Closing the podcast gap
Adding import to Bumpers
Before Bumpers, the gap from casual voice-notes to produced podcasts was almost insurmountable: it required studios, microphones and professional editing tools. When Bumpers launched two months ago we began to close this gap so you could create high quality podcasts without significant technical effort. With import which we are launching on iOS today, we continue to close the gap between recording a voice-note and producing a podcast by allowing Bumpers to become more and more customized.
Before Bumpers, the gap from casual voice-notes to produced podcasts was almost insurmountable.
Bumpers will never replace podcasts. I want to evolve podcasts to a point where anyone, anywhere can create one. I want to see what people do when they aren’t restricted by a recording studio, audio engineering degree, and don’t have hours and hours to spare.
That’s why the creation experience within Bumpers is both our differentiator and our focus. I want to make Bumpers the easiest and greatest place to record and produce audio content.
Tap to remove
When editing a podcast, the most common action is cutting and removing audio. From our research most podcasters spend 5+ hours editing, and only remove around 15 minutes of tape from their original recording. First, you identify what part of the recording you want to remove, then you find the boundaries of those phrases to cut them out. Like a surgeon, you need to find the exact right place to cut. This is by far, the most tedious part of the podcasting process and the one with the biggest learning curve.
Bumpers does this cutting for you. The app uses machine learning to find the best places to cut based on pauses in your voice and the way phrases are strung together. We spent the first 6 months of working on Bumpers designing and implementing it. That work laid the foundation for what we believe is the best audio editing experience available, and we plan to continue to improve and build upon it.
Segues
I think the first really exciting experience within Bumpers is when you begin to add music segues. We use the same cutting feature to allow you to insert segues (sound effects) from our library with just a tap. Each segue is original to us, was made by our amazing producer who happens to also have made many a viral song, and we’re constantly adding more. (If you have any requests please email us!)
Whether you want to insert a gasp after a shocking sentence, or begin your Bumper with a catchy little instrumental, adding these elements is the first time you really feel like you are creating a podcast. All of a sudden, the recording goes from voice-note to produced episode, all with the help of a little air horn.
Adding these elements is the first time you really feel like you are creating a podcast.
One take recording
The first editing features we built allowed you to edit your recording down by removing parts you don’t want. As of now, over 50% of content made on Bumpers is edited. Though the one take requirement of the original editor was limiting, people made some great Bumpers over the last two months.
But not every story can be told in one take. While making Bumpers, I have often found myself wanting to add more to my recording. Sometimes I want to include a quick explanation or clarification, or combine a before and an after Bumper into a single episode.
Import & Re-recording
To solve this, today we are releasing import. You can now name and organize your drafts and import them into a Bumper. This will allow people to create an intro that they use in all of their Bumpers, interject commentary into an already recorded conversation, or just record many things over time and merge them all together.
Back while we were in beta Yung Costanza and Top Shelf Tyson did before & after Bumpers of their night. I really enjoyed them and it was the one of the first really exciting moments of Bumpers being in other people’s hands for me. The episodes didn’t quite work though because you had to have one Bumper as the before and then another as the after, when really they should just be one. I think this is the first time I really wished we had import.
Alison does a great podcast called The Intern and there is one part where she is negotiating a raise (click that and listen I promise) that she keeps interjecting her thoughts of “why did I tell him that?” and “Stop laughing why are you laughing” and we all just really loved the style. The idea of being able to easily and quickly do those kinds of edits got me really excited for re-record.
So Journalists, activists, or anyone with ideas bigger than the current edit, this update’s for you.
Ian Ownbey and Jacob Thornton started Bumpers.fm in June of 2015. You can find them both on twitter @iano and @fat.
PS. My cofounder Jacob also redid the entire website to let you login and subscribe to people via the web. He did this in the same time it took us to build the entire import feature and really flexed so check that out also.
