Podcasts have developed their own unique style separate to radio. Podcaster Blindboy Boatclub posits that this is a function of the technology: radio relied on a question/answer style because that was easier to cut when people were working with analogue tape. Computer technology enables us to edit speech with surgical precision. Many podcasts sound more like a chat but this doesn't mean that there aren't many cuts.
A long, unedited interview can give the listener the feeling of picking through a large bowl of bran hoping for a few sultanas.
As the editor it's your job to find all the sultanas and stitch them together into what sounds like a naturalistic chat. There are many ways to make seamless cuts and I'd like to share three today.
1. Cutting halfway through a word, just before a transient
It's much easier to hide a cut in the middle of a word than between words. Listeners don't suspect a thing. This is especially useful when people repeat themselves.
The perfect spot to cut a word is in the short silence before a transient. A transient is a short, sharp sound, like a drum hit. Examples of transients in speech are hard consonants like 't' or 'k'. When you make your cut you won't need a fade because, in an example of psychoacoustics, the transient takes attention away from what came before.
When people say consonants such as 't' and 'k' there's a surprising amount of gap in the word before the transient. You don't really say "pork" it's more like "por-k". Try saying that word and notice how long it takes your mouth to change from one position to the next. So, if I were editing together two instances of the word 'pork' clip 1 would be 'I had por-' and clip 2 would be '-k for breakfast'
Use clip gain to match the loudness of the two parts of the sentence that you have cut together. You might need to ramp up the change in clip gain over a few words. A change of about 1.5dB between words isn't noticeable.
2. Cutting someone off mid-sentence
Sometimes a piece of audio needs to be cut off very quickly, without room for an adequate fade. You might be interviewing a person who changes topics but never finishes their sentence which is a habit that people develop as a defence against being interrupted but is not that suitable in the context of interviews at least when they're being conducted for a podcast... And so on.
You're going to need to create the illusion of the end of the sentence by slowing down either the last word or the last syllable of the last word depending on what sounds right. This is going to also drop the pitch of that word or syllable. Then you fade out that word quickly, add a short section of room tone or a breath straight afterwards, and give that a longer fade.
Not all breaths sound the same, so look for an exhalation that was previously created by the same speaker at the end of another sentence.
3. Matching changes in speed and loudness
Perhaps you might be editing someone who is getting excited and therefore the volume and speed of their words is increasing. If you cut out the middle of their sentence listeners will notice a jarring change.
There are two ways to deal this. One is to adjust the gain of some of the clips to match loudness and maybe even increase the gaps between words a little to form a transition between the two sections. The other is to contextualise the change by finding the big breath the person took when they started getting excited, and putting it between the quieter slower section and the louder faster section.
My final thoughts, as ever, are to use your ears and your best judgement. Rather than cutting out every imperfection make changes that fit in within the rhythm and music of speech.
Comments