March 4, 2025 • 9 mins
Editing podcasts can be intimidating—but it doesn’t have to be! In this episode of Podcasting Tips Weekly, Ryan Tillotson shares how you can edit audio and video using Descript, a powerful tool that lets you edit like a word document—no Adobe Premiere or GarageBand required.Why Descript?
- No learning curve—edit like a word processor
- Faster turnaround—cut content quickly with text-based editing
- Collaborative—easily share and revise with your team
- Download Descript (skip the trial and go for the $14 plan)
- Import your audio or video files
- Edit your transcript—cut words, move sections, and refine your content
- Export your polished podcast, no advanced software needed
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Podcasting Tips Weekly from straw Hut Media,
where we teach you how to break down one podcasting
tip or trend to help you grow your show. I'm
Ryan Tillison, and today we are diving into how to
edit your podcast, video or audio without ever touching traditional
editing software like Adobe Premiere, iMovie, Garage, Band Pro Tools, Curious.
(00:33):
Let's dive in. Okay, so traditional editing is intimidating. I mean,
people take classes on how to use it. I personally
have been using it since I was in middle school.
I am now approaching forty years old, so I've been
using it for quite some time. But if you haven't
done that, and you're not familiar with a nonlinear editing system,
(00:56):
it gets to be a lot and I really understand that.
In addition, I would say that most podcasters are really
focusing on cutting out some filler words or mistakes, possibly
rearranging segments, and maybe cleaning up a little bit of audio.
But for the most part, it's not a lot of
audio engineering or editing. It's pretty simple because you're focusing
(01:21):
on the content in hopes that little editing needs to
be done. Well, I am here to tell you about
a tool that will be very helpful for those who
are familiar in working with a Google Doc or like
just a word doc, and not super familiar with a
nonlinear editing system. And that tool is called Descript. Just
(01:43):
to put this out there, this is not a paid
sponsorship with Descript. They have no idea that I am
recording this, but this is a tool that I recommend
to a lot of our clients that want to cut
their content but have no idea how to use editing software.
Plan with this episode is to kind of walk you
through how to get your audio and or video onto Descript,
(02:07):
so it is a simple process for you to edit it.
Step one, well, it is downloading the program Descript. You
can work within the browser, but it's honestly so much
better to download the app. And I would also suggest
going past their trial, which I can't remember how much
you get for free in their trial, but just pay
(02:29):
for a subscription. It's fourteen dollars for a month. I
think try it out. It is worth it if you
want to edit your content but you don't want to
jump into a program like Adobe Premiere or Adobe Audition.
Just pay the fourteen dollars for this month, test it out. Okay,
once you get descript opened, you are going to need
to import your media. I would say the two most
(02:53):
common ways people are recording their podcasts are with tools
like Riverside, which is a great tool for recording with
you and another guest. Virtually. The virtual podcast is probably
one of the most popular forms of podcasting because anyone
can do it from any location and you can record
good quality audio. So let's just assume that for our
(03:15):
example today, it is a video that was recorded in Riverside. Again,
Riverside is also not sponsoring this episode, but for those
of you that don't know, Riverside will record your isolated
audio and video and your guests isolated audio and video,
and you can download them separately and then use a
program to connect them. So, say this interview is recorded
(03:38):
in Riverside, you would download the video file, which would
have the local audio baked into it. I would recommend
downloading the aligned video. This assures you that your audio
and video and your guests audio and video will be aligned.
This is pretty important. If there are a lot of
(04:01):
questions about this process about what I'm explaining to you,
please feel free to email me at tips at Strawhatmedia
dot com and I can explain further or potentially expand
on in a future episode. But anyway, download the aligned
video of your guest and of say you're the host
of you, and now that lives in your downloads folder.
(04:21):
Right great. From there, you are going to drag those
two files into descript. Okay, you're gonna get descript opened.
Then you're gonna create a new project. Obviously for my case,
here it's a video project. Select that. It's gonna open
up the window for you. We're gonna name this test
(04:43):
video edit. Then to the right hand side, you're gonna
see a project bin. Click on that and you'll see
it says drag and drop or click to ad files. Well,
I know exactly where my two videos are. I'm gonna
drag them right into there. Okay, my two video files
are currently in the project. Now what I'm going to
(05:05):
do is I'm going to highlight both of them. I'm
going to write click it, and I'm going to create
new composition from two files. So right now dscript is
transcribing each file one of the host and one of
the guests, and it is creating a composition which is
going to look just like a Google doc of the
(05:28):
entire interview, and it's going to separate the guest from
the host, and you can name these these two people
in the video I'm working with. It's Alita and Susan,
so I will name Susan Alita, and there we go.
It is all listed out there as one big transcript.
From this moment, I can now edit this text. And
(05:53):
it's not always perfect, especially if people are slurring words
or something like that, but you can always listen and
here exactly what they say and correct it in the text.
But from this I can go through it and easily
edit my entire audio and video the content. I can
(06:13):
edit the content of my entire audio and video, which
is insane. You know, I'm editing video and audio from text.
