How to Edit Podcasts & Interviews in Adobe Premiere Pro (Beginner-Friendly Workflow)

Editing podcasts and interviews inside Premiere Pro can feel overwhelming when you’re new, especially with multicam angles, messy audio, and long tangents.

This guide walks you through the exact Premiere Pro workflow used by professional editors, and how modern AI tools like Premiere Assistant help speed up rough cuts, transcription, silence removal, and multicam prep.

Whether you’re transitioning from audio-only tools or leveling up your interview videos for YouTube and TikTok, this guide walks you through the whole workflow step-by-step.

Who This Guide Is for:

• New podcast & interview editors

• Premiere Pro users expanding into video podcasts

• Creators repurposing content into short-form clips

Also read: Podcast & Interview Editing in 2025: The Complete Guide

Why Use Premiere Pro for Podcast & Interview Editing?

Premiere Pro gives editors something other platforms struggle with: total control. You can refine timing, pacing, reactions, and overall delivery in a way that keeps audiences engaged.

Here’s why so many podcasters choose Premiere today:

• It offers precise timeline editing, which is ideal for making conversations flow naturally.

• Premiere handles multicam podcasts extremely well, with reliable audio-based sync.

• It includes transcription and text-based editing, making long-form dialogue much easier to cut.

• It supports plugins and AI-powered extensions that speed up repetitive tasks.

• It is compatible with every major camera, microphone, and format used in professional podcast production.

Premiere gives you both creative control and workflow speed, especially if you repurpose content into short-form clips later on.

Step-by-Step Guide: How To Edit a Podcast in Premiere Pro

Step 1: Set Up Your Premiere Pro Project

Proper setup saves hours of cleanup later. Start by organizing your files before importing anything into Premiere.

Podcast editing folder structure

A good example layout looks like this:

This structure makes every element quick to locate when editing.

Import settings when importing footage into Premiere Pro

• Before importing, name camera angles clearly and attach metadata so you always know which track belongs to which speaker. If you recorded audio separately, make sure each file is labeled with the correct microphone or role.

• After importing, keep camera file names intact for relinking reliability later on if you ever need to relink video files to the project.

• Label speakers immediately inside your project (e.g., A = Host, B = Guest)

Should You Use Proxies in Your Podcast Editing Workflow

Step 2: Sync Your Multicam Podcast Footage

Most podcasts involve at least three angles: a host camera, a guest camera, and a wide shot. Premiere’s built-in tools make syncing these angles fairly simple.

Using Premiere’s native multicam sync

1. Select your cameras and audio files in the Project panel.

2. Right-click and choose Create Multicamera Source Sequence.

3. Choose Audio as the sync method.

4. Verify that all angles and audio tracks align properly.

5. Create a sequence using the synced multicam clip.

Premiere will generate a unified multicam clip that lets you switch angles in real time while editing.

Using audio waveforms

• Useful when multiple recorders are used

• Make sure sample rates match (48kHz vs 44.1kHz mismatch causes drift)

Tips for Clean Multicam Workflows

• Set the Wide camera as Angle 1

• Group all audio tracks into one master layer

• Enable [Audio Follow Video] when switching angles

Want to avoid manual syncing?
Selects (your soon-to-be go-to podcast editing software) auto-syncs video and audio, creates an auto assembly cut, and hands off to Premiere easily.

Step 3: Transcribe Your Episode Using Premiere Pro

Transcripts are one of the biggest workflow upgrades for podcast video editing.

Generating the transcript

• Go to the Text panel and click Create Transcript.

• Premiere will detect speakers and label them automatically.

• Review speaker names and correct if needed.

Utilize text-based editing instead of the timeline

You can highlight a sentence in the transcript and simply delete it; Premiere removes that section of the video instantly. This prevents awkward pacing while removing mistakes and repeated thoughts.

Tip: Instead of scrubbing through the timeline to find moments, AI podcast editing software like Selects lets you search your episode like a document before you’ve even handed off the file to Premiere Pro.

Search for phrases like “That part about marketing,” or “Funny moment,” or “Sponsorship conversation.”

Step 4: Remove Silences, Cut Filler Words & Tangents

One of the most common podcast editing mistakes is not paying attention to disfluencies in speech. Every podcast has silences, hesitations, and hedging, to name a few obstacles.

• Long pauses

• False starts

• “Um,” “like,” “you know…”

In podcasts, timing matters. Long pauses and filler speech can make an episode drag or distract from the topic being spoken about. It’s important to prioritize silence and filler word removal to improve viewer retention.

Using transcript-based editing to remove silences in Premiere

You can either manually delete gaps in the transcript of Premiere Pro or use Cutback’s flagship plugin tool, Premiere Assistant, to do it automatically.

Premiere Assistant can automatically identify long gaps in conversation. You can review them and delete with one click.

Removing fillers automatically

Words like um, uh, like, and you know can be removed through:

• Search in Transcript

• Bulk delete

• Manual pacing correction afterward

Premiere may still struggle with nuance. If you want smarter silence detection that understands topic flow, both Premiere Assistant and Selects can:

• Remove repeats and retakes

• Remove awkward pauses and silences

Then create or hand off a clean rough cut into Premiere.

Step 5: Build Your Rough Cut

Once your content is cleaned up, it’s time to shape the conversation.

Switching camera angles: Cutting between speakers

Cut to the guest during reactions or emotional responses. Cut to the host when asking questions. Let the audience feel the flow of a real conversation.

If a sentence needs rephrasing or a section is removed, a wide angle helps cover the jump cut seamlessly. Alternatively, if you have your stringout finalized and have moved into the rough cutting phase, consider using B-roll instead.

Using markers

Press M to mark:

• Key insights

• Funny interactions

• Clips worth repurposing later

These markers become your short-form clip goldmine.

Step 6: Polish the Episode

This is where your podcast starts sounding professional.

Podcast audio cleanup

• Normalize volume differences between speakers

• Use gentle crossfades between cuts

• Smooth out loud breaths or pops

Improve vocal quality: EQ & vocal enhancement

• Add EQ to warm voices and reduce harshness

• Apply compression to keep voices consistent

• Use light noise reduction to remove hum or hiss

Premiere’s built-in voice enhancement tools can handle most cases well.

Adding music & sound effects

• Keep music low (-12 to -18 dB under voices)

• Include sound effects to create an immersive video

• Brand your intro and outro

Small polishing touches make a big difference.

Step 7: Export Settings for Podcasts & Interviews

Your final export depends on where the episode will be viewed.

Tip: For client collaboration or team feedback, upload your rough cuts to Frame.io, which allows timestamped comments and visual markup directly over your podcast timeline, so changes are crystal clear.

Bonus: How Selects Complements a Premiere Workflow

Premiere is excellent for refining the final story, but the prep work can eat hours of your time.

Use Selects before handing off to Premiere for:

• Auto-syncing footage instantly

• Removing long silences automatically

• Cleaning filler words with better accuracy

• Building a structured stringout in under a minute

• Generating AI-found viral clips

• Creating chapters and topics automatically

Then, finish your edit in Premiere with full control.

Related Guides to Continue Your Workflow

• Podcast & Interview Editing in 2025: The Complete Guide

• How To Edit Multicam Footage Automatically in Premiere Pro

• How to Automatically Create Podcast Clips for Social Media

For more in-depth knowledge and modern podcast editing tips, check out our latest posts on the Cutback blog or our YouTube channel. You can also join Cutback’s Discord community of like-minded video editors.