141 Enhanced Sound: Unleashing the Power of AI Editing Tools on Your Podcast

[00:00:00] As an independent podcast, it's almost expected that our audio just sounds a little subpar,

[00:00:06] not as great. But it doesn't always have to be. So today I've got three amazing online

[00:00:12] editing tools which are designed to help you make an amazing sounding podcast and if you

[00:00:19] stick around to the end of the episode, I'm going to give you a bonus tool which is absolutely

[00:00:25] free. Sound matters, be heard. Welcome to the podcast where you get exclusive behind

[00:00:37] the scenes tips to make your own show sound truly spectacular. This is...

[00:00:43] Fantastic Audio.

[00:00:47] Hey, what's happening? How are you doing today? I want to say thank you so much for being

[00:00:53] here. I am Chris and I am from the original Chris and Christine Show podcast. You know

[00:01:00] you can find out every single thing about that show on a website which I built yeah

[00:01:05] from the ground up all by myself got my hands dirty but it's about the power tools and

[00:01:09] I put together website not knowing how to put websites together but I figured it out.

[00:01:13] At Chris and ChristineShow.com, link to it down below in the show notes of this very

[00:01:20] episode. If you want to check that out, it's there for you ready to go click it, click

[00:01:24] click. Now if I sound a little different on this podcast episode today that is because

[00:01:30] I'm coming to you from the great studio D. Now what a studio D stand for? Well let

[00:01:38] we think of all the different rooms in the house. Studio D would stand for the dining room

[00:01:45] so I'm officially at the dining room table. I got my little setup here, I got the Zoom

[00:01:50] Pod Track P4 plugged into that is the road pod mic microphone which I'm using right now

[00:01:55] of course and plugging it right into my MacBook Pro. Ta-da! It's a great little portable

[00:02:01] setup. I mean listen does not sound as great as maybe the Roadcaster Pro 2 does? I'm

[00:02:06] trying to figure that out that the Zoom Pod Track even though it is a super cool fun device

[00:02:11] to have. The Zoom Pod Track P4 which I think retails somewhere in the ballpark of maybe $150,

[00:02:17] maybe $200. You can plug in four microphones, you can plug it to the computer, you can plug

[00:02:23] a phone into it. I think yeah do a phone to it through a plug jack and different things

[00:02:27] like that. It got sound effects all kinds of fun stuff you can do with it. Record right on

[00:02:31] the thing. I've done lots of episodes about the Zoom Pod Track P4. It's quite a little

[00:02:35] handy device for situations like this one. Now you're wondering Chris why aren't you in the

[00:02:41] regular studio? Why are you doing your show from the dining room? Why are you out here in the first

[00:02:45] place? Well one thing is that we actually have companies staying with us this weekend so if I was

[00:02:52] going to get an episode out to you, I'd have to record it somewhere else. So I figured we're in

[00:02:58] the house but I possibly set up my little shop here to do a podcast where I'm kind of out of the

[00:03:03] way of everybody. And I've done podcast episodes from the bedroom, I've done it from the design studio.

[00:03:09] I've actually walked around this entire house using the Zoom Pod Track P4 and a handheld microphone.

[00:03:15] I've walked around this whole house and I've recorded myself in different rooms to kind of get a

[00:03:20] feel for which room sounds the best. So here I am in the main room of the house like I guess he called

[00:03:26] this like the big grand room of the house. It's where the dining room is and it kind of flows into

[00:03:32] where the living room is and I'm looking right at the front door of the house right now. As

[00:03:36] I sit here at the end of the table, it's weird doing a podcast episode from this like angle here.

[00:03:43] We did one before with Christine and Ezekiel. They were both here in this room at this table here

[00:03:49] and I set up boom arms and microphones we did right here at the table. Hey maybe you have a very

[00:03:53] similar setup. Maybe your podcast studio is also from the dining room table. Hey as long as it sounds

[00:04:00] great but we're going to take great and make it even better by the end of this very episode.

