave.

(01:02:07):
One of the things that Davidpointed out was he talked about
how Dave Jackson said if there's20 people listening to your
podcast, it's like a fullclassroom.
And David at no stroke took itanother level and said but if
you get four to 500 downloads,that's like the biggest lecture
hall you are ever in in college,completely full.
Even if you're getting five to10 downloads, that's like having
a small breakout session fromthat big lecture hall.

(01:02:28):
He said that mindset shift wasreally powerful for him because
it helped him imagine the levelof different people, different
size groups.
They seem really small whenthey're just a number and it's
really exciting when you thinkabout oh, that's actually a
lecture hall that many peoplewanted me to come speak to them
every week.
Would I do it?

(01:02:49):
And I think the answer is aneasy yes.
And yet it's very easy to turnoff the podcast when we feel
like, oh, you know, the numbersaren't up in the thousands yet.
Remember, these are real peopleand if they're engaging for 45
minutes listening to an episode,that's a really big impact.

Jordan (01:03:06):
You know, what's funny is that piece of advice that
Dave Jackson had actually mademe exponentially less nervous
for my talk at Podcast Movement,because I realized I'm not
nervous for recording Buzzcast,I'm not nervous for recording
Dreamful and that's likethousands of downloads when we
publish right, and I realizedthere's gonna be like 20 people

(01:03:28):
in the audience of PodcastMovement.
So it made me go.
It's fine, jordan, you're cool.
It's fine.

Alban (01:03:35):
It's funny when somebody comes up in person and says I
love that last episode.
I get self-conscious because Igo, oh, a real person listened
to that.
And I get self-consciousbecause I go, oh, a real person
listened to that, and it's thisreal person.
Those aren't real numbers, butsomething about when it's a
thousand, you know, the thousandnumber shows up.
I go okay, so about a normalepisode, fine, and I don't think
anything else about it, untilSarah walks up with a you know

(01:03:57):
nice gift bag and I go youlisten to every episode.
It's a totally different feel.

Jordan (01:04:02):
It totally is All right.
So for our next big episode weare going to talk about creating
podcast super fans.
So if you have any questions ortips for that, be sure to tap
the Texas show link in the shownotes and set it in.
And, as always, thanks forlistening and keep podcasting.

Alban (01:04:30):
Do we have any super fans?
Yeah, if people come to podcastmovement or podfest to bring us
a gift basket.
Yeah, yeah, I think that that'ssuper fan man.
I mean, we may have two, it maybe D and Sarah, but I think we
might even have like 10.

Jordan (01:04:41):
Yeah, I would agree.
I've had people mail me booksfor the for dreamful yeah, Like,
and it's so exciting when I getthat kind of stuff like I'll
get like goodies and stuff onlike Christmas or whatever,
yeah.

Kevin (01:04:55):
I've, I've found somebody hanging outside my window one
day and I'm like, can I helpyou?
And they're like just aBuzzcast fan.

Alban (01:05:01):
And I saw that I saw the tag and I knew it's live.

Jordan (01:05:09):
Maybe we should have a like, a little asterisk.

Kevin (01:05:13):
Boundaries Boundaries chapter.

Jordan (01:05:16):
Yes, we should.
On the super fans, build superfans, but have boundaries
Healthy boundaries.

Kevin (01:05:23):
Matthew from Girl Dad Nation, super fan, he brought us
donuts, if you brought usanything at any time, then
you're on the super fan list forsure.
Yeah.
Yeah, I remember those donuts,Krispy Kremes or something like
that.

Jordan (01:05:34):
Oh yeah.
Yeah, right in the middle of myfitness journey.

Alban (01:05:37):
Thanks a lot.

Kevin (01:05:38):
Matthew.

Alban (01:05:40):
Matthew's just trying to make sure, while you still get
healthy, you're also enjoyingevery day.
Yeah, that's right.

Jordan (01:05:45):
Because he's like the best.

Kevin (01:05:47):
You don't want to be skinny and miserable.

Jordan (01:05:50):
No, no one wants that.

Alban (01:05:52):
It really is.
Every time we get a piece offan mail even if it's fan mail
that we don't read on the show,it always is to me a hit of like
wow, we do have some reallyincredible fans, so I really
appreciate it.
You know they pop up in theapp.
I see them come up on my phone.
It's one of the few apps that Ilet have notifications on all
the time and I see them everytime they come in and every one

(01:06:14):
of them makes me smile.
I'm like man.
That's so cool that the podcastwe put out the world actually
gets responses.

Jordan (01:06:20):
You know, I would even consider the people that come up
to us and they like, wheneversomeone like mentions something
that I had briefly talked aboutin like one episode, like 100
episodes ago, you know, I'malways like so taken aback and I
would consider those peoplesuper fans, because I can't
remember what my friend told methat they did like last month I

(01:06:41):
wouldn't be able to tell you.
If they had like called me andtold me about their day, I
wouldn't know about it, but,like the podcasts that I'm a
huge fan of, I'll remember.

Alban (01:06:50):
Yeah, Adam and Michael came up and I talked to me at a
conference the cycling men ofleisure podcast, I think it was
at pod fest and one of them keptmaking references to things I
talked about and I was like Idid not remember I talked about
that.
Wow, I did not know you do thatabout me.
And I was like, wow, you know alot about me and we have all

(01:07:10):
these different connectionpoints and things we're into.
But it was only because they'dbeen listening to the show for
so long.

Jordan (01:07:16):
Yeah, yeah, all right.
Well, now I'm pumped for thatsuper fans episode.

Kevin (01:07:26):
It's going to be fun.
Yeah, I think it'll be great.
One of the luxuries that wehave in our industry is there's
conferences on a regularschedule, and so a lot of people
listen to the show, show up tothe conferences, so we get to
meet a lot of the people wholisten to the show in person,
and it's one of the most joyfulexperiences as a podcaster, and
so let's take some time and tryto figure out how we can help
other people who run otherpodcasts connect with their
audience, maybe.