Yesterday we tried something a bit different. Earlier in the week I recorded a podcast that will be used by Anita at the European Podcasting Summit.

Normally I drop the minidisc off at the studio and either 'help' one of the studio engineers fine tune it or usually leave it to them. It's great fun working in the studio but there is not always time and (even more important) I do know my limitations. These guys have spent years working in audio and video editing. They don't need me to supervise them!

This time we tried something a bit different. After recording the interview I transfered it onto my laptop and used Audacity editing software to do some basic editing. I must admit it was trial and error - and more of the later than I would have liked but after about 30 minutes I was happy that we had pulled together something the studio team could 'polish'. The file transfer was nice and easy as I had the studio talk me throught it.

A hour later the studio team had cleaned up my editing and done the voice-over and added the music.

As a process it worked well however the use of file transfer from a remote location to the studio did reduce the quality from what we would normally have if we had used the original file in the edit suite. 

I also learnt or re-learnt a personal lesson. When you do all stages of a job you get a much better appreciation of what others do and the skills and knowledge they bring to bear. I have got frustrated in the past when the studio engineers have taken what I consider an overlong period of time to edit a recording. Now I understand why. 

Sorry guys.