[00:04:07] Now on a few episodes ago I mentioned how there's so many wonderful AI generated tools out there

[00:04:15] that will take your podcast audio and make it sound amazing. How there's probably no excuse

[00:04:22] right now to have horrible sounding audio because there's devices like the Zoom Pod Track P4

[00:04:28] and there are other devices and tools online that will help clean up a lot of the mess,

[00:04:33] a lot of the audio garbage that we just throw into the microphone. So the other day I was on threads

[00:04:39] and I happen to get a message from none other than Stephen Norales. Is that your name?

[00:04:45] I mean, how's your name? Stephen Norales as I believe it is. Anyways, Stephen or Steve, he wrote

[00:04:51] me on threads and he says so at one point in this episode, as you're referring to last episode I did,

[00:04:57] he said in one point in this episode you talked about using AI to make a podcast sound better

[00:05:04] and I wondered if you could expand on that at all. For example, the one you use for Adobe can you

[00:05:12] tell us more about it as well as the other one you mentioned? Well Stephen, this episode is

[00:05:18] for you because not only I'm not going to tell you about the ones that I use, I'm going to tell you

[00:05:23] but all the ones I have used. Okay, as I look over the list of these online audio editing tools

[00:05:31] there are three main ones and a free bonus one we'll get to at the end and if you listen to this

[00:05:38] show at any length of time say from the very beginning you know which one I'm talking about.

[00:05:44] Okay so kicking it off with number one probably the biggest podcast editing tool in the planet right

[00:05:52] now everybody's either using it talking about it thinking about using it and that is the script.

[00:05:59] Now what is the script? The script stands out for its innovative approach in editing podcasts whether

[00:06:07] it's video podcasting transcripts all kinds of cool stuff it can do quite an amazing amount of stuff.

[00:06:13] It utilizes a unique text based editing system so this is different versus a wave file. It writes

[00:06:21] everything down as a total script a transcript. Now this allows the editor to actually cut out words

[00:06:30] right out of the text and it physically removes them from the audio and also from the video version

[00:06:37] it can do both. Okay so let's run down the great features of the script. The biggest feature like I

[00:06:43] said is gotta be the text based editing. Descript transcribes your audio files into straight text

[00:06:51] enabling you to edit text directly and it changes are reflected in the audio and now also in the

[00:06:58] video if you do video. Another great feature is this overdub this feature allows user to create

[00:07:06] a synthetic voice based on their own voice. Imagine that imagine you're able to like physically

[00:07:12] instead of having to like re record something you would just like type out what you meant to say

[00:07:17] and it physically will fill in your audio with something that sounds just like you in that very

[00:07:23] same spot. This way you can like fill in gaps or maybe if you mid said something you can quickly type

[00:07:29] it out and re change it and there it is which may sound like some voodoo magic if you ask me basically

[00:07:35] you just start typing on something and automatically like we'll say it into the podcast even give you a

[00:07:41] video version. Now the video part of that when you start to do like text filling or that AI voice

[00:07:47] generation for filling in the different video stuff I think it only works in like a couple like

[00:07:53] maybe a blip here or space there or maybe like a half a second there it's not like you can just

[00:07:58] physically like type out an entire behalf of paragraph and it'll be a video version of you saying it

[00:08:04] you're like why didn't record that look it looks just like me that's recording and saying it

[00:08:07] just like me I don't think it's quite there yet. I think that part is just to fill in like little

[00:08:13] slight mistakes you might say on camera. Now when it comes to the actual like editing of the sound

[00:08:19] which you can do fantastic ways it also is great for multi track editing. Descript supports multi track

[00:08:27] editing making it easy to manage different elements of your podcast such as voiceovers, music

[00:08:34] and sound effects which you can do entirely for free by using audacity. Audacity is fantastic it's

[00:08:42] free so the multi track editing part that they have listed here isn't really that exciting if you

[00:08:47] ask me but it does a lot of other cool things. Now one of the coolest things to audio editing with

[00:08:53] the script is one of the reasons I was using it in the first place it wasn't so I can cut out words

[00:08:57] it wasn't so I can cut out ums although I did try that out from time to time and let me tell you

[00:09:02] the time I did that a couple times my clients are kind of like hey we notice you're like over editing

