Using “Room Tone” When Editing Podcasts

Room Tone is the slight background “noise” that is captured by a microphone when the podcast participant(s) is not talking or making any other noise.

It can be handy to capture some of this room tone for the purpose of using it in post-production, if necessary, to elongate spaces between people speaking instead of inserting a 100% muted section of audio (which can sound unnatural and jarring).

Personally I don’t deliberately record any room tone — some people do — but usually in a normal recording session there is at least 1-2 seconds of room tone on each person’s track which I can copy and paste somewhere if I need to.

What’s your approach to room tone? Comment below.

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