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Let me correct that title by saying “extensive Post Production Editing”.

Last week, as I was jumping around the boards and Social Networks, several people mentioned they were post-producing their Podcast and how long it took. Since they were audio, I couldn’t help but wonder what could take so long? Many people prefer to process and normalize in post - that makes perfect sense, but only takes a few minutes. Be careful not to cut out every small blunder in your cast. Let’s face it; those are sometimes the best parts!

I know, …there are times and situations when serious post production is necessary. I’ve had things fall, spill my water or coffee along with other cataclysmic events and decided to edit away. I’m convinced that the freedom to record at different times of the day along with the ability to do re-takes adds a completely different feel to a cast. Recording when you’re tired and after a long day is always a recipe for many re-takes.

The point, however, is to get used to a “radio” workflow. How many perfect radio shows have I ever had? The answer is none.

How about phone interviews? Do you record your voice and the callers on 2 separate channels and then process them separately? How about just recording a mono channel and leave it at that - mistakes/levels and all? Some of the classic and most important interviews of all time were never processed afterwards on separate channels.

Admittedly, there are many, many times I would have liked to edit things out.

As a 19 year old kid, I was working afternoon drive time and filling in on weekends. My most fervent distraction was the request line. I still remember the vertical row of LEDs flashing on the control room phone, each signaling a listener that couldn’t wait to talk with me. How many cues did I miss while talking with listeners? It was all live and if a cart didn’t fire, the splice broke or if you were on the phone when that :28 second (it was supposed to be a :30!) spot ended, then the dreaded dead-air just happened. Tertiary and secondary tones helped, but what if I forgot to turn on the sequencer? Dead air again.

The very worst was the realization that you had a “live” read coming up in 2 seconds, without a pre-read. …now those were classic moments in broadcast improv

There were many other issues that could ruin that potentially “perfect show”. How about an hours worth of stacked Fidelipac carts falling on the turntable playing Dan Ingrams Top 40 Satellite Survey and hearing the screech of the needle as it bounced across fresh vinyl. If only video cams were around to see me running into the control room door and frantically reaching for my phones just as the song faded out. Of course, the Optimod or Vol-U-Max locked-on and raised the noise floor of amplitude-modulated static nicely, but listeners didn’t complain at all. The GM and PD were another story.

With voice-tracking, automation and the loss of those beautiful QRK turntables with wooden tone arms, operator error is a bit less common, but still happens.

The long list of “million-plus” talk show hosts forever use the grammatically incorrect “uh, ah, and so” fill-ins along with the dreaded double “uh” as well.

Software has made it very tempting to sanitize our shows, but I say - leave it as is. Unless you need to bleep something out or run into the audio equivalent of a natural disaster, let it go and put it on the air. These mistakes, whether they be verbiage or other are part of our character.

I constantly try to tame my poor verbal habits, but the truth is that we’re all human and we all make mistakes. Have fun with it!

Best,
MarkJensen

Filed under: Commentary