When I explain this to clients and they get to
play around with descript they are very excited. So a
lot of times I will set up this project just
(06:34):
like what I explain to you, for them and give
it to them so that they can go through and
make the content edits, because they're precious about their content,
as they should be, and they'll make the edits and
then they'll send it back to me, say it's ready
in descript, and then from there I will export it
out as a premiere project file, and I'll have an
editor on our team add graphics, ad music at all
(06:55):
this stuff. But what I'm saying is that you can
edit the content, and if you you want, you can
also add in the music and graphics within Descript. It's
very simple, so I would suggest playing around with it. It's
not hard. Do have five minute recording. Test it out
and see it's not hard. You don't need to be
(07:17):
intimidated by a nonlinear editing system. Play with Descript. It's
very user friendly. They're making updates to it almost every
day so that it can be perfect for everyone's needs.
There's even an option in there to just delete filler
words and it will go through it and find your
UMS or US and it will just delete them all.
(07:39):
I honestly don't recommend using that, because sometimes that's what
makes a interview or a conversation feel natural. But you
can do it. If it's just you talking to the audience,
like I'm doing right now to you, I would probably
want to delete those because I don't want to be
saying UMS and US a lot while I'm talking just
to you and if you want to record something at
the end you forgot to put in the beginning, you
(08:01):
can do that and just cut it, move it up
to where you want it, paste it, and boom you've
made it. Edit to your audio and your video. It's
just a wild tool. Okay, just to reiterate, why is
this method perfect for non editors? Well, whine, there's no
learning curve, so if you're comfortable using a word processor,
you can master this way of editing. Two faster turnaround.
(08:23):
You're looking at a transcript basically, and you're editing text
instead of waveforms. So technically, if you want to edit
content quickly, this is a great tool to do that.
And Three it's collaborative. Like I said, I would share
the descript project with people, and it's just like sharing
a Google doc. You can collaborate with team members for
feedback and revisions. It's a very helpful tool. Editing doesn't
(08:48):
have to be complicated. With new tools that let you
edit audio and video through text, you can get polished
content without touching Adobe Premiere or Garage Band or Avid
or any of those nonlinear editing systems. Okay, that is
it for this episode of Podcasting Tips. Weekly. If you
found this helpful, make sure to subscribe on wherever you're listening.
(09:12):
If you're on Spotify right now, boom hit subscribe. If
you're on Apple Podcasts, boom hit subscribe. If you're on Pocketcasts,
boom hit subscribe, and please share it with someone looking
to simplify their podcasting workflow. I know that this is
something that I explain and provide to our clients all
the time. I hope you have a great rest of
your week. I'm Ryan Tillotson from straw Hut Media and
(09:35):
until next time, happy podcasting.
Hello, and welcome to Podcasting Tips Weekly from straw Hut Media,
where we teach you how to break down one podcasting
tip or trend to help you grow your show. I'm
Ryan Tillison, and today we are diving into how to
edit your podcast, video or audio without ever touching traditional
editing software like Adobe Premiere, iMovie, Garage, Band Pro Tools, Curious.
(00:33):
Let's dive in. Okay, so traditional editing is intimidating. I mean,
people take classes on how to use it. I personally
have been using it since I was in middle school.
I am now approaching forty years old, so I've been
using it for quite some time. But if you haven't
done that, and you're not familiar with a nonlinear editing system,
(00:56):
it gets to be a lot and I really understand that.
In addition, I would say that most podcasters are really
focusing on cutting out some filler words or mistakes, possibly
rearranging segments, and maybe cleaning up a little bit of audio.
But for the most part, it's not a lot of
audio engineering or editing. It's pretty simple because you're focusing
(01:21):
on the content in hopes that little editing needs to
be done. Well, I am here to tell you about
a tool that will be very helpful for those who
are familiar in working with a Google Doc or like
just a word doc, and not super familiar with a
nonlinear editing system. And that tool is called Descript. Just
(01:43):
to put this out there, this is not a paid
sponsorship with Descript. They have no idea that I am
recording this, but this is a tool that I recommend
to a lot of our clients that want to cut
their content but have no idea how to use editing software.
Plan with this episode is to kind of walk you
through how to get your audio and or video onto Descript,
(02:07):
so it is a simple process for you to edit it.
Step one, well, it is downloading the program Descript. You
can work within the browser, but it's honestly so much
better to download the app. And I would also suggest
going past their trial, which I can't remember how much
you get for free in their trial, but just pay
(02:29):
for a subscription. It's fourteen dollars for a month. I
think try it out. It is worth it if you
want to edit your content but you don't want to
jump into a program like Adobe Premiere or Adobe Audition.
