I’ve been editing my podcast episodes and I’m having doubts. Leave a comment if you have something to say?
1. Using the Audacity compressor – worth it? As I was listening through the last episode, I’ve noticed two or three random words that I had overemphasized, and the compressor hadn’t done anything to prevent that. Perhaps I should be using the limiter instead? The manual for the compressor seems to say that this is what I want: “When using RMS, the compressor uses “downward” compression, making louder sounds above the threshold quieter while leaving quieter ones below it untouched.” And yet...
2. When I’m speaking freely, I make long pauses. I need to think about the words I’m going to say. As I’m editing, this often makes me uncomfortable and I end up shortening the pauses. Does the episode now seem breathless, hurried? I have noticed other podcasts seem to simply clip away all the pauses and I definitely don’t want that. It makes me uncomfortable. But at the same time I don’t want listeners to think to themselves that I should just get on with it. I guess I’m a reader person, meaning that I like to read fast, I skim a lot and I have issues with videos because they are hard to speed up or skim. Now, personally I listen to podcasts while walking and commuting so I don’t feel the need to rush ahead and thus perhaps longer pauses would be OK?
Today the `#ffmpeg` IRC channel helped me figure out how to overlay the episode and jingle without crossfading but with the episode onset delayed by 6s:
`ffmpeg -i jingle-9.mp3 -i 16-halberds-and-helmets.wav -filter_complex "[1:0]adelay=6000[tmp];[0:0][tmp]amix=inputs=2:duration=longest" -codec:a libmp3lame -q:a 7 -y 16-halberds-and-helmets.mp3`
Using `amix` instead of `amerge` was key!
#Podcast #Keep It Short #ffmpeg #Audacity