How to Edit Audio for Your Podcast: A Practical Guide for Beginners
If there's one thing that stops aspiring podcasters in their tracks, it's the editing process. Recording a conversation feels natural, but opening up audio editing software for the first time can be genuinely intimidating. The good news? It's absolutely doable — even if you have zero experience. In this guide, I'll walk you through my approach to editing podcast audio, share the specific steps I take in Adobe Audition, and explain why different shows might call for different levels of polish.
The Biggest Barrier to Entry: Time or Money
Let's be honest — editing audio is one of the most difficult parts of starting a podcast. It comes down to two resources: time or money. If you're in a position where you can hire someone to handle editing for you, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's a worthwhile investment, especially if you'd rather focus your energy on content creation and guest relationships.
But if you're like I was when I started — without the budget to outsource — then you'll need to learn the craft yourself. There's a learning curve, particularly if you don't have a background in audio or video editing. However, there are incredible resources available online that can walk you through the process step by step, no matter what software you're using.
Two Podcasts, Two Editing Philosophies
To illustrate how editing needs can vary, I'll draw from my experience with two very different shows:
- The RE/MAX Hustle Podcast — An interview show featuring real estate agents, broker owners, and other notable guests. For this show, I focus heavily on making the audio sound crisp, clean, and polished.
- Show Me The Crypto — A YouTube interview series about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, where the audio is stripped and published as a podcast. For this show, audio quality is less of a priority because the video is the primary product.
These two examples represent opposite ends of the editing spectrum. One demands meticulous attention to detail; the other calls for a quicker, more efficient workflow. Most podcasters will fall somewhere in between.
Start with the Right File Format
Whether you're recording in person or remotely through a platform like Zencastr or Zoom, always aim to record your audio as a WAV file. WAV files are higher quality than MP3s, and while your final podcast will ultimately be exported as an MP3, you want the best possible source material to work with during the editing process.
Once you have your WAV files, bring them into your editing software. In Adobe Audition, I recommend using the podcast template, which provides roughly four layers. This makes it easy to organise your project:
- Layer 1: Host audio
- Layer 2: Guest audio
- Layer 3: Commercials or ad spots
- Layer 4: Intro music or a professionally produced intro (platforms like Fiverr are great for this)
The Four-Step Audio Treatment Process
For every interview episode, I apply four core treatments to the audio. I perform each step on the host's audio first, then duplicate the entire process for the guest's audio.
Step 1: Noise Reduction
The first step is capturing what's called a noise print. Before the conversation begins, I let the recording run in silence for a few seconds. This captures the ambient room sound — the hum of a fan, the buzz of electronics, or any other background noise you might not even consciously notice but that could distract your listeners.
Select that small silent clip, capture the noise print, then select the entire audio track and apply the noise reduction process. This effectively strips out that consistent background hum and leaves you with a much cleaner recording.
Step 2: 20-Band Equaliser
With the full clip still selected, I apply a 20-band equaliser adjustment. I picked up this technique from a YouTube tutorial on creating great-sounding audio, and the suggested levels have worked consistently well for my shows. This step helps shape the tonal quality of the voice, making it sound fuller and more professional.
Step 3: Single-Band Compressor
Next comes the single-band compressor. Compression evens out the dynamic range of your audio, taming the loudest moments and lifting the quietest ones. Again, I found effective settings through research and experimentation, and they've served me well across dozens of episodes.
Step 4: Normalisation
The final treatment is normalisation, which brings all of the audio to a consistent decibel level. This is crucial for listener experience. Without it, you might have moments that are uncomfortably loud followed by passages that are barely audible. Normalisation smooths everything out into a comfortable, consistent range.
A quick caveat: I'm not an audio engineer. If you're an expert and feel I've oversimplified something, I understand. These are the steps I learned as a complete beginner, and they've produced reliably good results for my shows.
Going the Extra Mile: Cleaning Up Breath Noise, Ums, and Gaps
After the four-step treatment, the level of detailed editing depends entirely on the show. For the RE/MAX Hustle Podcast, I get meticulous:
- Breath noise: I manually reduce the volume on audible breaths between sentences. Most listeners won't consciously notice breath sounds, but removing them creates a noticeably smoother listening experience.
- Filler words: I eliminate "ums," "ahs," and other verbal fillers by selecting those small sound waves and bringing them down to zero. This is a subtle courtesy to your guests — they may never realise you did it, but they'll appreciate sounding more polished and articulate.
- Long pauses: If a guest pauses for ten seconds to collect their thoughts, I'll tighten that gap. I split the clip before and after the pause, remove the dead air, and bring the two segments together. This keeps the episode's pace engaging without making the conversation feel unnaturally rushed.
For Show Me The Crypto, I skip most of this detail work. I apply the four core audio treatments, but beyond that, I only intervene if a guest said something factually incorrect or if there's a distractingly long gap. Since the video is the primary product and the podcast is an afterthought for audience members who prefer audio, spending hours on granular edits simply isn't the best use of time.
How Much Time Should You Expect to Spend?
The time investment varies dramatically based on your standards and approach:
- A heavily polished episode (like the RE/MAX Hustle Podcast) can take several hours to edit.
- A lighter-touch episode (like Show Me The Crypto) is a much quicker process.
There's no right or wrong answer here. It comes down to your goals, your available time, and — if you're outsourcing — your budget. A highly produced show with clean audio will feel more professional, but a lightly edited show published consistently is far better than a perfect show that never launches.
What If You Can't Afford Adobe Audition?
Don't let software costs become another barrier. While I use Adobe Audition and have built my workflow around it, there are plenty of free and affordable alternatives — Audacity being the most popular. The core principles of noise reduction, equalisation, compression, and normalisation apply regardless of which tool you use. Find a tutorial specific to your software, learn the fundamentals, and adapt the process to your needs.
Conclusion
Editing podcast audio can feel overwhelming at first, but it doesn't have to be a dealbreaker. Whether you invest the time to learn the process yourself or allocate the budget to hire a professional, the important thing is to find an approach that's sustainable for you. Start with the basics — noise reduction, equalisation, compression, and normalisation — and refine your process over time. Remember, your editing style should serve your show's goals. Not every podcast needs to be surgically clean; sometimes good enough truly is good enough. The most important thing is that you start, keep learning, and get your voice out into the world.