Edit Your Voiceover With Spoken Flub Markers

You can record a voiceover in one rough take and have your muse do the editing. You say each section's name out loud as you record, say a set phrase when you mess up, and the muse cuts the bad takes, keeps the good ones, and lines the cleaned audio up with the matching picture or slide.

What it does

The muse transcribes your recording and uses your spoken markers to find the edit points. Each time you say a section name, a new segment starts. Each time you say your flub phrase, it knows the take just before it is scrap and the retry that follows is the keeper. It can also speed the finished track up, for example to one and a half or two times the original pace, and match each section of audio to the frame, slide, or scene it belongs to. The result is a set of finished pieces ready to download and post, without you opening an audio editor.

How to use it

1. Get the sections ready first. Ask the muse to break your article, lesson, or notes into short sections or frames, and read them over before you record.
2. Pick a marker phrase you would never say by accident, such as the section number spoken at the start of each part.
3. Record one single take on your phone. Start every section by saying its marker out loud.
4. When you stumble, do not stop the recording. Say your flub phrase, say the marker again, and redo that section.
5. Send the recording to the muse and tell it the exact marker and flub phrases you used.
6. Ask for any speed change you want, then listen to the finished pieces before you post them.

What you need

• A phone or computer recorder that saves a plain audio file
• The sections or frames written out before you start recording
• A muse account

What to watch for

• Record somewhere quiet. Editing can cut bad takes, but it cannot clean up a noisy room or a muffled voice.
• Keep the markers exact. If you vary the wording from one section to the next, the muse may miss a cut point, so check the joins between sections on your first listen.
• Speeding audio up changes how your voice sounds. Try a small increase first and listen before you settle on a fast version.
• The muse prepares the pieces, you decide what gets posted. Hear the whole thing once through before it goes out.