Your videos are so helpful, thank you! As someone pulling my hair out (and destroying my wrist) spending hours every day editing audio, this is all great info. Going to take a look at Hindenburg, because the ability to edit from a text transcript is really what I need.
Thanks for the comment. It's always nice to hear that these videos are helping people out there. There's not much I can do to help save your hair, but I have some advice for the wrist. When I first started editing, I was getting a lot of pain in my wrist. In my case, I was using the Apple Magic Mouse. I quickly realized that it's not a very ergonomic mouse design. I ended up choosing the Logitech MX Master and the days when I feel wrist pain are much, much less frequent. It is programmable and has a horizontal and vertical scroll wheel, which makes it so I can do 85% of my Hindenburg editing from the mouse.
@xanthepaige9456 I know it has been for me, not only in terms of wrist pain, but also in terms of efficiency. Are you editing for yourself, others, or both? Interviews or solo episodes?
@@jesse.mccuneI’m editing for myself - I record and edit at least an hour of finished audiobook content basically every weekday, so the more efficient I can get, the more of my daylight hours I can reclaim!
@xanthepaige9456 I would think the combo of Hindenburg and a programmable mouse should help you reclaim some of those daylight hours. Those two elements provided me the biggest time savings. The rest has come from repetition from practice and editing.
Agree with all these! Super afraid to make a DAW change though... I've got Audition dialled in pretty well, but I've considered Reaper for the customisability and flexibility. Not sure if its worth moving except to save some money though.
I had hesitation to change, but I knew I needed to because Logic wasn't working for me. If you really think about it, most of the learning curve is in learning how to edit, not necessarily how to use the DAW. If you've got Audition dialed in, you have a good idea how you like to work. If you have the time, demo Reaper and play around with it and see if it offers anything that would speed things up. I'd also encourage you to check out. Hindenburg. The learning curve there will be minimal since it's so straight forward, but coming from Adobe, maybe not. I'm not sure about Windows solutions, but on Mac, there are a number of software options that can help you customize things in your DAW. Hindenburg doesn't allow any customization, but using Keyboard Maestro and Better Touch Tool, I have been able to create custom macros and keyboard shortcuts that further streamline my workflow.
I've used most of them and am sitting here screaming "REAPER!" at my screen. It is whatever you want it to be. It's not just that you can customize the keyboard, it's that you can customize and bind any SERIES of actions to a key or even mouse buttons for that matter. I can do everything I want in 1/2 the clicks and can edit in 1/2 the time. All of the even stock plugins work incredibly well for podcast.
Hindenburg doesn't do this natively, but with Keyboad Maestro and Better Touch Tool, I can do the same thing. It does save a lot of time and repetition. I don't need many in Hindenburg because the workflow is already that efficient, but it's definitely a time saver in other areas of my computer. So many common actions that I make can now be performed with a single key command or button push on the Stream Deck.
Garbage in garbage out, I try to have the best audio before I start to edit and I agree Perfection does not exist. I record my raw track with Sound Studio as well as the rough cut then adjust the levels with Youlean Loudness Meter and finish with either ProTools or Logic depending on what I’m aiming for.
@misterradio663 That's the dream, isn't it? We'd all have good audio for everything. When it comes to editing for others, we are at the mercy of the client's engineering skills and the equipment the guest has. The best shows I work on control all of that by providing equipment and having someone in the recording session who has a basic understanding of how to position a mic.
Have you found a plugin to automatically fix DC offset (RX calls it phase)? I still find myself using RX standalone for that. (And I still sometimes do use the spectral editor to fix little bits here and there. But I find that those little bits are becoming less common as other tools get better.)
DC Offset and phase, or more accurately, asymmetric waveforms are related but different things. I'm guessing you're asking about a replacement for RX's Phase tool, though. This might be sacrilege, but I don't worry about it. It's something that, in theory, we should care about, but it really isn't a problem with dialog if we're gain staging well and compressing the audio. Even if we correct the asymmetry, most plugins that mimic analog behaviors will add asymmetry back in. Let's put it this way, I haven't messed with asymmetric wave forms, let alone looked to see if any audio has them in about a year now. While editing, I listen with everything fully mixed at delivery volume. Over the course of that year, I haven't heard anything that made me think that an asymmetric waveform was the culprit. So, for me, it's a non-issue until I hear that it's causing a problem. Worst case scenario, there are a few extra samples that are limited or the audio gets compressed a little more than it needed. In the overall scheme of things, I put this in the category of things we spend time on that makes no difference to anyone listening. But that's just my opinion. 😀
There's no denying that it's a powerful DAW, but I'm not sure it would be the ultimate time saver for me. The layout and workflow isn't in alignment with how I think and work. It's better than Adobe where everything is backwards and unintuitive for me. But that's just me. We all need to find the best DAW for ourselves and the way we think and work. It won't be the same for everyone.
