Podcast and interview editing · London
Kroko Montage Limited
Send us the files you came out of the room with. We take out the pauses and the repeated sentences, pull the background down, bring the voices level with one another and put the episode together with the music and stings you supply.
Four lanes: two microphones, the room they were both in, and the material you supply
Host
One mic, close, the loudest thing in the file
One mic, close, the loudest thing in the file
Guest
Recorded somewhere else, so it never matches on the way in
Recorded somewhere else, so it never matches on the way in
Room
Chairs, a fan, a street outside: pulled down, not cut out
Chairs, a fan, a street outside: pulled down, not cut out
Music & stings
Your intro, your outro, your bed: used where you hold the rights
Your intro, your outro, your bed: used where you hold the rights
Lanes are drawn, not recorded. Nothing on this page plays, and none of these shapes came off anybody's episode: they show how a session is laid out and why the number of separate tracks changes how long an edit takes. One file with everybody already mixed into it is a different job from four files that still have to be put together, and both are quoted for.
Before and after
Throw the switch and the same stretch of a recording is drawn twice: as it came out of the room, and as it goes out to your listeners.
Two drawings, not two recordings. Nothing on this page plays: there is no audio anywhere in this project, and neither shape was measured from anybody's episode. Both are computed from one description of a recording, and the notes beside them are built from that same description, so what moves between the two drawings is what the editing moves. Your own files are never published here or anywhere else.
Two drawings, not two recordings. Nothing on this page plays: there is no audio anywhere in this project, and neither shape was measured from anybody's episode. Both are computed from one description of a recording, and the notes beside them are built from that same description, so what moves between the two drawings is what the editing moves. Your own files are never published here or anywhere else.
The work
In this order, because each one changes what the next one has to deal with. Which of them an order needs is settled in the quotation.
Long pauses, false starts, repeated sentences, the question asked twice because the first one did not land. The episode keeps its argument and loses the time it took to find it.
A fan, a fridge, a street, the hiss of a microphone turned up too far. Noise reduction is applied by ear and only as far as the voice will take it: pushed past that, speech starts sounding like it is underwater, and that is worse than the hum.
A host on a good microphone and a guest on a laptop arrive nothing like each other. Levels are balanced between speakers and across the episode, so nobody has to reach for the volume halfway through.
Your intro, your outro, your bed and your stings, placed and levelled against the speech. We use the material you supply and that you hold the rights to; we do not add music of our own.
The episode as a lossless WAV and as an MP3, named the way your publishing platform expects, sent by email or on a download link.
The whole of it, operation by operation, is on the Episode editing page.
Packages
A package is a shape of job rather than a price list. Six things decide how much work an episode is, and a written quotation settles all six before anything starts.
| What is looked at | Why it changes the work |
|---|---|
| How long the recording runs | Everything is listened to before anything is cut, so the length of what arrives sets the floor under the work. |
| How many separate tracks there are | One mixed file is one job. Four microphones still to be put together, each with its own noise and its own level, is another. |
| How much has to come out | A tight conversation needs tidying. A recording with long detours, retakes and dead air needs deciding as well as cutting. |
| What condition it arrived in | Clean, close microphones are quick. Clipping, heavy room sound or a guest on a phone line take longer and reach less far. |
| What has to be assembled | Speech only, or speech with your intro, outro, beds and stings placed and balanced against it. |
| What you need out of it | One master, or a master plus the formats, versions and naming your platform and your clips need. |
Figures are not published here. Work is priced per episode or per agreed batch against the recording in front of us, in pounds sterling (GBP), and the quotation states one total figure with any tax due on it already inside it. Nothing is added to that figure afterwards. The three shapes a job takes are set out on the Packages page.
How an order runs
Nothing is charged for and nothing is started until a written quotation has been accepted.
The files, or a link to them, and what you want done. The form on the Contact page assembles that brief for you; an email with the same information in it does just as well.
We go through the material before quoting for it, so what comes back is a figure for your recording rather than a figure for a recording in general.
The quotation names the scope, one total figure in pounds sterling, the date the files are due and how many rounds of changes are included. Nothing starts until you accept it in writing.
By bank transfer on an invoice, by card or through PayPal, on the secure payment link in the email. This site takes no payments: your card details go to the payment provider and never reach us.
WAV and MP3 by email or on a download link, with the agreed rounds of changes to come back to us afterwards.
What to send, what shape it should be in and what happens to it afterwards is on the How it works page.
Music and stings
Intros, outros, beds and stings come from you. We place them and balance them against the speech, and that is the whole of our part in them.
Before an episode is built we ask you to confirm that you hold the rights to use every piece of music and every sting in it, whether it was written for you, licensed from a library, or covered by a subscription. Where a licence needs checking we would rather wait than build an episode round it.
We do not supply music, we do not license it on your behalf, and we do not put anything into an episode that you have not sent us. An episode built on material you turn out not to have the rights to is a problem that lands on the publisher, and publishing it is the step we cannot take back for you.
Tell us what is on it and what you want done, and you get a written quotation back before anything is edited or charged for.
