(Upbeat Music)
Trent
Welcome back to the Snow Homey Show podcast playground.
(Upbeat Music)
Trent
We're out here playing with podcasts, learning how to do them and just, yeah, have some fun doing something that is so popular right now.
So we've been talking a lot about a lot of things, right? We've started the whole journey from who you're talking to, what's this audience, how do you want to get things going? And we've developed it and brought it to where we've recorded something last time. We specifically dove into how do you edit your audio? What are the commands? What do you do with your mouse and your keyboard to actually make the audio be the sequence and what you want it to be? And that's a big part of it, right? Like you kind of need to get that flow. You need to know what the content is you're gonna say. Maybe you run your audio through a transcript service ahead of time so you can kind of know where the time cuts are going to be, how you want to cut it. And we just kind of walked through that whole process. And we honestly still haven't gotten to one of the most fun parts. And that's once you kind of know the content where everything wants to be, it's adding in that music, that sound effect, all of those fun things that make it just pop and so much more enjoyable and make it a show.
Just me talking on an audio kind of like with this podcast. It's fun, you get the information you need. But imagine there's an epic build as I'm telling this dramatic story and I'm going through this and bam, it hits. So that's where you can really actually pull in a lot more of the emotion for your listeners and have more of that impact is by building in music that fits the mood that you're trying to say, sound effects to emphasize points and just really have more fun and make it that experience. And this is honestly one of the most important things. And in a lot of podcasts, you don't necessarily think about it these days because they are these conversational interview ones. The only real kind of like design work, I guess, I'll call it is the intro music and the outro music. Maybe they have some sort of interlude music in between an intro to their guests. And you miss out on some of the fun stuff of actually building a podcast, building these stories.
So don't be afraid to have fun with it as you're telling your story, as you're putting this together to really add that in. And what that looks like from editing perspective is very similar to how you did it with your voice and what story you were telling with your voice. You're telling the story now with the music. The way I like to do this is kind of have my voice tracks down what the story is, the content, the flow, how long it's going to be. And then I'll go in and kind of add the music of like, okay, I want the music to build in for four or five seconds to kind of set the tone before I hear this person start speaking. Okay, they mentioned, hey, we were walking through a crowded street in Milan. How do I bring in that sound effect? Where do I go to find that sound effect and really build that out so that I'd add something. Hey, we were listening to raindrops falling on this tin roof.
That's an easy sound effect that you can either go record or you can go find online. We'll talk about where to find those here in just a second. And that's really what you want to do is go through piece by piece, making it all flow together. Sometimes I'll actually add more spaces or change the pacing of my wording and what has been said to help match what's happening with the song. So if a song is moving over along in a nice clip like this, but then the person is talking very disrupted like this, it's not gonna give you that flow, right? It's gonna clash a little bit. So this is where it almost takes a particular ear. I'm sure there's some science to this that I do not know the history or the background on. And I will say it takes more of an ear, a certain way of thinking and listening where like taste comes into it, right? You have to just know, hey, this sounds good. I like the way this sounds. And again, this is your playground. So right now you really just need to focus on, okay, I like the way the sounds and this isn't quite what I want. And take your time with it. I feel this is also an area where people have been like, oh, I just need to get this on. I wanna rush through this. No, this is where you can make the biggest impact. You can really influence how people feel in your podcast and listening to your podcast through the sound design, through the sound effects and the music that you're putting in there. So take your time with this. Now I'm sure a lot of you are asking, well, Trent, where do I go find this? Do I need to worry about copyright? Do I need to worry about licensing?
Yes, you do need to worry about copyright and licensing. And the way I like to handle a lot of this is go look for these royalty-free sites. Royalty-free is a very interesting realm right now because you kind of need to almost be a lawyer and a lot of this to truly understand what it is. One of the sites I like to use is called Pixabay, P-I-X-A-B-A-Y.com. They have great royalty-free licensing, right? So when we talk about all of this in the songs and everything you're using, it's really all about licensing. Do you have permission? Do you have the license to be able to go and use the song, use the sound effect, use whatever you are doing? A lot of royalty-free sites out there. And when you read the fine detail, not all royalty-free is the same.
There are very different licenses. Creative Commons is one of the license types. And there's like even three or four different Creative Commons license types within that. So you really need to look at, understand what is this coming with? Some of them are like, yeah, this is free. And you need to do attribution. So you have to be like, hey, you can use this, but you really need to let everyone know that you're using it. Some of them, they don't care about that. Some of them, you can only use it if it's for personal projects. Putting it out with a podcast, they can flag you. They can come after you and say, stop using this or pay me money.
So that's where not to scare anyone, but it is really important to understand the licensing. Find a site and a source that you trust and you understand the licensing. Do your research to figure this out. For something small and might be a part-time thing for you, you're just testing out. Don't want big bad lawyers coming after you when you can take a couple minutes to just look at the content license for the material that you are using. So keep that in mind as you're going. So again, for me, my process would be like, I'm going through, I'm listening to this. All right, I kind of know the vibe I want. So I'm gonna go into Pixabay again, my kind of go-to right now. I really like their content licensing. And when you can't find the thing that you want, you can also go out and record it yourself. Maybe I have a handy like portable microphone system, recorder or something. Let me take it out there and record it. That is a perfectly good example too, right? That's where a lot of this creativity comes in at this part of once you kind of have your message, know the content, you get to add all this extra judge, all this extra fun stuff that makes it over the top and you get to be really creative with.
And you can find that online with content that people already have for you, or you can go and create it yourself depending on how much time you have, X, Y and Z. A good example of what it's like to add all these sound effects, how that changes the tone. Go listen to an earlier episode that I did with this called the Seabird tragedy. That was with Taylor Russell narrating. And then I did a lot of the design on the backend to really kind of drive home and make it feel immersive and make it feel like you were there and emphasize the story that was being told. Again, it sounds very different than this kind of episode. So make sure you go listen to that one. And a new one that's coming out that's gonna have a lot more sound design, a lot more to it to just make you feel like things. It's called from pitch to Puget sound. That's all about how we were getting ready in Snohomish County for this big soccer summer that we have coming up, as well as share some of the history of soccer in Washington. There is a lot there and it goes back a lot earlier than a lot of people might realize. So go listen and find your design, figure out what kind of sounds you wanna add other than just the voice and the story that you're trying to tell. Because those sound effects, those extra things can add so much. Also, I will say, cause I had a hard struggle with this in the beginning, but don't be afraid of silence. Sometimes having silence or spacing between your words to add in more sound effects are also really important, really vital and can help tell more of a story than trying to just get through everything, putting the words right stacked next to each other or trying to do too much. So this is one of those you really have to go play.
And it is one of the most fun to go in the sandbox to play in this area. Cause there are so many choices, never ending thing, and there's no wrong answer. You can do what sounds good to you. You can play around with it. You can adjust, you can make new sounds. You can do everything. It is such an unlimited box there of what you can go create. So make sure as you're going through and editing, once you have your story down with your voice, go and play with those sound effects. Go play with the music. Go figure out what works, what helps tell your story. And don't forget to have a little fun along the way.
We'll catch you next time here with the Homish Podcast Playground. Don't forget to have some fun.