What is the difference between an audio editor & a podcast producer

Apr 13

Do you know the difference between an audio editor and a podcast producer?

If you’re wondering how you can start taking your podcast to the next level, you might want to think about enlisting the help of one or both of these professional services. But first, you need to know what they actually do!

In this episode, I break down what audio editors and podcast producers do specifically and why you might consider engaging them for help with your podcast.

Audio editors and podcast producers have completely different roles. Audio editors are all about making your audio sound beautiful and troubleshooting audio issues. They are the engineers behind the sound.

Podcast producers, on the other hand, look at the broader strategy to help make your show a really good one. They work to improve the quality of the overall show by being involved in content, guest selection, growth strategy, you name it.

After you listen, have a think about what role you might need to help grow your show.

Bamby Media does it all - so don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Transcript:

00:00
Welcome to Pump Up Your Pod Welcome back to Pump Up Your Pod today I'm talking about the difference between a podcast editor and a Podcast Producer. And what are you getting when you hire one or the other or both of these things.

So here at Bamby Media, we have audio editors. And we also have a Podcast Producer, which is me, that does different things, different roles based on the show the client, the strategy, budget, you know, all the things, the different packages that they are on a Podcast Producer, their role is to oversee the show. So the Podcast Producer is more involved with the quality, the content of that show, as in, they'll listen to episodes, and they will give you pointers, perhaps they'll be in the actual session when you're recording as well and might get you to retake things that maybe didn't sound very good. Or if you've got an interview coming up, they'll help prep the questions, what will make the content sound good, they'll even be a bit more involved in actually getting those guests on the show and making sure that they're good ones worth having on those sorts of things, then looking at the broader strategy around Okay, how are we growing that show? What are the strategic alignments here? What makes this show a really good one.

So that's what a producer does. They're not normally in charge of the actual editing of the show, they will liaise with an editor, but they won't actually sit there and do those kinds of things. Same thing as a producer that works on a radio show or a producer on TV show or anything like that, you know, you often see people with like little earpieces in, if they're on TV, a producer is normally talking to them in their ear, telling them where to go next, or what to say or cut to x, y Zed or something like that. So the producer runs the show, or helps running supports the hosts however the producer can and the producer also is really involved with getting the best out of the talent. So a production role of producer role is extremely important if you have the budget for it. But it's not something that if you are just starting out that you're necessarily going to be able to afford to have a producer on your show that really thinks about the ins and outs of it and how to make it better and how to grow it and all those sorts of things.

And audio editor is the person that will listen to the show, we'll cut out anything that's awkward your arms, your eyes will clean it up, we'll remove background noise when they can, they'll mix it, they'll master it, they'll make it sound beautiful. Providing the audio that they receive is allowing for that. And they'll also troubleshoot any audio type issues, whether there are technical problems or the sound isn't that great, they'll do as best as they can with the E cueing and the compression and that sort of stuff, you know. So it's the engineering behind the actual sound that the audio editors will do. But they won't sit there and think more broadly around. What makes this episode good. What can we cut out to perhaps make it sound better? That question was boring, I'm going to cut that question out. That's not normally something that an audio editor will do as much. So that's something to be aware of, is that just because you hire or when you hire an audio editor, it doesn't mean you're getting someone that's going to look more broadly of how your show is actually going to sound from front to end. What makes it interesting those sorts of things, because that is the producer's role to take that on.

Now, if you can't afford a producer, then that's kind of a role that you have to take on. If you're just starting out. Maybe it's your VA, or maybe it's you personally or someone else in your team, someone that's in charge of content or those sorts of things to be there. Either when you record the episode or after listen to it and go, Okay, that bit sucks. I don't want that in and write the timestamp down. And then give it to the audio editor to actually make those bigger production cuts. If you feel like you want to move the story forward more. And this is a question that really is important to answer because if you're new to the podcasting game, or even if you've been doing it for a while, you might not understand that these are very different roles. And a lot of the time you can't get someone to fit both of those roles for a cheap price. Nor should you because a producer is very different to An audio editor. They are both skilled in very different areas, though as well. So I wouldn't expect my producer to know about how to get the best sound quality, I wouldn't expect them to know how to EQ Well, or use compression, the Podcast Producer probably hasn't gone to university or to TAFE, or, you know, done some sort of further learning on podcast production or audio production. In the sound field, they may have gone to uni or done a TAFE course, or some sort of thing around communications, or broadcasting or television and radio, those sorts of things. That's what I would expect the background of a producer to be audio editors, I expect them to have a degree, if they've been doing it for a while. It's nice if they have a degree in audio production.

