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Editing spoken word
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Some basic principles of editing the spoken word It's really not right to say that editing is only a technical skill. Or only an editorial skill. Good editors have both technical and editorial skills. The technical process exists to make your editorial ideas a reality. So before we discuss editing spoken word audio, let's consider some of the philosophy behind editing. The audio medium is generally an immediate but brief medium. Longer pieces of audio - especially longer pieces of the spoken word - tend to work only for specialist audiences. And even for specialist audiences, there is little room to be indulgent. As a general rule, you should always aim to create as short a piece of audio as possible. It's about saying as much in as little time as possible. I have an old saying that I share with people working in audio or radio production. The more you say, the more your listener forgets. Always aim for brevity. An important aim of editing the spoken word is to shorten your material and make it easier to understand. It’s about cutting out any piece of content that you don’t need to convey your story. When we talk about content we mean both the words that are spoken and some of the more subtle communication tools that don't get written down. Such tools include inflexion, expression, silence, and time. A pause can be more powerful than a thousand words. Good editors will listen to a piece of spoken word and take out any word or sound that doesn't add to the meaning of the sentence. Therefore, when you edit your material, think about how you can make your content quicker and easier for your listener to understand. Personally, I like to cut out anything I don’t need. A ruthless cutter creates understanding more quickly. Editing Audio in Audacity Before you edit your voice track, it is important to understand what the voice track is and how it visually represents sound. Non-linear editing packages like Audacity, enable you to see where the audio starts and ends. They do this by showing the wave form. The wave indicates spoken word or noise. The flat line indicates silence which may be a pause, breath or moment of silence. We have indicated the moments of silence in yellow on the diagram below. The words (or sound, if you are editing sound) are blue.
Cutting out selections of audio When you have recorded a piece of audio, you will want to cut some parts of it out. If it’s an interview, you may want to chop the irrelevant comments out. You may also like to cut out “umms” and “ahhs” or stutters so it sounds smooth. To edit, you need to first select the Selection Tool which is at the top left of the Audacity’s tool bar. By clicking on the selection tool, you can select parts of the audio which you may want to cut out.
Once you are in selection mode, you can now select sections of your audio track. If you look at the track below, you can see there are two audio sounds. In this case, the first sound is a spoken word. The second sound is merely the person clearing her throat. If we want to cut out the sound of the throat clearing, we need to select it and then delete it. Selecting audio on an audio track is like selecting text in Microsoft Word. Move your mouse to the start of the sound, left click and hold your mouse button down as you roll your mouse over the sound your want to select.
Once you have selected this section of your track, you need to check that it really is the sound you want to delete. You need to be sure that the section you have selected doesn’t start too late or early. And you want to be sure it doesn’t end too late or early. To check this, click the play button at the top of Audacity. Whenever a section of audio is selected, the play function will only ever play what has been selected. If you don’t want to use your mouse to play back the audio, simply press the space bar of your computer’s keyboard. The space bar both starts and stops audio playback. If you are sure you want to delete that section, hit either delete or backspace on your keyboard. It’s gone. You should now listen to how the whole sequence sounds. Click the rewind button and press play, or your space key, and you can hear the audio sequence. If you like it, move on to your next edit. What if you cut the wrong track? If you cut the wrong track, go to the top menu of Audacity. Click the Edit menu, and then click undo. Alternatively, you can use the undo button on the toolbar, or Control Z.
Breathing and rhythm The traditional method of editing audio involved actually cutting quarter-inch audio tape and then splicing it back together. Before digital audio editing, we could not see the wave form and had to make decisions based on our ears. Editing in the traditional way meant we were more focused on how we heard the audio than how it looked on the screen. Be careful when you edit to always check how your edit sounds. When we speak in general conversation we follow a rhythm or beat. It is easy to cut a section of your audio out in a way that makes the speech sound unnatural. The only way to avoid this is to listen back to your edits. Make sure you do this.
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Text copyright © 2006,2007,2008 Jonathan Halls. All rights reserved. Website copyright © 2008 Talkshow Communication Ltd and Licensors. All rights reserved.
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