[00:09:08] like the podcast like it's down to really choppy and that's what kind of happens when you go in there

[00:09:13] and you say hey remove all the ums oh it will definitely do that I think it's gotten better from time

[00:09:18] of time because when I used to do that before it would just like brutally chop those things off

[00:09:23] and if you say um something like really quick together it'll like chop it off mid sentence or maybe

[00:09:29] chop off the other word attached to it it can get kind of tricky so I wasn't using too much for

[00:09:34] that and when I was using it for that people didn't seem to like it that much so I tuned back

[00:09:38] and say you know what it doesn't sound as natural and that's the thing too is it it'll do a decent job

[00:09:44] if somebody drops about a thousand ums in an entire podcast because it does happen you'll get those

[00:09:50] guys on the show usually it's a guest they'll have come on they'll be nervous they'll say um before

[00:09:55] every single thing they say um this um that they'll just be dropping ums you're like oh my god there's

[00:10:00] like a thousand ums in this thing so you'll use something like this script to get rid of that stuff

[00:10:05] it will make it sound a little smoother not so uh boring that's basically what you want to do

[00:10:11] make sure your podcast is not sound boring now the cost to use descript kind of varies on your

[00:10:17] needs for descript what I found basically the average price to use descript on a monthly basis

[00:10:24] and this kind of gave you like a average use time because you're kind of paying for if you need more

[00:10:28] use you got to pay for more and things like that so basically it's right around $20 a month

[00:10:33] is what it's going to cost you to use the script if you decide to use the script regularly now for

[00:10:39] the record of all the tools we're going to describe today the script has got to be the one stop shop

[00:10:44] it's probably wide so popular it can do quite an amazing amount of things whether it's with video

[00:10:50] audio separate both it doesn't matter it really could almost do almost anything I think now also

[00:10:57] descript has teamed up with squadcast so if you have a descriptive count or squadcast account

[00:11:04] somehow they merge together i'm not sure which ones which but they work together so if you have

[00:11:09] a squadcast account you can do a remote guest interview drop that thing right into descript go to town

[00:11:16] do your stuff and descript will help you out and it literally a few button clicks

[00:11:22] and you can literally edit the entire podcast without having to physically go in there and edit

[00:11:26] the podcast hey but you're wondering christah do you still use the script no i do not i'll tell you why

[00:11:33] is because i was really only using it for their studio sound feature until i found something that

[00:11:40] was cheaper which pretty much does almost the same thing which moves us on to the second tool here

[00:11:47] on my list and that is a doby podcast enhance now this is a great wonderful tool it was free

[00:11:56] it was free for a little while and then they got smart and say you know what hey I see you guys

[00:12:01] using this thing for free we're not start charging you or give you a smaller water down version of

[00:12:06] our cool awesome tool so you're thinking what is this a doby podcast enhance and what does it really

[00:12:12] do well in a nutshell it takes a bad audio and makes it sound good or better than bad let's

[00:12:20] just say that it takes really bad audio it makes it sound listenable and it takes good audio makes

[00:12:27] it sound great and all that great wonderful stuff by dropping in your audio files and it spits it

[00:12:33] out at the other side yeah it's that simple but if you're using the free version they only give you

[00:12:39] 30 minutes of use and I actually found that out the hard way because I try to drop in an episode

[00:12:45] I was doing or maybe it was an interview it was something like that I drop it in there and it was

[00:12:50] like well we can't do this and I'm like why not then says please upgrade to the upgrade version

[00:12:54] I'm like what I was using this thing for free for so long and it was great and then they start

[00:12:59] charging for you my well you might as well pay for it now because I use it so much in fact I use

[00:13:05] so much that actually canceled my descript because I was using this tool instead and clean up bad

[00:13:12] audio now what does it cost a month it only cost ten dollars a month which is way cheaper than

[00:13:18] descriptors because the script has so many other features this one the doby podcast enhance

[00:13:24] is designed for audio whether it's audio in a video or audio for audio sake it doesn't matter

[00:13:30] it helps you fix and clean up bad audio specifically working on in these three areas area number one

