For this assignment in COM561, we’re tasked with revising our two-minute interviews to create a polished, high-quality result. The entire process has been incredibly valuable for familiarizing myself with Adobe Audition’s editing tools. I was venturing into uncharted territory with this software, so it was a significant learning experience. As someone who enjoys a good audio experience—whether it’s audiobooks, podcasts, or ASMR—it was exciting to get some “behind-the-scenes” insight into audio editing.

My first step was selecting an interview subject with an interesting story to share. I asked my friend Jay, who is currently visiting Japan for the first time, if he’d be willing to talk about his experiences. He agreed, and we initially tried a phone call but switched to Zoom for better audio quality. I prepared a short list of questions to prompt Jay to reflect on how Japan has influenced his cultural perspective. Our conversation lasted about 30 minutes, which provided ample content to distill into a concise two-minute clip. Jay’s responses included some natural pauses and “thinking aloud” moments, which made for several hours of editing but offered a great lesson in how much effort goes into crafting clean, cohesive audio.

I found the editing process to be both time-consuming and satisfying. After uploading the Zoom audio to Adobe Audition, I listened through, marking sections of interest and making initial cuts. The razor and cropping tools quickly became my best friends as I removed filler words, pauses, and segments that didn’t contribute to the core story. I also relied on zooming in and out to make precise edits, allowing me to seamlessly join segments while trimming away extraneous content. For background music, I explored Creative Commons and found a subtle piano melody that complemented our conversation well. Using the fade tool, I gradually lowered the music as Jay answered his final question, creating a natural, polished ending. Finally, I uploaded the interview to SoundCloud and submitted it.

After submitting, I received very encouraging and helpful feedback from my peers. They noted that the interview had a professional quality, with clean audio and engaging content, and they appreciated the soft background music, saying it enhanced the flow. I also received helpful suggestions for improvement, including adding pauses between certain clips to allow the audience time to process, and balancing the audio levels for consistency throughout. One peer specifically mentioned adding a pause at the 1:42 mark, where Jay mentions “cheering for the Dodgers.” I addressed this by slightly expanding the clip, and to improve flow, I decided to cut the phrase “for the Dodgers” altogether, which resolved the issue without causing confusion. During this second editing round, I figured out that you can select multiple clips by clicking and dragging across the clips, just like you can select multiple elements in Adobe InDesign. This made moving the clips around so much easier!

While one peer suggested increasing the music volume, I decided to keep it at its current level since I wanted the music to act as a subtle background element, supporting but not overshadowing the voices. Reviewing my peers’ work was also insightful; one classmate’s interview included a “preview” segment before the formal introduction, which reminded me of how YouTubers do this to pique interest in the full content at the beginning of their videos. I didn’t use that technique here, but I’d definitely like to try it out for future projects. To complete my second round of editing, I carefully listened through the audio, adjusting the volume by adding control points to fine-tune the levels and try to create a consistent, balanced sound throughout.

Overall, this assignment has been a rewarding and satisfying deep dive into audio editing, and the feedback I received has been so helpful for refining my work. Thank you to my peers for your feedback, and to you, dear reader, for listening!

Without further ado, please enjoy my interview with Jay about his first visit to Japan: https://soundcloud.com/sarahsmagic/final-audio-interview