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Start hereWhat is a podcast?A plain-English definition: episodes, the RSS feed, subscriptions and how a podcast differs from a video or a radio show.Start hereA short history of podcastingFrom RSS enclosures in 2000 to iTunes support in 2005, the long quiet years, Serial and the video-podcast era.Start hereSeven reasons to create your own podcastWhy people start shows: expertise, community, a voice, teaching, business, creative practice and long-lived archives.PlanHow to podcast: the four PsThe whole process in four stages: plan, produce, publish and promote. Start here if you want the map before the steps.

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Audacity lessons

GUIDE 08 OF 17

Audacity tutorial for podcasters

Record, edit, level and export a podcast episode in Audacity, the free audio editor, in five short lessons.

Updated

Audacity is a free, open-source audio editor for Windows, macOS and Linux, and it has everything a spoken-word podcast needs. This tutorial takes you from installing it to exporting a finished MP3, in five short lessons. Each one takes about ten minutes.

Menu names here are from Audacity 3.x. Newer versions sometimes move an effect to a different submenu; if you can’t find one, look under the Effect menu for its name. The official Audacity support site documents every version.

The five lessons

Lesson 1

Setup

Install Audacity, pick your microphone, set the project rate and check your recording level before you press record.

Lesson 2

Tools

The handful of Audacity tools and shortcuts podcasters use every day: selection, zoom, play, split, labels and undo.

Lesson 3

Trim and edit

Cut mistakes, tighten pauses, add intro music and fade it under your voice without damaging the original recording.

Lesson 4

Levels

Reduce background noise, even out voices with a compressor and hit the loudness that podcast apps expect.

Lesson 5

Save and export

The difference between an Audacity project and an MP3, the export settings to use, and how to tag your episode.

The podcast workflow in Audacity, at a glance

  1. Set up. Choose your microphone as the recording device, set a 44,100 or 48,000 Hz project rate, and check levels. Lesson 1
  2. Record. Press Record, leave five seconds of silence at the start (for noise reduction), and talk. Clap at the start if you’re recording people on separate devices.
  3. Save the project right away, so the raw recording is safe. Lesson 5 explains projects and exports.
  4. Edit. Remove mistakes and long pauses, add intro and outro music. Lesson 2 and Lesson 3
  5. Clean up and level. Noise reduction, then compression, then loudness normalization. Lesson 4
  6. Export an MP3 with the episode’s title and artwork details in its tags. Lesson 5

Keyboard shortcuts worth learning

On macOS use Cmd where this table says Ctrl.

ActionShortcut
Play / stopSpace
RecordR
Undo / redoCtrl+Z / Ctrl+Y
Zoom in / outCtrl+1 / Ctrl+3
Fit the project in the windowCtrl+F
Split a clip at the cursorCtrl+I
Add a label (marker)Ctrl+B
Delete the selectionDelete

Before you publish: a quick checklist

  • Listen to the whole episode once on headphones and once on phone speakers.
  • No red clipping marks; the loudest peaks stay below 0 dB.
  • Voices are about the same volume as each other and as the music.
  • The episode starts within a few seconds; long intros lose listeners.
  • The project (.aup3) is backed up, and the MP3 has its title and episode number in its tags.

Start with lesson 1: setting up Audacity.