[00:13:39] noise reduction and enhancement a doby podcast enhance provides advanced noise reduction

[00:13:47] and enhanced tools to improve the audio quality basically if there's a hiss or some kind of like

[00:13:53] usually take echo sound that's what really shines with that kind of stuff like reverb

[00:13:58] the next thing it really works on is dynamic processing what this does is it gives you a constant audio

[00:14:05] level throughout the entire podcast because you don't want some it's loud some it's quiet

[00:14:11] so on and so forth you want to keep everybody even keel not only removing the noise but also keeping

[00:14:17] everybody at the same level and the third thing that it can really do which is really isn't a

[00:14:22] feature of the ask me is basically that it has an integration with a doby creative cloud basically

[00:14:28] meaning that when you do these little file tasks it keeps them on your little like online storage

[00:14:35] drive thing and when you open the app it's like still in there but it keeps them for like seven days

[00:14:40] so what you really want to do is fine tune the actual audio file to the way you think it sounds the

[00:14:46] best then download that to your computer so once you have it in your computer it's yours to keep

[00:14:52] to do whatever you want with it'll fall off on your little cloud storage device but while it's

[00:14:57] in there while you're using the Adobe podcast enhance at least on the paid version which I'm on

[00:15:02] right now the $10 a month version is that when you drop it in there it gives you this like slide bar

[00:15:08] adjustment from 100% down to 0% so as you slide it around listening to different audio you can kind of

[00:15:15] like play with what works the best the closer to get to zero the more it sounds like you didn't change

[00:15:20] anything and the further up the chart up to 100 it sounds like it's very very processed it'll

[00:15:27] sound very like almost I wouldn't say filtered sound but it doesn't have a very muffled filtered

[00:15:33] sound to the audio versus when you slide it back down to zero sound like it's open a little more

[00:15:39] room a little more boomy sound but when you slide it back to 100% it does sound much filtered sound so

[00:15:45] what I like to do when I'm doing this for my client show is I put it in there and

[00:15:50] I'll play around with the slide and see whether I want to go higher or lower I wanted to still sound

[00:15:56] natural but also take away a lot of those that echo boomy sound that people get especially they're

[00:16:01] coming in on like say a telephone or perhaps maybe like a gaming headset something like that with

[00:16:07] like a really small microphone that does not pick up a lot of base that's a thing too if you have

[00:16:12] a small microphone the base seems to be taken out to get really good base on a microphone you need

[00:16:18] a big diaphragm in the microphone so you need to physically a larger size microphone will help out

[00:16:23] with that these cell phones are tiny little microphones and these little like headset things have

[00:16:29] tiny microphones so podcast enhance definitely fixes some of that sound it'll definitely make somebody

[00:16:35] who came in on say just earbuds it'll make it sound much better a little more a little more depth

[00:16:42] to the audio a little more you know warmth to the audio it'll sound much better almost as if

[00:16:48] it came in on a regular microphone and if you're doing a lot of guest interviews with people

[00:16:54] coming in on who knows what kind of equipment for $10 a month I think this is a bargain you should

[00:17:01] pick this up if you're dealing with bad audio especially from guests now if you've got great

[00:17:06] audio or maybe you and your friends do podcasts have got great audio maybe you got great equipment

[00:17:11] like a roadcaster or something like that they don't really need that only reason I got it was

[00:17:17] because I had a lot of guest interviews with that audio and speaking of bad audio this moves us to

[00:17:23] the third cool little audio editing tool that I have personally used and I do have a free account

[00:17:28] with them not to pay the count the free account and I'm talking about the great wonderful a phonic

[00:17:36] now what is a phonic and what does it even do it's designed like all these ones here to fix bad

[00:17:43] sounding audio to make it sound loud and level and clean so basically if one person in your little

[00:17:50] group chat is talking like a quiet mouse or maybe you had their microphone turned down so low that

[00:17:57] it was like barely even on and then everybody else was talking normally and they sounded great but

[00:18:02] that's one person sounded horrible they were very quiet a phonic will take care of that and make