@@jesse.mccune But that's kind of a moot point because you can set up workflow however you want to. It's kind of like you're saying "I like chocolate, not vanilla." "OK, here's chocolate, the best kind of chocolate." "Oh, well... I don't want that." And also, I refuse to pay a massive price or pay monthly for my chocolate. I used Logic (and others)... that was terrible. Protools, also not great. Hindenburg... Eh.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear in communicating my thought or I’m not quite understanding your analogy. To me, Reaper, Audacity, and Audition are different flavors of chocolate. I don’t like chocolate, so I’m going to choose vanilla. It’s more than simply workflow, it’s the logic and how they function at the core level. For me to use them efficiently would require me to change how I think and approach things at a fundamental level. Much like I’m a Mac person because Windows doesn’t work for me. There’s nothing wrong with Windows and it’s definitely the right choice for a lot of people, it’s just not right for me. It’s why there’s no correct answer to the question “What is the best DAW?” The best DAW is the one that allows you to work most efficiently with minimal frustrations or headaches. It sounds like you found that in Reaper. I did not.
@@jesse.mccune I don't need to be right here, I think most of the people arguing that their DAW is better are ridiculous. I am making the point that the Reaper workflow is completely adaptable in so many ways and wonder what about the workflow didn't work for you. What didn't work? Also, there is the point about getting nickeled and dimed to rent software every month (or spending $400) versus a $60 one time fee. Best...
@getstew I figured you're not trying to be right. I saw it as a conversation. For me, maybe workflow wasn't the right description. The best way to describe my issue is that it forces me to change how I instinctually approach things, or more specifically, I would have to change how I think in order to make Reaper work for me. That means I'm fighting the software too much and it's not the right choice for me. I always felt like I was fighting when I had to do anything on a PC. That's why I switched to Macs in 2001. Same with Adobe. I can't wrap my head around the Adobe logic...everything seems to work the opposite of how I expect it to work. Maybe that makes sense?
Your videos are so helpful, thank you! As someone pulling my hair out (and destroying my wrist) spending hours every day editing audio, this is all great info. Going to take a look at Hindenburg, because the ability to edit from a text transcript is really what I need.
Thanks for the comment. It's always nice to hear that these videos are helping people out there. There's not much I can do to help save your hair, but I have some advice for the wrist. When I first started editing, I was getting a lot of pain in my wrist. In my case, I was using the Apple Magic Mouse. I quickly realized that it's not a very ergonomic mouse design. I ended up choosing the Logitech MX Master and the days when I feel wrist pain are much, much less frequent. It is programmable and has a horizontal and vertical scroll wheel, which makes it so I can do 85% of my Hindenburg editing from the mouse.
@@jesse.mccune I love this! Had the tab open to buy it after watching your video, sounds like a game changer. Thanks again!
@xanthepaige9456 I know it has been for me, not only in terms of wrist pain, but also in terms of efficiency. Are you editing for yourself, others, or both? Interviews or solo episodes?
@@jesse.mccuneI’m editing for myself - I record and edit at least an hour of finished audiobook content basically every weekday, so the more efficient I can get, the more of my daylight hours I can reclaim!
@xanthepaige9456 I would think the combo of Hindenburg and a programmable mouse should help you reclaim some of those daylight hours. Those two elements provided me the biggest time savings. The rest has come from repetition from practice and editing.
Agree with all these! Super afraid to make a DAW change though... I've got Audition dialled in pretty well, but I've considered Reaper for the customisability and flexibility. Not sure if its worth moving except to save some money though.
I had hesitation to change, but I knew I needed to because Logic wasn't working for me. If you really think about it, most of the learning curve is in learning how to edit, not necessarily how to use the DAW. If you've got Audition dialed in, you have a good idea how you like to work. If you have the time, demo Reaper and play around with it and see if it offers anything that would speed things up. I'd also encourage you to check out. Hindenburg. The learning curve there will be minimal since it's so straight forward, but coming from Adobe, maybe not. I'm not sure about Windows solutions, but on Mac, there are a number of software options that can help you customize things in your DAW. Hindenburg doesn't allow any customization, but using Keyboard Maestro and Better Touch Tool, I have been able to create custom macros and keyboard shortcuts that further streamline my workflow.
I've used most of them and am sitting here screaming "REAPER!" at my screen. It is whatever you want it to be.
