Online Tools for Basic Podcast Editing

So you’re not ready to invest in a digital audio workspace of your own at this point in time, or perhaps you aren’t comfortable enough with the one you bought. Understandable, everyone works in their own time and within their own budget. Fear not, if you are saving your dimes and nickels and your piggy bank isn’t quite full, there are plenty of basic podcast editing tools online.

Before we dive deeper, I just want to say that these tools will in no way replace a solid DAW. Ultimately mastering your DAW of choice will push your podcast production to new heights. These basic podcast editing tools are a great jumping off point. They can accomplish unique things and are almost entirely automated.

We’ve Got Your Back

You won’t get all the bells and whistles, but these tools will suffice to get the ball rolling and not hold you back from your podcast goals. Naturally, you want the best podcast you can produce, and the confidence to continue putting episodes out to the masses. These tools will help you on your way to becoming a podcast guru. I know that’s your goal, I read it in your journal.

Cost of Online Podcast Editing Tools

With a plethora of online editing tools out there, you will see they can range from that awesome cost of “free” to options that are more costly to your bank account. Some with monthly payments, yearly plans, and options in between  You’ve heard the old expression, “you get what you pay for?”

Keep those words in mind when you’re dabbling around in the “free” zone of offered online editing tools. These processing tools will build up your confidence, while you’re starting out, but they won’t give you the freedom to bring your creative capacity to full fruition. Don’t hope for Chuck Norris when they can only offer Charlie Brown. (No offense to good ol’ Charlie.)

What Do These Online Tools Do?

Some of the online tools we’ll be outlining below do a variety of automated editing and mixing tasks. While not perfect, some of the things these tools do are pretty remarkable, and I expect their algorithms to keep getting better over time. Here are some features you can expect when you use some of these tools for your podcast.

  • Leveling – Evening out the variations of the audio levels in your podcast.
  • Background Noise Reduction – Reducing white noise and ambient noise i.e buzzing, hissing, and humming in your recordings.
  • Stitching together Multitracks – Auto combining the individual dialogue tracks in your session.
  • Publishing to podcast hosts – Releasing your episodes to Apple, Spotify, etc.. with the click of a button (not editing related, but this is a built-in feature of one of the tools listed below).
  • Echo Cancellation – Minimizing the feedback loop that happens when podcasters aren’t wearing headphones.
  • Audio Quality Enhancement – The use of EQ, Compression, and Limiters, to smooth out unwanted frequencies, and boost the overall level of your podcast to podcast loudness standards.
  • De-Reverb – Reducing the amount of reverb, or slapback in your recordings. This happens when a recording takes place in a space that isn’t acoustically treated. In your podcast recordings, you’ll be able to hear the sound of voices bouncing off the wall and reverberating.
  • De-Bleed – Cutting down on the bleed effect that happens when a microphone picks up someone else’s voice in the same room.

Our 3 Favorite Online Podcast Editing Tools

1. Alitu

alitu

Alitu has been designed to make your podcast sound like it was professionally recorded, edited and mixed. With its automated processing tools you don’t need any technical knowhow to make your podcast sound clean and crisp. This means you can focus solely on creating great content. You know how many of us are guilty at times of uhm and ahs? Yeah, those awkward verbal stutters. Fear not!

With Alitu’s power to edit audio in real-time on your computer, you’ll never have this problem again. All it takes is highlighting what you want removed, and poof, it’s gone. Did a car drive by outside while you were recording? No problem, Alitu can reduce that roar. Perhaps the humming of the air conditioning or heater has leaked into your recording. Alitu can pull that out, leaving your dialogue sounding clean.

Alitu will also level out all the dialogue in your recordings so that your podcast has a fullness and richness to it that’s consistent and on par with podcast loudness standards. Another cool feature of Alitu is that it will auto publish episodes to your podcast host. As soon as you’re done using their processing tools,  you can send your freshly mixed ep out to the masses. Alitu is aggregated with Libsyn, Buzzsprout, Spreaker and more!

FEATURES:

  • Free courses to help with your podcast production.
  • Private group with other Alitu users.
  • Access to live events featuring podcast experts.
  • Ability to record within the website.

COST:

  • $32 a month
  • $320 a year

2. Auphonic

Auphonic touts itself as an “audio autopilot” for podcasts. The Auphonic team has developed an automatic audio post-production web service to make your podcast or other media content sound better. They do this by using A.I. and signal processing techniques that create smart algorithms. Basically, all the hard editing and mixing work is done for you.

It will process your recordings and automatically level things out, reduce noise, hum, and bleed. Auphonic offers you the ability to process multiple tracks and convert your final to an MP3. Auphonic will give you 2 hours of free audio processing per month. This is a great starting point and allows you to try out some of its features without breaking the bank.

FEATURES:

  • Speech recognition and transcript editor.
  • Video workflow and Audiograms.
  • Content deployment to Dropbox and Google Drive.
  • Aggregation with Spreaker, Libsyn, PodBean, Blubrry, and more.

COST:

  • Free — 2 hours of audio processing a month
  • $11 — 9 hours of audio processing a month
  • $24 — 21 hours of audio processing a month

3. Descript

Descript is perhaps the most powerful tool of the three. It’s a full fledged audio and video editor that functions like a word document. Like Alitu you can record directly into the web browser and app. This system allows you to record unlimited tracks, add intros and outros, or music and SFX. Each track is transcribed before being combined into one file. Speaker labels are then added. In addition to the similar audio processing tools that Alitu and Auphonic have, such as auto-leveling, noise reduction, and editing via transcript, there are several features that put Descript a level above. These rad features include:

  • Live Editing: Automatically transcribes audio as you record, giving you the power to edit audio in real time. If a speaker messes up or mispronounces any words during their recording, you can delete them from the transcript in real time. You don’t have to stop the recording. What’s even cooler about this is that all edits are non-destructive, which means you can recover deleted takes.
  • Wordbar: Lets you know what waveform a word is representing. With it, you can adjust the space between words in your podcast.
  • Overdub: Creates a text-to-speech model of your voice. Why do you need that, you ask? Well, it enables you to insert your voice into a recording by typing in the words you want. You can make mid-sentence changes to actual recordings that match the tonal characteristics of your voice. Essentially you type a word and their algorithm pastes your voice saying that word, into the recording. Maybe you forgot to mention something in an episode you’re working on. Type the sentence that you want and  BOOM, Overdub will use A.I. technology to insert the sound of your voice saying that sentence. Pretty cool!

FEATURES:

  • Cloud collaboration for multiple users.
  • Video editing via word doc.

COST:

  • Free — Limited functionality
  • Creator — $12 a month
  • Pro — $24 a month
  • Enterprise — Custom pricing

** We review products/services independently, but may receive a commission if you sign up for a service or buy from one of our links. Our aim is to share what we use and think will add value to podcasters. **

Plenty of Options

Whichever avenue you choose, be it mix and match, straight automatic editing, or your DAW, you are well on your way to getting your podcast up and running, efficiently. By following The Four Pillars of Podcasting you are adding to your ability to master pre-production, production and post-production. This knowledge is going to help you gain an audience and allow you to put forth the fortress of information inside your noggin.

Stop by again and learn some podcasting fundamentals on advance editing, Podsafe Music, and cover art as we head towards the finish of our third pillar. The anticipation and excitement of your finished podcast is so close I can taste it. Mmmmmm the sweetness of success.

 


 

Subscribe for the latest podcasting tips, tools, and strategies!