I know you are desperately waiting for the fifth episode (what?!) of Come Read with Me, but you have a few more weeks to wait! I’m editing away and it will be released on time (Apr. 30). I don’t have a book post this week as I’m still trekking through The Witching Hour so I wanted to talk a bit about podcasting technology. Last week I wrote about reading technology and how simple it can be and it couldn’t be further from the complexities of podcast editing.
In general it takes me a VERY long time to edit an episode of Come Read With Me. Most of this time is because of procrastination, but a lot of it is because I’m very slow at editing and I wasn’t even editing HALF of what I’ve learned you can edit!
As part of my procrastination process for CRWM #05, I looked at resources to make my podcast sound as awesome as The Readers or Books on the Nightstand, or any professional podcast really, and I found out my workplace provides free access to lynda.com. After some basic searching I found a course on podcasting and Apple’s GarageBand. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I can’t decide, the only one available was for version 3.0 and it had the guy in the photo as the instructor. Needless to say, I was very skeptical.
Thankfully, the instructor really knew what he was talking about! I googled him about half way through and was very impressed. He has a pretty big media thing going, including a podcast, at photofocus.com. More importantly, he actually provided a bunch of great tips in the how-to videos which have already helped me out in the editing process and should eventually improve the overall quality of Come Read With Me!
It takes me two-to-three times as long to edit a podcast as it takes to record it. Before it goes live, I’ve already listened to it two times, but more often than not I’ve listened to it three times. The first two I use to clean it and edit it and the final time is just a listening test on headphones. The whole process is probably a lot slower than it should be, but because I don’t do it on a regular basis it takes me a bit to get back into the process. Cutting out the “ummmms,” the “likes” and the really bad tangents (I leave a bunch in) takes a lot of time. I’ve definitely gotten faster and could see myself doing a monthly podcast if I got enough of a backlog, but let’s not get too hasty.
In addition to the lynda.com course, I’m hoping to get updated cover art via a friend and to break the podcast into actual transitions with sound effects and everything! It’s already naturally broken into sections, but generally we just meander between them. Starting in CRWM #06, it should be a lot clearer! Mostly it’s because I want to use the cool page turn sound effects I downloaded, but it’s also because the course suggested it and all the “pros” do it.
I’m so fancy right?
Yes, I just linked to Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX “Fancy.” I mean it is Clueless inspired, which is Emma inspired, so obviously I love it.
The one thing I haven’t sorted is a sign off. I keep hoping one will naturally happen, but it hasn’t yet. It will, I have faith that it will, but until then you get the awkward goodbyes. Just like this one 😀
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice. I loved that book (she gets long-winded at times) and I went to New Orleans because of that book.
It’s good so far but those first 200 pages nearly did me in. As soon as the history started I was drawn in.