How to Record Your Podcast for Faster Editing

Hey, Podcasters! Quick question…You love hosting your podcast, right? You love sharing your message with the world and you love connecting with your listenership. But I’m going to take a guess and say, unless audio editing is your passion, you don’t love the editing process quite as much. And that’s because it can be so time-consuming! So today, we’re looking at some time-saving strategies. Specifically, we’re going to show you how you can record your podcast for faster editing.

With so much time and effort going into creating engaging content, it’s understandable if you’re overwhelmed when faced with long hours of post-production. Not to worry—there are effective ways to get yourself closer to the finished product in less time! In this blog post, we’ll provide tips and advice on how to record your podcast for faster editing, so that you can maximize your time and find greater enjoyment in the podcasting process.

By leveraging a few key strategies, it is possible to drastically reduce your podcast production workflow without compromising quality. In fact, we’ll go so far as to say that these time-saving strategies will actually improve the overall quality of your show! So sit back and let us help power up your journey towards more efficient editing through tweaks to your recording process!

Top Tips for Faster Editing

1. Use the Right Podcasting Equipment

A discussion on the right podcasting equipment prefaces almost every conversation we have about the podcasting process. And that’s because the right tool for the job always produces the best outcome. And podcasting is no different. Especially when we’re talking about ways you can optimize your recording process to ensure faster podcast editing.

The type of equipment you use for your podcast recording will make a huge difference in the amount of post-production work required. Investing in quality audio gear ensures that you capture clean, pristine sound every time you record. That way, you won’t have to spend as much time during editing cleaning up background noise and other imperfections.

So just what is this “right equipment”? Well, it starts with a quality microphone and a pair of quality headphones. You might also consider a pop filter, which helps capture cleaner audio by eliminating the sound of plosives. You could also think about a microphone shield. A microphone shield helps minimize, or even prevent, unwanted background noise from creeping into your recording.

Obviously, if you’re able to eliminate background noise, and you’re able to capture much cleaner raw audio, you reduce the editing time it would take to remove these manually.

2. Pick the Right Recording Location

Selecting the ideal recording location is a crucial step toward faster podcast editing. The right recording environment will not only make your audio quality that much richer, but because of this, it will save you time and effort when it comes to editing.

To achieve this, set up your recording equipment in a space with minimal background noise and good acoustics. Avoid recording in spaces with too many reflective surfaces as these can cause echoes. And this, in turn, will result in muddy audio that’s time-consuming to edit. If you’re recording from home, pick a recording location that has curtains, carpets, and a fair amount of furnishings. All of these are really going to help decrease echo and thus the end product will be a full, rich raw recording.

And a full, rich, echo-free raw recording translates into way less time needed to edit your episodes.

3. Monitor Levels and Background Noise Throughout the Recording

Raw audio that is pretty clear and balanced equals far less time editing! And as a result, monitoring your audio levels as you record your podcast episodes will save you buckets of time on the editing floor.

Rather than just hitting “record” and hoping for the best as you record your latest episode, build the habit of monitoring your audio levels throughout the recording process.

By taking the time to occasionally monitor your audio levels throughout your recording, you will effectively reduce the time spent editing. Stopping every now and then to monitor your audio will mean you’ll pick up that weird hum from the AC that suddenly started before you’re too far into your amazing interview. It can mean you pick up that your guest is sitting too far from their mic before the end of the interview! Or it can mean you realize your mic is not actually plugged in…before you sign off!

As I’m sure you can see, this simple addition to your recording process will subtract plenty of time from your podcast editing process.

4. Make Audio Markers Where Edits Need to Happen

Here’s one of our sneaky tips for faster podcast editing…make audio markers where you know editing will need to happen later while you’re recording.

What do we mean, exactly?

It’s simple really. Whenever you realize you’ve made a faux pas whilst recording, you got a little tongue-tied, said the wrong thing entirely, or even just sneezed in the middle of a sentence, all you need to do to help you edit this out quickly later, is to make an audio marker. This could be a clap, or a few clicks of the tongue, or anything that will show up distinctively in the waveform of your audio.

Simply by looking at your audio, you’ll know immediately where those quick edits can be made. The spikes in the audio draw your attention, and you can quickly cut out all those obvious audio errors. This will save you tons of time! And allow you to really concentrate on making each episode the best that it can be.

The final two tips are not exactly “recording tips” for faster editing. But they’ll definitely save you tons of editing time. They’re too good not to share!

5. Master Your Editing Software

This is another of our sneaky time-saving editing hacks for faster podcast editing! Master your editing software! If you know all the tips and tricks your editing software can do, it will save you loads of time in the editing process.

Learn every tip and trick, shortcut and hotkey, tool, and feature your software offers. Knowing how to do even the most basic edits using shortcuts or hotkeys will really make for faster editing. 

You can find plenty of tutorials online for most editing software. YouTube is also full of in-depth tutorials as well as “hacks” that you can use to help you master your software and significantly speed up the editing process.

And as an added bonus, you’ll probably also learn great tips to help you improve your audio quality, which will result in wins all-round!

Related read: Overview of the Best Podcast Editing Software

6. Create a Template for Your Episodes

Crafting a template for your episodes not only streamlines the production process but also ensures that each episode maintains consistency. (If you’ve read The Podcast Digest for any length of time, you’ll know consistency is something we’re big fans of!)

But besides creating consistency in your episodes, creating a template for your specific podcast will also greatly speed up your editing process.

How is this done in practice?

Well, you most likely use the same intro and jingle for each episode. So, for example, save your template with these elements already in place. That’s two less things for you to edit in. And if your show has fairly consistent segments, and you make use of particular sound effects or music in between, the basic structure of your episodes with gaps and these corresponding effects could already be saved in your template. Then all that you’d have to do is add the new vocal tracks and make the required edits. 

If you have a little variety in your episodes, create templates for each type of episode. That way, you’re never starting from scratch. And you’ll cut down your editing time substantially!

Closing Thoughts

Key recording strategies can really help you record your podcast faster. With the right equipment and the right location, you’re already off to a time-saving start. Onboard the habit of monitoring levels as you go, and making those audio markers when you make a mistake, and you’ll effectively cut down on post-production time significantly.

Master your software and get clever with episode templates, and you’re all set!

We firmly believe that by following these strategies you’ll streamline your podcast workflow, spend far less time editing each episode, and you’ll improve the overall quality of your show!

What tricks do you have for faster podcast editing? Share with us and we can add them to the list!