Yo, I totally feel u on the editing grind! I've been using Auto-Editor and it's LITERALLY a lifesaver—it’s a free command-line tool that’s the gold standard for silence removal.

* Wisecut AI Video Editor (solid free tier for auto-pacing)
* Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve 19 (pro specs, $0 cost)

I mean, manual cutting is basically the worst thing ever... right? gl!

Coming back to this thread—story time: I went through this last year when I started my own channel. I work a 9-5 too, so I totally get the struggle of losing your entire weekend to the timeline.

> manually cutting out every 'um,' 'ah,' and long pause is driving me crazy

Basically, AI tools for editing use silence detection algorithms to scan audio peaks and automatically ripple-delete the gaps. Why it matters? Well, for us hobbyists, it is lowkey the difference between burning out and actually enjoying the process. Manually cutting is just soul-crushing work.

Honestly, I was in the same boat where I couldn't justify the Adobe Premiere Pro sub. I ended up finding Recut by Superpowered. It’s a one-time purchase—I think it’s usually $99, but I grabbed it on sale for $50—and it saved me hours on my cooking videos because it exports a cut XML directly. No monthly fees is huge when youre not monetized yet!

For captions, I discovered Subtitle Edit, which is an open-source hidden gem. It’s 100% free and uses the OpenAI Whisper model for auto-transcription. It looks a bit old-school (be careful with the settings cuz it can be a bit wonky), but it’s super powerful. I also played around with the free tier of Gling.ai which is realy tailored for YouTubers.

It’s definitely a learning curve finding these cheaper tools, but it made my workflow way more sustainable. Good luck with the cooking channel, hope u find a flow that works!! 👍

Man I wish I found this thread sooner. Would have saved me so much hassle.

Just catching up on this thread and there are some solid suggestions already, but I wanted to jump in with a quick word of caution before you dive too deep into those newer AI startups. Honestly, a lot of these beta tools look amazing in the demo videos, but they can be super unreliable for longer projects like cooking vlogs. Ive had times where a free tool crashed during the final export or just plain messed up the audio sync, which ends up wasting way more time than it saves. One thing I am curious about tho... what kind of computer specs are you working with? Knowing if youre on a basic laptop or something with a dedicated GPU really changes what I would suggest, especially for the local AI tools that dont rely on the cloud. Some of the best free stuff will basically crawl if your hardware isnt up for it. Would hate for you to spend hours setting something up just for it to lag out on you.

Hey! Just catching up on this thread. Honestly, I totally get it—editing can feel like a second full-time job when you just wanna show off your cooking lol. I’ve been in that exact same spot where the post-production grind starts to suck the fun out of the hobby.

> I’m looking for tools that can handle things like smart silence removal—manually cutting out every 'um,' 'ah,' and long pause is driving me crazy and taking hours!

So basically, I think you should look at Gling.ai. It's highkey a game changer for the 'ums' and 'ahs' specifically. Technically, it uses an LLM to transcribe your audio first, then it lets you delete the bad takes or filler words just by deleting the text. It's way smarter than basic waveform cutters. They have a trial where your first project is free, and then it’s a pretty fair pay-as-you-go model if you don't want a sub.

If you prefer a one-time purchase to avoid the 'subscription trap,' check out Recut. It’s strictly for silence removal, but it’s lightning fast. It doesn't 'hear' the filler words as well as Gling does, but for nuking pauses, it’s a solid hidden gem that saves hours of manual clicking.

For the captions part, check out Buzz AI Transcription. It’s an open-source tool that runs OpenAI Whisper locally on your computer. It’s 100% free and the accuracy is actually insane. You can export the captions and drop them into the desktop version of CapCut you're already using to style them. It really speeds things up without breaking the bank. Anyway, hope this helps! peace

> manually cutting out every 'um,' 'ah,' and long pause is driving me crazy ^ This. Also, you might want to consider Kdenlive Video Editor. It is a free, open-source project that actually includes a speech-to-text feature for auto-captioning. I would suggest being careful with the initial setup tho, as you have to download some specific AI models to get the transcription working locally. It is a bit of a DIY learning curve compared to something like CapCut, but it is definitely more robust for long-term use if you dont want to be tied to a subscription. I actually started using these open-source tools when I was trying to document my garden projects. I spent way too much time trying to film the growth of my heirloom tomatoes last summer and ended up spending more money on a VIVOSUN Digital pH Tester than I did on the actual seeds. It is funny how a simple hobby turns into a technical project before you even realize it. Anyway, but yeah, that tool should save you a few bucks on the editing side.

This thread is gold. Bookmarking for future reference 🔖