Give Your Podcast Permission to Breathe

it's all about the natural ebb and flow of your audio

Over on Twitter, I recently ran a poll that asked what would be the one big thing that stops you listening to your favourite podcast. The choices were Adding ads, change of format, change of frequency, or “other”. The results are below (click the image to open the poll on Twitter):

As you can see, it was pretty even between adding ads, and changing up the format. But out of 81 votes, almost 25% said “other”, and those votes primarily shared something all podcasters need to learn and/or remember to do - and that’s give your podcast permission to breathe.

The Human Voice is Not a Staccato

When looking at the answers for the “other” result, something that popped up with regularity was editing. More specifically, too much of it, where the quest of achieving good/excellent audio goes a little too far, and the editing removes the more natural flow of the audio on display.

And it’s understandable - after all, you want to offer your listeners the best experience you can. But this can come at the expense of that experience, if you go too much into all the things you can edit.

For example, Euan McAleece had this to say:

And one more bugbear I’ve heard recently is bad edits that have come from using AI automated remove filler words function in Premier Pro, or Descript, or whatever else is offering this. More than half the edits are clunkier than a 17th-century Dutch peasant dancing.

To Euan’s point, this is something I’ve noticed a few times, and usually happens when a podcaster is using the afore-mentioned tools to remove filler words with one simple click, usually in the essence of saving time on post-production.

However, these tools can be super aggressive and not always catch the nuance of what a natural “um is”, as an example, and why some of these ums should be left in to emphasize the pause and deliberation someone is taking before speaking again.

Because of the level of aggressiveness these tools can edit with, the end result can be super choppy, or staccato in execution. This might be fine for YouTube jump clips, but less so for audio podcasts.

Another excellent point was made by Luke, of The Nerdstalgic Podcast, who said,

Highly edited, so much so the whole human personality is gone and it sounds too perfect. I've stopped listening to shows because of this fact, I can deal with ums and ahs and bad mic quality because it's indie podcasts, theres going to be human jank, but when it feels real I’m out.

As both Luke and Euan highlight in their replies, some podcasters take a big cutting knife to the editing board and remove everything that’s not the specific words of the conversation.

Usually this is filler words like um, ahh, y’know, etc. But it can also be something as simple as breaths, where one of the speakers has a more audible breathing sound than anyone else. And while these can most definitely be conspicuous when every example is left in, which can take away from the listening experience, removing them all can be just as bad.

Which brings us back to the importance of letting your podcast breathe.

The Organic Flow of Conversation

Think of any conversation you’ve ever had. Or, even a monologue you might have given (maybe a speech as a best man at a wedding, or a graduation speech at school, or even a conversation with a cashier at your local supermarket, etc). Now, when you (and others) were talking, how did that go?

• the conversation was relaxed, and included ums and ahs, as well as deliberate and with pauses before someone spoke again

• the conversation was jumpy and hyper-focused on getting to the next point

My guess is it was the former, every time. Because that’s how we are as humans.

Conversations are moments of sound caught in an ebb and flow, which is where the beauty, tone, and nuance of human speech comes from. If we remove that, we remove the organic tone of what makes a great conversation, and that can remove listeners from the moment when playing back our episodes.

Take a listener out of the listening experience, and it can be hard to pull them back in, which - in the worst case scenario - is a lost listener, full stop.

So, we need to let our podcast breathe - and there are three simple ways to do that when it comes to editing.

1. Don't delete every um. Yes, they can be very conspicuous if there are a lot, but at times they can also be a very natural part of the conversation (when something's thinking of a point to make, for example). So leave those ones in.

2. Don't be too aggressive on removing breaths. Much like ums, they too can be conspicuous if someone is particularly breathy when speaking - but if you're too aggressive on this, it can sound choppy because now natural breaths are also removed. So look to manage any breath removal via lowering the dB in post-production, while leaving any non-noticeable ones in.

3. Don't rely on AI to remove filler words and spaces. While it can save you time, you can always tell when a podcaster has used an AI tool to remove filler words without reviewing, because the space between words and sentences is much more prominent and jumpy, and sounds super unnatural. So take the time to review and only remove those that don’t add to the experience, or are more noticeable if removed.

Listeners are just like podcasters - they want a good listening experience, but also one that sounds like everything they’re used to on a day-to-day basis. This includes conversational “oddities”, for want of a better word, like ums, aahs, breathing, etc.

And the best way to do that is to let your podcast breathe, and keep the parts that make it flow, as opposed to removing them and leaving a disjointed experience.

Until the next time, happy podcasting!