How You Can Exploit Podcasting's No-Code Future

The “no-code” revolution is changing the digital economy right before our eyes. Here’s how a similar “no-waveform-manipulation” approach to how we make podcasts & episodes can (will?) change podcasting forever.

July 6, 2020

Article

There’s more to podcasting -- much more -- than editing an audio waveform. Yet the ability to manipulate an audio file remains one of the biggest stumbling blocks -- and is sometimes a non-starter -- for many podcasters and would-be podcasters.

And you know what… maybe manipulating an audio waveform isn’t something we need to do in 2020?

I know that's a crazy and heretical thought. but bear with me for just a moment. This is a big and heady topic, worthy of the launch of Season Three of Podcast Pontifications, I think.

The No-code World Is All Around Us

If you're not familiar with the no-code revolution happening across all forms of development, it's a big deal. But “no-code” doesn't mean that it’s super easy to throw together a great web page, web app, or mobile app with little thought. No, that's was the promise (and failure) of the old WYSIWYG editors of the late ‘90s, early ‘00s, which output more garbage code than anything.

Because, as it turns out, you actually need to spend some cycles thinking about how websites and apps should function. Much like you should spend some cycles thinking about all the bits and pieces that make up a quality podcast episode.

What today’s no-code revolution is doing is removing the literal language barrier between interface design and interface production. Designers can now create entire websites without having typing out a single line of HTML or CSS. Or they can make chatbots to respond to advanced questioning. They may not pass the Turing test, but they can get users to a relevant help article pretty quickly. Some are even making entire mobile apps without once opening up a code editor or without having to choose what language the app will be developed in.

The idea of developing without code sounds really, really strange to anyone who’s ever written code. But once you’ve worked your way through a no-code development process (podcastpontifications.com was completely deployed by me earlier this year without writing a single line of HTML or CSS), you quickly learn these new no-code tools are extremely powerful.

We Don’t Have Code, But We Do Have Waveforms

In podcasting, we work with audio, not code. And while we’ll certainly never go “no-audio” (that rather defeats the point), we might go to “no-audio-waveform-manipulation”, which arguably isn’t nearly as sexy or succinct as “no-code”, I concur. But ignore the clunky phrase and continue exploring with me.

As I said early, manipulating the audio waveform in an audio edging program is a big stumbling block. Many people want to tell great stories, but not all of them (or even most of them) are great at editing audio. They either lack the patience or the skills, and many have little interest in learning the vagaries of professional DAWS like Hindenburg Journalist Pro, Adobe Audition, Reaper, or even the cheap-slash-free tools like Audacity and Garage Band.

And because they lack those skills, one of three things happens to people with stories to tell:

They farm out the audio engineering work, which comes with its own challenges
They choose to skip the DAW altogether and just record-and-release straight from their mobile phone, usually making a crappy product
They say no to podcasting

But thanks to some innovative tools that didn’t exist (or weren’t as full-featured as they are today) a couple of years ago, they have a fourth option which doesn’t require them to manipulate the audio’s waveform at all. At least not directly in the way we do with our professional DAWs.

No, The Future Is Not Lazy Podcasting

There are plenty of tools that allow you to record quickly on your mobile phone and load your ramblings to a podcast hosting company. Some of those services even allow you to mix in audio, take guests, and all the other trappings of podcasting.

Those tools are not the equivalent of no-code in podcasting. Those tools, at least in their current state, are the equivalent of WYSIWIG editors from two decades ago. And I do not endorse them. (Though I do realize that some people can make great art with those tools, mostly because they aren’t trying to replicate podcasting, but I digress…)

Editing is still a crucial part of the podcasting process. Almost without fail, a podcast episode is best when it is carefully constructed. It’s the “how” and the “where” that construction (manipulation) happens that’s the question.

“No-code” for podcasting allows us to un-relegate waveform manipulation from a chore we give to an audio engineer and make it an integral part of the episode construction process. Not that anybody can do it, mind you. Nor does it mean that the audio is automagically made perfect. Someone with a vision and a design still needs to be in charge.

Even the word-choice changes how you might approach a podcast. Would you rather edit a podcast episode? Or would you rather design a podcast episode? The former is more old school. The latter sounds much sexier to me, and I’m still a member of Team Edit.

If we can make the shift from an editing-mentality to a design-mentality, it’ll likely cause us to re-think our entire approach. Perhaps even more exciting, it might provide an in-road to a profession that hasn’t previously played a key role in podcasting: interface designers.

“Does This Podcast Make My Butt Look Too Big?”

Interface designers don’t need to care about the underlying code. They just need to care how the interface works, since it’s the interface layer that the user interacts with. They never see the code.