And I've found personally that the best audio editors and the ones that work for Bamby Media, they were musicians, they've studied sound in some form. And they're very aware of what makes it good, what makes it really juicy, what good microphones to use, and that sort of thing. So when you're looking at hiring someone to help you with your podcast, you've got to think about that. What do I need? Do I need someone to clean it up and make it sound good? Because I don't have the best quality stuff? Or do I need recommendations around equipment? Someone to cut it up helped me because I'm recording via zoom, or Riverside FM, and I don't know how to do any of that cutting up stuff and making it sound really good? Do I need someone for that? Or do I need someone that can listen to my show and make it better, as in give me feedback, give me strategy give me growth, those sorts of things that you would expect from a producer.

As far as how much you would expect to pay for any of these services, an editor versus a Podcast Producer. audio editing is a professional service. So it is something that someone has been doing for a number of years that they have generally certainly in our case, have a university degree level of production knowledge. And you would expect to pay a premium for that to get a high quality result. Now this isn't always the case, because we can't Polish turds, like, well, we can but we can only Polish it so far. So if you give us crappy audio, or if you give us audio that perhaps you recorded with your air pods or you recorded outside, you weren't using the proper microphones, you know those sorts of things like we can only do so much. But we will do the best possible job that we can with what we're given. And sometimes that's what you need, you just need someone that can EQ it, compress it and make it sound really good for or as good as it can with what you have.

Now I'm going to put a bunch of links in the show notes here, just if you are looking to upgrade your setup, I'll give you what I think is just the best quality setup for a small budget, so that you can at least get a good microphone happening and those sorts of things. And there's also a really good YouTube video that I have that is just talking about how to improve your home recording setup, I will link to that as well.

And then for a Podcast Producer, this is the person that is more involved with your show, every week, they do the scripting planning with you, they talk to the guests that you're gonna have on the show, they might set up the Riverside studio room, they'll get that person on, they'll check the podcast recording setup to make sure that it is going to be high quality session. They're much more involved with you. And you get to have quite a fun relationship with your Podcast Producer, expect to pay a premium for that, to have them more involved with your show because they are invested in building it and really getting it to take off.

So both of these things are professional services, but they're very different professional services. I don't advertise my podcast production services as in as a producer myself, I don't advertise that. We have audio editors and I audio edit as well from time to time when needed or depending on the size of the show and the budget and that sort of thing. Then I'll do audio editing as well. But from a podcast production point of view, that is a whole different thing. So I do have a few clients that I produce. And then I helped grow and search for guests and T things up and more broadly around the social strategy and those sorts of things. Really take them one on one run through that. And if that's something that you're interested in, you can certainly reach out to me hello at Bamby Media and maybe just put that in the subject line Podcast Producer service or something like that. So that I can give you a bit of a rundown as to what that actually looks like. But you have to be at a level where you're really ready to be taking that further. To have a producer involved is very different to having an audio team involved to make you sound good.

I hope that clarifies that question for you, you probably didn't even know that you needed to know what that was. If you have any questions, hit me up, you can go to the website Bamby media.com. If you want to know anything more, you can also join our free community, the pod lovers.com join in there I curate information and I share it in there once every couple of weeks. Anything that I think is cool, that might be interesting for podcasters and people that are looking to start their own shows or grow them. And there's a bunch of other things that are coming from within the Bamby Media Team and company as a whole shortly. So stay informed through Instagram for that Bamby underscore media. And yeah, there's lots of fun stuff going on. Have a good day, guys and thanks for listening to my voice.