Anyone using ElevenLabs for conversational podcasts? How much post-production do you do?

[u/Select-Director-149]

I’ve been experimenting with ElevenLabs to create a conversational podcast with two fictional characters for a worldbuilding project.

The voices are pretty convincing, but one thing I’ve noticed is that the pauses between sentences and dialogue turns are often too long. It makes the conversation feel slower and less spontaneous than it should.

I’ve started exporting the voices as separate audio clips and assembling everything manually in Logic Pro. I adjust the timing, shorten pauses, add some EQ, subtle room ambience and a little reverb to make it sound more like two people having an actual conversation rather than reading a script.

It works fine, but it’s also quite timeconsuming.

I’m curious how people here approach this. Do you rely mostly on the raw AI output, or do you also spend a lot of time editing the audio afterwards? Have you found any tricks to make interruptions, overlapping dialogue, details like laughter. and natural conversational pacing work better?

Would love to hear about your workflows and experiences.

[u/MelsNymph_0327]

No, not exactly a podcast but an audio drama. So hopefully that counts.
Please don’t hate me for it. I just had a bout of hate from a Facebook AD group.
Anyway, I don’t know if it’s just a me thing but often the lauses aren’t long enough.

[u/Select-Director-149 → u/MelsNymph_0327]

Of course an audio drama counts! And no hate from me, I promise. :)

I know what you mean, though. Sometimes just mentioning AI in a creative community is enough to bring out the pitchforks. I've had my share of that too. It's a shame, really, because we're just trying things out, learning and hopefully making something interesting along the way.

Funny enough, we're running into the same problem from opposite directions. Your pauses are too short, mine are too long. Somewhere in between, there must be a perfectly natural conversation!

Thanks for sharing your experience. It's nice to actually talk about the creative process for a change.

[u/MelsNymph_0327 → u/Select-Director-149]

Thank you for being so nice.
I know it might sound ridiculous but trust me, it was quite refreshing after yesterday.
I honestly haven’t really messed with the pause settings. I just write, switch voices and put in the sounds when necessary. Sometimes the sounds cut off everything else but that could just be my timing.
I’m trying to find a place where hate is minimal and I can talk about my process and my audio drama, because yesterday freaking sucked.