- In today's episode, we'll
cover the pros and cons of the five podcast
recording software options that we recommend the most. (upbeat music) Welcome to Podcasting Q&A where you learn the
best tips and strategies to launch, grow and monetize your show. This week's question comes from Norman. - [Norman] Hey, there Buzzsprout, this is Norman Chella, the podcast rainmaker
and host of AntiFool. I'm producing six of my own shows and then currently using
Audition, which is great, but always trying out new tools like Descript to add to my workflow. What are your thoughts on editing software that isn't really conventional, like Descript being text-based. And are there any other tools
that we should be considering? Always happy to try them out. Thanks. - Thank you so much for
your question Norman. Now in the past several years, as podcasting has really
started to pick up some steam, there have been some really
cool audio editing softwares and companies that have
started coming out. Now, some of them lean more towards the pro level audio editing cyber, they're giving you all
the bells and whistles that you need as a podcaster without introducing a ton of complexity into your editing workflow. And then on the other side,
there are some companies that have come out with some
really innovative solutions that are perfect for people that are just getting the podcasting that aren't interested
in learning a software like Adobe Audition. So in this episode, I'm
gonna break down the pros and the cons of the five
audio editing softwares that we use, that we
recommend here at Buzzsprout, and then also tell you which
one would be best for you. (upbeat music) The first audio editing
software that we recommend at Buzzsprout is Audacity. And it's probably for the same reasons that it is the most popular
podcast editing platform in the world. The first pro being, it's free. So you don't have to pay
anything to start using it. You just download it directly
from Audacity's website and you start going to town. The other reason we really like Audacity, it has a lot of editing
capabilities built right into it. You can apply normalization effects, you can apply compressor effects. You can do EQ settings. You can do fades and cross fades. All of the editing
techniques and strategies that you learn in your podcasting journey Audacity can do it. However, Audacity does
tend to be a bit buggy, especially when it comes
to software updates. Recently, Apple updated their
operating system to Catalina, and it broke Audacity. If you used Audacity to
edit your podcast episodes, you could not do that in Catalina. And it took a while for Audacity
to create a software patch that would restore that capability to all of their Mac users. The other thing to be
aware of with Audacity is that it does what's
called destructive editing. So if you cut out a piece of your audio and then you save the file,
you can't get that audio back. So who's Audacity best for, well it's best for podcasters on a budget that still want the full suite
of audio editing options. If that is you and you edit on
a Windows or a Mac computer, go with Audacity. (upbeat music) The second software option
on our list is GarageBand. GarageBand comes pre-installed on just about every Apple
device that you can imagine, whether it's a Mac book, an iMac, iPad, iPhone, all the i-things, GarageBand comes pre-installed. So some of the pros, it's free,
so you don't have to buy it. And it's pretty easy to use, especially when you start
comparing it to Audacity, which has a lot of
capabilities built into it, but it can take a while to
learn how to use the software. GarageBand's a lot more intuitive, a lot more easy to understand. Now, one thing that you
need to be mindful of when you're editing in GarageBand, is that it has very limited
export capabilities. So a lot of audio editing softwares, when you export your project to make your final MP3 or WAV file, you have a bunch of fields
that you can fill out. You have a bunch of things
that you can customize to make sure that your file
turns out exactly the way that you want it, GarageBand does not. The other thing that GarageBand cannot do is set the loudness level. So if you want to set
your podcast episodes to the industry standard
of negative 16 LUFS for stereo files and negative
19 LUFS for mono files, GarageBand can't do that. So you're gonna have to use
a second piece of software in order to set that loudness
for your podcast episodes. But who GarageBand for? Well, it's for Mac users
that are just getting into podcasting and they want
something that's easy to use, that they don't have
to spend any money on. (upbeat music) The third software on our list is Alitu. Alitu is an internet based recording and editing software
that works on any device. And what's really cool about Alitu is that they have done their very best to speed up the editing
process as much as possible. And you'll notice this,
once you start editing, inside of Alitu. You can bring in your intro and your outro into every single episode. You don't have to add
it every single time, you save it once, Alitu who brings it in. When you import audio files, whether it's an interview
file or a narration file or background music, it will automatically do some
mixing and mastering to that. And then at the end of the
edit, once you're done, you can publish directly into podcast hosting