[00:18:09] sure that everybody sounds loud and noticeable well how does it do that Chris well let me tell you

[00:18:16] it uses automatic audio processing a phonic automatically processes the audio files applying noise

[00:18:25] reduction leveling and other enhancements to enhance the audio quality it's like this AI magic

[00:18:32] I'm telling you about man and it also can do batch processing users can process multiple audio files

[00:18:41] at the same time saving you time effort and especially for podcasters with large libraries of sound

[00:18:49] like perhaps maybe you've got a multi track with a bunch different things working on you can drop

[00:18:54] mall in there and it will take care of that also a new feature which I haven't used yet it's

[00:18:59] also got this cool podcast publishing tools I think the script has something like that too basically

[00:19:06] what it does is that it offers built-in podcasting publishing right from the app now I have not used

[00:19:13] that feature in the tool in fact I only have the basic free account and I've only used this app

[00:19:19] few times just to try it out now the way it basically works is you drop in your audio file into

[00:19:26] a phonic and basically you have some adjustments on there what you can do there may be an automatic

[00:19:32] mode which you can let it do its thing and spit out something on the very back end and then you

[00:19:37] download that back to your computer and then you have that to work on it sounds amazing a phonic

[00:19:42] actually works almost too well because the times we've done it let me tell you what happened

[00:19:47] a phonic thought that breath noises from the opposite microphone the slight little breath noises

[00:19:54] were actually words so it enhanced the breath sounds that were not supposed to be enhanced in

[00:20:00] the first place yeah that was one mistake that I learned by using a phonic and I was like wow what

[00:20:05] happened but I do know in a phonic there's lots of different settings built into the thing so you

[00:20:11] can like adjust things in different timings and different attack modes on the audio and bring up

[00:20:17] this sound or decrease that sound or the noise floor and different things there's all kinds of

[00:20:22] things you can do in there in a phonic if you really want to get nerdy and get your nerd on and

[00:20:26] play around with all the great audio features built into a phonic but for most of us we want something

[00:20:31] that's quick easy and simple and so if we try the simple mode like I did it may backfire you just

[00:20:39] got to be very careful with the phonic now how much does a phonic cost now like a lot of these

[00:20:45] things it kind of depends on what you're going to use it for and how much time you're going to need

[00:20:49] when the audio files you're going to use that kind of thing but what I saw it seems like it was

[00:20:54] averaging somewhere around $22 per month to use a phonic which is a little more than a Adobe

[00:21:04] but I think this does things a little too well it's mostly designed for if you have people that

[00:21:11] are mismatched on their audio levels this is why it's so important if you do record a podcast

[00:21:17] to make sure that everybody is at the same volume level and if you record things in multi tracks

[00:21:25] you can adjust the tracks accordingly like track A can be you know played around with

[00:21:30] the disvolving level and track B and track C and track D all the audio tracks try to match them up

[00:21:37] first make sure they all sound fairly level before you throw it into some of these other tools we have

[00:21:43] here but wait there's one more now if you heard my podcast in any length of time from the very

[00:21:49] beginning until now there is one app that I use religiously on my computer and I'm surprised

[00:21:57] it still actually worked because other people that own MacBook Pro computers like mine with

[00:22:04] silicon processors like I have have told me that their version of this app has stopped working

[00:22:11] and in fact this app is no longer available in the Mac App Store it seems like you only can use it

[00:22:18] with Windows PC computers but yet for some reason it still works on mine thank god it still works

[00:22:25] with I love this app that much and that is the great and wonderful the level later app it's very simple

[00:22:35] it's amazing it levels the audio balances the audio makes it sound amazing and I use it for every

[00:22:42] single podcast I have ever done every recording I have ever done podcasting related I have run it

[00:22:48] all through the level later app and it is entirely 100% free to use as much as you want

[00:22:55] it's designed to be built in directly to your computer that you do not need to go online to use it

[00:23:02] you need to go online download of course but once it's on your computer it's there forever no wifi

[00:23:07] required at all to use this app okay sounds great Chris but what does it actually do well you see