Designing for audio is similar. Listeners don’t interact with the waveform, they listen to the audio. Beyond those looking at the bouncy, squiggly line in an embeddable player or an audiogram, the visual representation of the audio -- the waveform -- is completely unnecessary to enjoy listening to the sound. Oscilloscopes were never designed as a household tool, yet here we are 80 years later still waving our waveform flags proudly.

The audio -- not the waveform -- is the interface in podcasting. Yes, I know we have apps in the mix, but those interfaces are mostly for discovery and navigation. The real engagement happens at the listening level. Who says we need to manipulate a waveform to really design really great audio?

No, You Probably Shouldn’t Give Up Your Daw Just Yet

Mainstream adoption of these waveform-less tools for podcasting is still in the future. The handful of companies making tools are constantly refining their programs and adding new releases at a breakneck clip. This means things are very much in flux, so I don’t recommend giving up your tried-and-true DAW just yet.

But what we working podcasters should be doing is making room to try out these new tools on our next project. For me, I’m looking at using these tools to help me land some projects that didn’t quite fit in my business practice before. I know it’s important to keep abreast of new tech, so I’m willing to spend some of my own time to learn what can be possible with these new tools. It’s one of the many ways I maintain perspective. Now what we're doing right now, we don't want to hurt the sound. We don't want to impact we're doing, we've got that figured out.

… But You May Want To Give Up Your Freelance Audio Editor

A lot of working podcasters farm out their audio waveform editing. And while I’m not suggesting you ditch your engineer immediately, I do think that some podcasters will be able to do just that by embracing these new waveform-less tools and services. This is especially true for “podcasting teams” rather than solo endeavors. It’s quite possible that one of the team members is great at interface design and would take these tools quite quickly, changing how episodes move from concept to final publishing.

What happens to your entire process of podcasting when you remove audio waveform manipulation as a requirement? What happens when you can go from a great idea in your head to a ready-to-publish episode without ever cracking open a DAW? The no-waveform-manipulation world is already here, and it may be right for you.

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Thanks for letting me stumble through the first episode of Season Three of Podcast Pontifications. I shall continue to produce these episodes and articles every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, just like with the two seasons that came before. Yes, I’ll continue exploring the future of podcasting by surfacing concepts and ideas that you and all working podcasters should be thinking about as we continue making podcasting better.

If you like, you may go to BuyMeACoffee.com/EvoTerra and leave a couple of shekels for me. It’s a nice way to say you appreciate the insights I bring forward.

Most importantly, please tell a friend that the show is back. Maybe they didn't jump into Season Two or One because they wanted a fresh place to start. That’s not really necessary, as my episodes tend to be both episodic and evergreen. But this could be the fresh start they were looking for. So please tell another person who has a podcast, is struggling with their podcasting, or is looking for new angles to break into podcasting. I would appreciate that.

And most importantly, I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!

Transcript

How You Can Exploit Podcasting's No-Code Future - Transcript

Evo Terra: [00:00:00] The no code revolution is changing the digital economy right before our eyes. Here's how a similar, no wave form manipulation approach to how we make podcasts and episodes can change podcasting forever.

[00:00:20] Hello, and welcome to another podcast. Pontifications with me, Evo, Tara, there's more to podcasting than audio editing and editing a wave form of an audio file. Much, much more. You have the ability to manipulate an audio file remains the biggest, a stumbling block. I see. I've seen sometimes making it a complete starter for people who want to get into podcasting and you know what, maybe we don't need to manipulate audio wave forms anymore.

[00:00:58] I know that's a crazy heretical thought, but bear with me for just a moment as we talk about the future of podcasting as I reboot and actually just launched season three, if you will, of podcast pontifications we might want to think about this big heady topic. If you're not familiar with the no code revolution in all sorts of development.

[00:01:18] It's it's, it's just that you don't actually write any code whatsoever, but that doesn't mean. That just anybody can throw together a website really quickly. No, no. That's the old Wiziwig editors of the late nineties, early two thousands, which were utter and complete garbage. No, this no code revolution is letting people create, letting designers really create web pages without having to know the intricacies of HTML.

[00:01:44] But it goes much beyond that. You can use no code to develop. Chatbots, you can use no code to develop apps that go on mobile devices or work in browser to do very specific things. So the no code revolution means you don't really have to know a programming language because in the prayer decades, we've had programming languages, lots of libraries have built and built lots of things that stuff slowly dissolves its way into the background.

[00:02:10] All that. Text that doesn't look like very great things and lets people who are better interface designers come forward because they just pull the tools that they need. And it sounds really weird until you've actually done it. Once you do it, you quickly learn that wow, these new, no code tools are really powerful, which makes me think about it's that similar revolution in podcasting.

[00:02:35] And I think. Our version of code when it comes to podcasting, is that wave form and the ability to manipulate the web, the wave form to make it do what we want it to do. As I said, previously is a big stumbling block. Lots of people who want to tell great stories are just not into editing audio, the way that you want.