It's not just that you can customize the keyboard, it's that you can customize and bind any SERIES of actions to a key or even mouse buttons for that matter. I can do everything I want in 1/2 the clicks and can edit in 1/2 the time. All of the even stock plugins work incredibly well for podcast.
Hindenburg doesn't do this natively, but with Keyboad Maestro and Better Touch Tool, I can do the same thing. It does save a lot of time and repetition. I don't need many in Hindenburg because the workflow is already that efficient, but it's definitely a time saver in other areas of my computer. So many common actions that I make can now be performed with a single key command or button push on the Stream Deck.
Garbage in garbage out, I try to have the best audio before I start to edit and I agree Perfection does not exist. I record my raw track with Sound Studio as well as the rough cut then adjust the levels with Youlean Loudness Meter and finish with either ProTools or Logic depending on what I’m aiming for.
@misterradio663 That's the dream, isn't it? We'd all have good audio for everything. When it comes to editing for others, we are at the mercy of the client's engineering skills and the equipment the guest has. The best shows I work on control all of that by providing equipment and having someone in the recording session who has a basic understanding of how to position a mic.
Have you found a plugin to automatically fix DC offset (RX calls it phase)? I still find myself using RX standalone for that.
(And I still sometimes do use the spectral editor to fix little bits here and there. But I find that those little bits are becoming less common as other tools get better.)
DC Offset and phase, or more accurately, asymmetric waveforms are related but different things. I'm guessing you're asking about a replacement for RX's Phase tool, though. This might be sacrilege, but I don't worry about it. It's something that, in theory, we should care about, but it really isn't a problem with dialog if we're gain staging well and compressing the audio. Even if we correct the asymmetry, most plugins that mimic analog behaviors will add asymmetry back in.
Let's put it this way, I haven't messed with asymmetric wave forms, let alone looked to see if any audio has them in about a year now. While editing, I listen with everything fully mixed at delivery volume. Over the course of that year, I haven't heard anything that made me think that an asymmetric waveform was the culprit. So, for me, it's a non-issue until I hear that it's causing a problem. Worst case scenario, there are a few extra samples that are limited or the audio gets compressed a little more than it needed. In the overall scheme of things, I put this in the category of things we spend time on that makes no difference to anyone listening. But that's just my opinion. 😀
I made a comment below now I will scream it. The ultimate time saver: REAPER!!!!
There's no denying that it's a powerful DAW, but I'm not sure it would be the ultimate time saver for me. The layout and workflow isn't in alignment with how I think and work. It's better than Adobe where everything is backwards and unintuitive for me. But that's just me. We all need to find the best DAW for ourselves and the way we think and work. It won't be the same for everyone.
@@jesse.mccune But that's kind of a moot point because you can set up workflow however you want to. It's kind of like you're saying "I like chocolate, not vanilla."
"OK, here's chocolate, the best kind of chocolate." "Oh, well... I don't want that."
And also, I refuse to pay a massive price or pay monthly for my chocolate.
I used Logic (and others)... that was terrible. Protools, also not great. Hindenburg... Eh.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear in communicating my thought or I’m not quite understanding your analogy. To me, Reaper, Audacity, and Audition are different flavors of chocolate. I don’t like chocolate, so I’m going to choose vanilla.
It’s more than simply workflow, it’s the logic and how they function at the core level. For me to use them efficiently would require me to change how I think and approach things at a fundamental level. Much like I’m a Mac person because Windows doesn’t work for me. There’s nothing wrong with Windows and it’s definitely the right choice for a lot of people, it’s just not right for me.
It’s why there’s no correct answer to the question “What is the best DAW?” The best DAW is the one that allows you to work most efficiently with minimal frustrations or headaches. It sounds like you found that in Reaper. I did not.
@@jesse.mccune I don't need to be right here, I think most of the people arguing that their DAW is better are ridiculous. I am making the point that the Reaper workflow is completely adaptable in so many ways and wonder what about the workflow didn't work for you. What didn't work?
Also, there is the point about getting nickeled and dimed to rent software every month (or spending $400) versus a $60 one time fee. Best...
@getstew I figured you're not trying to be right. I saw it as a conversation. For me, maybe workflow wasn't the right description. The best way to describe my issue is that it forces me to change how I instinctually approach things, or more specifically, I would have to change how I think in order to make Reaper work for me. That means I'm fighting the software too much and it's not the right choice for me. I always felt like I was fighting when I had to do anything on a PC. That's why I switched to Macs in 2001. Same with Adobe. I can't wrap my head around the Adobe logic...everything seems to work the opposite of how I expect it to work. Maybe that makes sense?