[00:23:13] the level later app isn't quite as cool as the other apps is probably why it's free and it's very

[00:23:17] simple to use it's also an older app like it was built like maybe 10 15 years ago so it's pretty

[00:23:26] old for as technology goes if you think about it but it still works amazing even to this day so here

[00:23:32] is a great cool things it can really do for your podcast like automatic leveling well it's kind

[00:23:39] of the name the level later level level your audio basically kind of like a phonic where I would

[00:23:45] like level everybody out we're all phonic does things to the another level it's very advanced this

[00:23:51] is like a simple water down simple version of a phonic really breaks down to it does kind of the

[00:23:59] same features but more of a simple version of it the level later app automatically adjust audio

[00:24:06] levels ensuring consistent volume throughout your podcast and that is very very important now I've

[00:24:13] mentioned this one already but it's very very easy to use it's got a simple drag and drop

[00:24:20] interface you drag it on there you drop it that's all you got to do the level later app is incredibly

[00:24:27] easy to use making it ideal for beginners who are looking for a quick solution to level their audio

[00:24:34] and that is the reason why I started using it in the first place how I found out about a level later

[00:24:40] was I was actually researching an article on how to record people over the internet I knew nothing

[00:24:46] about zoom I knew nothing about squad cast or any of this stuff I was trying to figure out

[00:24:51] to take a regular phone call like how do I record a guest on a call I can't take a phone call

[00:24:57] on the computer and record it how do I even do that stuff so I came across an article of a guy who

[00:25:02] actually did that and then in the article he mentioned he ran the audio through level later to

[00:25:07] clean it up and I like level later what is this level later he's talking about so that Google that

[00:25:12] I found that I downloaded to the computer and then I ran a few samples through it I was like holy crap

[00:25:18] this thing is amazing it took my audio it made it sound amazing it made it sound professional

[00:25:24] at every single thing you hear me do on this podcast has been run directly through level later

[00:25:30] because it's free because it's amazing and yes it still works on my MacBook Pro thank God for that

[00:25:36] so those are the audio enhancement tools which I have used and ones I still use to this day

[00:25:43] of these four the ones I still use have got to be the Adobe podcast enhance and the level later app

[00:25:50] so I don't really use the script anymore I know a lot of people love that app I may actually get

[00:25:55] back into it and play around with it eventually I haven't decided quite yet I think if I found a

[00:26:01] need to really have to use it I might get in there and think around and keep pick it up again but

[00:26:07] for right now I use what I need and that's the thing with any of these tools you can go nuts

[00:26:12] and just buy every single tool out there I haven't got into all the script writing tools that are

[00:26:18] out there these are just the ones to fix that audio and if your audio is you know subpar maybe

[00:26:26] you want to throw it through some of these cool audio tools and maybe just maybe it'll take

[00:26:30] your podcast and make it sound amazing so once again thank you Stephen for writing me and asking me

[00:26:37] what kind of cool AI tools that I have used and I am always always glad to help I will help you out

[00:26:45] any way you want or any way I possibly can that is what this show is all about podcasting audio

[00:26:52] was formed to help you create an amazing podcast by me sharing the tools and things that I have used

[00:26:59] personally will hopefully help you out too go ahead and make that amazing podcast make it sound

[00:27:05] amazing sound professional the more professional that you sound on your podcast the easier it is to

[00:27:12] attract listeners maybe clients or maybe even that very special VIP guests you've always wanted

[00:27:19] to have on your show hey thank you so much for being here today I truly do appreciate you spending

[00:27:24] your time with me and listening all the way to the very end of the episode hey if you found any

[00:27:29] value from this show I delivered some amazing knowledge and some cool tools that maybe you're

[00:27:34] free maybe got a pay for some but if these cool amazing tools can help you up your game for your

[00:27:40] podcast you do me a small favor can you give me a rating and review on which I have a platform you

[00:27:46] use whether it's Apple or Spotify or however you want to do it that way I know to keep making these

[00:27:52] things for you and if you have any topics you all need to discuss on this show feel free to ride in

[00:27:58] that'd be great and until next time happy podcasting