Editing: The fancy stuff

These are extra things you can do if you have time and if you found level 1 manageable. Remember that you don’t have to try everything in this section – each part is optional!

Adjusting the volume of a section of audio

Method 1: Envelope Mode

In Level 1 we covered how to increase or decrease the volume of a whole track. But you might want to increase or decrease the volume of particular sections of your recordings which are too loud or too quiet. Maybe there’s one part of the interview where someone laughs really loudly? Or a part where your interviewee moves away from the microphone slightly and their voice becomes too quiet? If so, you can adjust the volume of this section using ‘Envelope Mode’.

First use ‘Selection Mode’ to highlight the section you want to adjust. Go into ‘Envelope Mode’. Click at the very top or bottom of a track to place a little dot (called a ‘Node’). Place nodes at the beginning and the end of the section you want to adjust the volume of. Then place another two nodes close to the originals, inside the section you want to adjust. You can then drag these inner nodes towards the centre of the track to reduce the volume of that section, or away from the centre to increase the volume. Listen back and make adjustments if you need to, based on how it sounds. You can use this technique to make quite subtle adjustments, so play around and listen back each time you make a change to see what sounds good.

Method 2: Amplify

You can also make adjustments by using the ‘Amplify’ tool – this is particularly useful if you want to increase the level of a section by quite a lot.

Use ‘Selection mode’ to highlight the section you want to adjust, and choose ‘Effect u003e Amplify’. Audacity will automatically suggest an adjustment, but can also set the adjustment by dragging the dot left or right. If the dB number is positive it will increase the volume, and if it is negative it will reduce the volume.

If you’re using this method, it’s best to increase or reduce the volume just quite small amounts – big adjustments will sound noticeable and strange to your listeners. Remember that you can always use ‘Edit > Undo’ if you listen back and find that the adjustment is too dramatic.

Adding a voiceover

If you listen to a lot of podcasts, you’ve probably noticed that some of them include voiceovers – sections where the presenter speaks directly to the audience, either to introduce the episode, to conclude it, or to provide storytelling, structure, or extra information within it. To hear an example of a voiceover in action, click on this link to listen to an episode of American podcast Radiolab. As you listen, think about when the presenters are talking to each other and when they’re talking to you, the audience. When they’re talking to you, that’s a voiceover. Each time you hear a voiceover, think about why they’ve chosen to use a voiceover there. Try making some notes as you listen. What is the voiceover doing? How does it help the listener to understand the story?

If you’ve followed all of the steps so far, then by now you pretty much have a finished podcast episode. But you might like to add a voiceover where you speak directly to your audience. You could add sections of voiceover at the beginning and/or end of your podcast episode. You could also add sections of voiceover in the gaps between the different recordings you’ve made.

First, listen to your episode as it is now, and think about where you’d like to add your voiceover, and what you’d like to say. Write down your ideas. Next, it’s time to record your voiceover. Follow the instructions we gave you earlier for recording your monologue. You might like to record your voiceover in small sections, or you might like to record it in one go and chop it up in Audacity: it’s up to you. In the example below, we’ve recorded our voiceover in three sections.

GO TO: RECORDING A MONOLOGUE

Use ‘File u003e Import u003e Audio’ to import your voiceover into Audacity along with all your other recordings.

Next, go to ‘Timeshift Mode’ and drag your other recordings along their tracks to make space for the new voiceover sections. Remember that the most important thing is to make sure that when you’re finished positioning your sections, none of your voiceovers and recordings are overlapping. Also make sure that you don’t have huge gaps between your sections. When you’ve finished, listen back to your episode to make sure that what you’ve done sounds good!

Remember to add tiny fades to the beginning and end of each voiceover section, to make everything sound smoother (see Level 1 Step 6). If you want to get very fancy, you can chop up your recordings and insert voiceover sections in the middle.

In ‘Selection Mode’, place your cursor in the place where you would like to insert the voiceover section. Then use ‘Edit u003e Clip boundaries u003e Split’ to make a cut. Then go to ‘Time Shift Mode’ and drag your sections to create the space you need (remember to check again afterwards that nothing is overlapping).

Well done! You’ve reached the end of Editing Level 2 – the fancy stuff!

GO TO: EXPORTING YOUR EPISODE