companies like Buzzsprout. So removing the step of
having to export the file, download it to your computer,
log into your podcast host, upload the file, it
removes all those steps. And when you're doing
that every single week, that time starts to add up. Now, one drawback of Alitu is
that you are kind of limited in the mixing and
mastering that you can do because so much of the
process is automated to really simplify the workflow that just gives you less
toggles that you can adjust. And so if that is something that you are really
passionate about doing, then don't use Alitu. But if you are a busy podcaster that's always looking for
ways to speed up your workflow without sacrificing your audio quality, Alitu is a great solution. And if you're a Buzzsprout podcaster, make sure you check the resources section in your Buzzsprout dashboard, where you can get 50% off your
first three months of Alitu. (upbeat music) The fourth audio editing
software that we recommend is Hindenburg Journalist Pro. It's the one that I use to
edit all of our podcasts here at Buzzsprout. And the reason is that it
has everything that you need in a professional level
audio editing software, without the complexity that you don't. If you've ever looked at Adobe Audition and just immediately felt
overwhelmed and confused about what to do or how to
do it, you are not alone. Welcome to the club. Hindenburg has a lot of
those same level of features that you're going to get
in a software like Audition or even Logic Pro X, but
it's a lot more intuitive. I can blaze through a podcast edit in Hindenburg Journalist
Pro so much faster than I can in any other
audio editing software, simply because of how intuitive it is and how simple the tools
and the effects are to use. And like with Alitu,
you can publish directly from Hindenburg Journalist Pro
into your Buzzsprout account, saving you 10 to 15 minutes, depending on your internet
upload and download speeds and all those extra steps that
really do add up over time. The only drawback to
Hindenburg Journalist Pro is that it is an investment. Audacity is free, GarageBand is free, Alitu is really affordable. Hindenburg Journalist Pro is priced as a pro level audio editing software. But if you are committed to
podcasting for the long haul, and you know that over
the months and the years, these little time savings that you get from using a software like
Hindenburg Journalist Pro is gonna worth it to you, I would highly encourage you to go for it. If you're a Buzzsprout podcaster, you can get 90 days for free. Just go to your Buzzsprout account, go to the resources section, and you can get a coupon
for a 90 day free trial to test it out for yourself. (upbeat music) And then the final recording software that we have started recommending
recently is Descript. And what's really unique about Descript is that rather than
bringing in the audio file, looking at the wave forms
of, that are populated based on your audio and then editing that, Descript creates a transcript. When you go to edit your podcast episode, you can either edit it using
the wave form in the timeline, or you can just edit the transcripts it will make those changes
to the audio underneath. Some of my favorite features from Descript are being able to edit the transcript and knowing that it's gonna
edit the audio underneath it, features like overdub, which
allowed you to fix mistakes, things that you didn't say
that you wish that you said, or that you said incorrectly without having to go back
and rerecord the microphone. And then even things like, automatically removing filler words. Those are huge time savers. Now, the only thing that
I will say about Descript is that when you edit the transcript, it often doesn't give you exactly what you want in the audio, because it is interpreting
the audio wave form, it is trying to make
some decisions for you, but sometimes that doesn't
actually sound the way that you want it to. So you will need to go back, listen to it all the way through. Once you make all your edits to make sure that it is gonna turn
out and sound the way that you want it to, and
that's just an extra step that you have to do with the scripts that you wouldn't have
to, if you were editing purely based on the wave form. But if you're new to
podcasting and the idea of learning an audio editing
software is kind of daunting, but you've been writing
five paragraph essays for your entire life, Descript is a really great software option. And in fact, we're doing a
special giveaway right here, right now in this episode. So if you wanna win a year of Descript, all you have to do is leave a comment below the YouTube video, letting us know how you think Descript would help your podcast editing workflow. And next Monday, we will choose a winner and give you a free year of Descript. Thank you so much for sending
us your question, Norman. Now, if you have a
question that you want us to answer on a future episode, all you have to do is go to
speakpipe.com/buzzsprout, or click the link in the show notes and leave us a brief audio message. Make sure to subscribe to the
Buzzsprout YouTube channel to get future episodes to
the show as they come out, or if you're listening to
this in your Podcast app, make sure you hit subscribe, so you get those new episodes
automatically every week. Well, that's it for today. Thanks for listening. And
as always keep podcasting.