Just pay the fourteen dollars for this month, test it out. Okay,
once you get descript opened, you are going to need
to import your media. I would say the two most
(02:53):
common ways people are recording their podcasts are with tools
like Riverside, which is a great tool for recording with
you and another guest. Virtually. The virtual podcast is probably
one of the most popular forms of podcasting because anyone
can do it from any location and you can record
good quality audio. So let's just assume that for our
(03:15):
example today, it is a video that was recorded in Riverside. Again,
Riverside is also not sponsoring this episode, but for those
of you that don't know, Riverside will record your isolated
audio and video and your guests isolated audio and video,
and you can download them separately and then use a
program to connect them. So, say this interview is recorded
(03:38):
in Riverside, you would download the video file, which would
have the local audio baked into it. I would recommend
downloading the aligned video. This assures you that your audio
and video and your guests audio and video will be aligned.
This is pretty important. If there are a lot of
(04:01):
questions about this process about what I'm explaining to you,
please feel free to email me at tips at Strawhatmedia
dot com and I can explain further or potentially expand
on in a future episode. But anyway, download the aligned
video of your guest and of say you're the host
of you, and now that lives in your downloads folder.
(04:21):
Right great. From there, you are going to drag those
two files into descript. Okay, you're gonna get descript opened.
Then you're gonna create a new project. Obviously for my case,
here it's a video project. Select that. It's gonna open
up the window for you. We're gonna name this test
(04:43):
video edit. Then to the right hand side, you're gonna
see a project bin. Click on that and you'll see
it says drag and drop or click to ad files. Well,
I know exactly where my two videos are. I'm gonna
drag them right into there. Okay, my two video files
are currently in the project. Now what I'm going to
(05:05):
do is I'm going to highlight both of them. I'm
going to write click it, and I'm going to create
new composition from two files. So right now dscript is
transcribing each file one of the host and one of
the guests, and it is creating a composition which is
going to look just like a Google doc of the
(05:28):
entire interview, and it's going to separate the guest from
the host, and you can name these these two people
in the video I'm working with. It's Alita and Susan,
so I will name Susan Alita, and there we go.
It is all listed out there as one big transcript.
From this moment, I can now edit this text. And
(05:53):
it's not always perfect, especially if people are slurring words
or something like that, but you can always listen and
here exactly what they say and correct it in the text.
But from this I can go through it and easily
edit my entire audio and video the content. I can
(06:13):
edit the content of my entire audio and video, which
is insane. You know, I'm editing video and audio from text.
When I explain this to clients and they get to
play around with descript they are very excited. So a
lot of times I will set up this project just
(06:34):
like what I explain to you, for them and give
it to them so that they can go through and
make the content edits, because they're precious about their content,
as they should be, and they'll make the edits and
then they'll send it back to me, say it's ready
in descript, and then from there I will export it
out as a premiere project file, and I'll have an
editor on our team add graphics, ad music at all
(06:55):
this stuff. But what I'm saying is that you can
edit the content, and if you you want, you can
also add in the music and graphics within Descript. It's
very simple, so I would suggest playing around with it. It's
not hard. Do have five minute recording. Test it out
and see it's not hard. You don't need to be
(07:17):
intimidated by a nonlinear editing system. Play with Descript. It's
very user friendly. They're making updates to it almost every
day so that it can be perfect for everyone's needs.
There's even an option in there to just delete filler
words and it will go through it and find your
UMS or US and it will just delete them all.
(07:39):
I honestly don't recommend using that, because sometimes that's what
makes a interview or a conversation feel natural. But you
can do it. If it's just you talking to the audience,
like I'm doing right now to you, I would probably
want to delete those because I don't want to be
saying UMS and US a lot while I'm talking just
to you and if you want to record something at
the end you forgot to put in the beginning, you
(08:01):
can do that and just cut it, move it up
to where you want it, paste it, and boom you've
made it. Edit to your audio and your video. It's
just a wild tool. Okay, just to reiterate, why is
this method perfect for non editors? Well, whine, there's no
learning curve, so if you're comfortable using a word processor,
you can master this way of editing. Two faster turnaround.
(08:23):
You're looking at a transcript basically, and you're editing text
instead of waveforms. So technically, if you want to edit
content quickly, this is a great tool to do that.
And Three it's collaborative. Like I said, I would share
the descript project with people, and it's just like sharing
a Google doc. You can collaborate with team members for
feedback and revisions. It's a very helpful tool. Editing doesn't
(08:48):
have to be complicated. With new tools that let you
edit audio and video through text, you can get polished
content without touching Adobe Premiere or Garage Band or Avid
or any of those nonlinear editing systems. Okay, that is
it for this episode of Podcasting Tips. Weekly. If you
found this helpful, make sure to subscribe on wherever you're listening.
(09:12):
If you're on Spotify right now, boom hit subscribe. If
you're on Apple Podcasts, boom hit subscribe. If you're on Pocketcasts,
boom hit subscribe, and please share it with someone looking
to simplify their podcasting workflow. I know that this is
something that I explain and provide to our clients all
the time. I hope you have a great rest of
your week. I'm Ryan Tillotson from straw Hut Media and
(09:35):
until next time, happy podcasting.
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