Do you think you’re good enough to not edit? This is an area of great concern. Both our own bias confirmation tendencies and the possibility of a Dunning Kruger effect can lead us astray. The ancients understood this well, they called it hubris. In the creative field there is a fine line between genius and self deluded belief in our own genius.
To the technical aspects of podcasting. Editing is a matter of both taste and purpose. For monologue shows, history, audio essays and so on then editing is about maintaining flow and removing those moments when we have managed to get our “mords wixed”, the odd cough and any background noise that jumps in unexpectedly.
Here in the Highclere studios, two trains a day rumble by. Usually I can set my clocks by them but occasionally one will come by off schedule. I can feel this before I hear it. I remain silent while recording until the train passes and then return to the script. Removing the train noise is critical for my listener’s experience.
In interview episodes or even roundtable chats, I think you need to edit more carefully. Once in a blue moon an interview will run so smoothly it does not need editing. This is an oddity. I would advocate for, at least, a light edit but an edit nonetheless.
The other area I think really needs an edit but too often is just dumped into feeds is the repurposed audio show. This is usually an episode which began life as a Youtube video. The producer rips the audio and presents it, unedited, for our listening pleasure. It takes a greater level of skill than is usually displayed to produce an audio track that works perfecting under a video and as a stand alone audio.
To the original question: Edit Vs Raw audio? I would suggest raw audio is rarely an option, especially when we place ourselves in the listening space of our subscribers. I think raw audio is disrespectful of our listener’s time and the ears.
Takeaways
- Only with extensive experience is raw audio acceptable
- Even a light edit will vastly improve most shows
- Show some respect for your listeners and do some editing