Audience Engagement Digital Publishing Top Stories
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The best podcast editing software: Top 5 picks for publishers

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With nearly six years of weekly podcasts under our belts, we know the importance of choosing podcast editing software that will fit around your workflow. Whether you’re an experienced audio nerd or a podcast beginner, there are a range of tools on the market at a variety of different price points to suit your budget.

We frequently get asked for podcast editing software recommendations. Here are our top five, and what you’ll need to budget for them.

Adobe Audition

Cost: From £19.97 a month, or included as a part of a Creative Cloud All Apps subscription

Adobe Audition is the most well-known editor. It’s used widely by the music industry as well, so the tools are over-powered for podcast editing. However, a subscription comes with free access to their library of tutorials, so if you’re prepared to invest a little time in learning the ropes, there’s very little Audition can’t do.

It’s pricey though. If you’re at a publisher with a corporate Creative Cloud subscription, then it’s worth adding this in. But smaller publishers or freelancers might find this a little out the price range, and there are alternatives which work just as well for podcasts.

More information over at Adobe


Audacity

Cost: Free

Audacity is an open-source audio editor and recording software. It’s incredibly popular (helped by it being free), and recent upgrades have added non-destructive clip editing, which makes it much easier to tweak podcast audio. 

For basic podcast editing, Audacity has everything you need. However for more complex projects or sound which needs extensive mastering, you may need to look at a software with more specific features. 

If you’re just dipping your toes in the world of podcasting, Audacity is a low-commitment place to start, if you’re happy with the dated interface.

More information over at Audacity


Hindenburg Pro

Cost: From £8 a month, one-time download also available

Hindenburg Pro has been designed specifically for podcast and radio production. It’s got a number of automated features which speed up the workflow like auto-levelling, and its range of filters to enhance audio and reduce background noise are easy enough for an audio newbie to get tracks pretty clean-sounding.

It’s not the most intuitive of tools for a first-timer, but they do have a helpful library of short YouTube videos to get over any initial hurdles. Hindenburg also has a one-click publish to the major podcast hosts like Podbean, Buzzsprout and Spreaker which again helps streamline the publishing process.

More information over at Hindenburg*

*Hindenburg is what we at Media Voices have chosen to use after testing all these audio editors. A few months after purchasing a subscription, we had a chat with the Hindenburg team and they’ve given us a year free in return for an advert each week in our newsletter. This is a referral link which will get you an extended three-month trial if you’d like to try Hindenburg out.


Descript

Cost: Free tier with limited features, or from $12 a month

If you have no experience with audio editing at all and are more of a text person, this might well be the tool for you. In Descript, you edit the audio by editing text. In fact on the Pro tier, you can overdub – add words or correct mistakes in speech using an AI clone of your voice.

Descript also has a video editor, as well as a bunch of collaboration tools like multiple user editing, commenting and shared folders to make things just that little bit simpler. One word of warning though – if you’re used to working in audio and having a lot of control over things like music fades, you might hit frustrations with Descript. It also has quite a steep learning curve for some of its features as the terminology can be quite confusing, although there are plenty of tutorial videos to help.

More information over at Descript


Reaper

Cost: One-time download for $60 (discounted) or $225 (commercial licence)

Reaper is an incredibly powerful audio editing tool close to Audition in terms of functionality, and far cheaper. It has full multitrack editing and plenty of cleanup tools, and also supports a wide range of plugins and extensions so the workstation can be totally customised to your needs.

This is one for the real audio nerds. For a straightforward podcast edit, it might be a bit much, and it’s definitely not the most intuitive tool on the market. But it comes with a free 60 day evaluation, so it’s worth giving a try if you want an affordable but comprehensive digital audio workstation.

More information over at Reaper


If you’re a publisher with a podcast or thinking about starting a podcast, join us at the Publisher Podcast Summit this coming October 5th – the only conference dedicated to helping organisations like you master podcasting. Find out more at publisherpodcastsummit.com