[00:02:57] I working podcasters out there, edit audio. They're not interested in learning. Professional Daws like Hindenburg journalists' pro or audition, or even Reaper, or even the cheap stuff. That's free audacity and garage, man. It lets you make a lot of mistakes with your audio. It really does, but you can also do a lot.

[00:03:15] I know plenty of professional engineers who do a lot with audio using, um, using audacity or garage band. So it, it can totally work that way. I'm not saying that it can't, but this. I want us to think about a no wave form manipulation approach to podcasting, because I think it's, I think it's coming. We already have some tools out there right now, and I'm not endorsing any of them.

[00:03:39] So I'm not mentioning any of them. If you know how to reach me, you can reach me and I'll give you some insight on that. But there are lots of tools that make it easier to make a podcast it without ever really editing. A wave form. Now that can be garbage, right? That can be utter garbage. There are plenty of tools that allow you to record quickly on your mobile phone and load a podcast episode up to the, to the web.

[00:04:04] I'm not talking about tools like that. That's just choosing to be lazy and not editing your work. I still think you need to edit. I still think a podcast episode is best when it is constructed, manipulated properly. Not always. There are certain cases where it can be. But there's just a lot more creativity you have as a podcast or when you are doing some production level of work.

[00:04:29] So if we remove the chore of wave for manipulation and change it to where anybody. Well, not necessarily anybody. See, I think that's the, that's the big difference. No code doesn't mean you, the person sitting at home can create a wonderful program. You still need the theory. You still need to think about things and you need to design something.

[00:04:54] It's really about design this no code revolution, lets designers do amazing thing. So think about it in a podcasting way. What about. Podcasting designers. What about designing a podcast, which is what I think a lot of the high end podcast, especially the high production value podcasts. They're really more designers where designers with the no-code revolution have a they're really interface designers, because that's what you're dealing with.

[00:05:23] You're not dealing with no human deals with the underlying code of an app webpage really. It's all presented in a, in a display layer. That's why designers and the interface layer can do good work. Designing for audio is the same way because no one really sees the wave form, you know, unless we're looking at a player and, you know, the, the embeddable player that shows it, or sometimes an audiogram, but come on, but it really looks at a form, right?

[00:05:49] Oscilloscopes this is not 1940s anymore people. This is the, you know, 2020 here we are. Who still money play this wave for. So think about taking that out and making just the audio as the user interface that that's what people are enjoying the audio. So why not just really design great bits of audio without ever having to manipulate a wave form it's happening right now.

[00:06:14] And it's just getting started. I mean, this, these, these tools are less than a couple of years old, really from way and mainstream adoption really hasn't got them. So. For working podcast was like you and me who already know how to manipulate wave forms. I think we still keep manipulating our wave forms.

[00:06:32] There's no reason for us. To really change for the project we're working on today. What we can do as working podcasters is we can start embracing these tools and start trying these tools out on our next project. Now what we're doing right now, we don't want to hurt the sound. We don't want to impact we're doing, we've got that figured out.

[00:06:55] But we need to think about things from what new tools can we learn? What new skills can we learn? What new things, how can we let our wings spread more? If we're not in, at wave form editor, making our changes, it'll change our perspective, I think, and for the working podcasters who contract out with people to do their way form editing, which I know a lot of people do.

[00:07:20] Hm. Now you've suddenly have a whole new skill people with skillsets. You've not really worked on before. You're not really worked with before, because one of you don't need someone to really manipulate the wave form. If you have this, the software, these other pieces of the well they're all software, right?

[00:07:36] That's going to help you or somebody else on your team. If really the designer minded person might be able to utilize these new tools in such a way where you don't really need an audio engineer, at least not in the way we have audio engineers today. So maybe that's something you could pursue as well.

[00:07:58] Maybe you're a great at designing podcast. You've got these great ideas in your head, but you can't really do all the audio engineering work. If we are working in a no wave for manipulation world, maybe you can. I think whether that's where the future might be headed. So thanks for listening to me, stumble through my triumphant return.

[00:08:22] Season three of podcast pontifications has begun. It shall continue every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, just like before. Still talking about the future of podcasting and the, um, the things you should be thinking about in the podcast in space, still doing that kind of stuff. You can also still go to buy me a coffee.com/evo Terra and leave a couple of shekels for me, would like keep the campaign campaign, keep the train rolling along.

[00:08:50] And most importantly, please tell a friend that on the show is back. Maybe they didn't listen to season two. Cause they were in the middle of it. They want to start fresh. Season three is a great way to begin. So tell another person who has a podcast or is struggling with podcasting, listen to this. Cause here's a future that you might actually envision.

[00:09:06] I would appreciate that. And most importantly, I shall be back tomorrow with yet another podcast. Pontifications cheers.

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