I linked to a BuzzSprout tutorial a few weeks ago.

https://old.reddit.com/r/podcasting/comments/cuia3y/how_to_edit_a_podcast_in_audacity_2019/

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Here's a quick tutorial on Audacity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAGCBO2bIcw&t=7s

It's got the basic structure as well. I hope it's useful!

This is what you need. So many step by step guides. Login and enjoy free - Link

Is it something in particular that you’re struggling with? Or is it just general Audacity advice that you’re after?

Theres a pretty good Google doc that gives a general tutorial (+ links to required FREE extensions) on how to get your audio to sound nice post-recording but it leans towards a more bass-ier voice, so take it for what you will.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fmS0Wp6EantjSmQiBnPWyCCOSNpiawjgCOdUJknKbnE/edit?usp=drivesdk

1. Get a mic that is not the Blue Yeti (I love the Rode Podmic USB)
2. Get it about three finger widths from you and point it at the corner of your mouth.
3. Have a windscreen/pop filter
   Check out Mike's Video https://youtu.be/WsmMMKRZp5g?si=dUsIEp7HjXEkvOOi

Moderator Required full disclosure: I am the head of Podcasting at Podpage and the founder of the School of Podcasting.

After I've done all the narration, I make sure to go through the following editing.

Noise Cancellation (Absolute MUST to have decent quality)

Equalization (look on youtube for walkthroughs of which settings give you a good EQ curve for voice)

Normalization

Compression

Then re-do the Normalization.

Quality comes out much better than the raw recording before edits.

compressor EQ and limiter

Define "professional". If you are talking about why your voice doesn't sound like you THOUGHT it should sound, no.

That is just what you sound like. We all went through it.

I get a lot of background noise in my recording so i use the noise reduction tool to get rid of it. Highlight a section of your audio without you speaking > noise reduction > click on get noise sample, then highlight the entire audio > noise reduction > ok. It will take a fe seconds to apply the reduction if your audio is more than 30 mins long.

Here’s the basics.

EQ - high pass filter is usually a good idea. You can also set bands for increasing/decreasing the low/mid/high end depending on your voice/mic

Compression - reduce peaks, add some makeup gain, use a fast attack for vocals

Limiter - bring up your levels to the correct loudness and cap peaks

Loudness meter - monitor your Lufs for -16 stereo or -19 mono, youlean is free but I think I couldn’t get it to work with audacity, there’s another one that starts with a d and has. 5 in it, can’t remember right now

Just wanna note that your signal into the mic will go a long way towards better sound audio. Most of my time these days is spent improving poor mic technique instead of shaping. If your mic tech is good then probably boosting the low end with eq a few db and compressing is gonna make it sound pretty good. You can also subtractive eq in the mid/mid-low end to reduce some muddiness as needed

Check on YouTube, there are tons of videos about audacity and podcast or voice over.

Thank you so much for this! I'm incredibly new to editing and I've been trying to gain a better understanding of a good order of operations to make things easier for me, but more importantly better for my listeners with each episode. This is super valuable!

This is a really great guide for any podcasters who want to get into learning Audacity.

This is such a useful guide! Thank you for sharing this!

On mobile the text is super thin. Nice write up though

Thanks everyone for the kind words! If anyone has any advice for updates to the guide I'm all ears

1. uninstall Audacity
2. install Reaper
3. enjoy

Here's mine, it's a few years old, but should still work. https://youtu.be/e4-T9h7EmeE

There's a short tutorial under setup on our website. www.unpanderers.com

Here is my audacity tutorial

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When you're ready for something a bit better I'd recommend Reaper which I also have a tutorial of.

Audacity is great for editing and basic recording, especially since it’s free. But if you’re recording interviews or remote guests, I’d recommend checking out Riverside fm. It records each person locally (so no quality loss from internet issues) and uploads automatically. I still do final edits in Audacity, but having high-quality source tracks from Riverside makes a big difference.

Depends on what the issues you're experiencing are. What are you looking for in the word "better"? Is there something you wish would happen faster? Something that's missing from Audacity?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it and if you don't know what you're missing, the blissful ignorance is a boon.

Audacity is pretty easy for a newbie. Free too!

Recording audio? The standard sound recorder is lightweight and free. All software records the input so there is no difference in quality.

Editing. That is a different question.

For a podcast, I've got a recommendation to use Riverside for the start.

Do use speech compression (loudness, not data rate - two totally different things with similar names).

Use it, but don't overdo it.

Why? Because you only have so many 'bits' of loudness before you get distortion, and the loudest sound (aka 'normalized') sets that maximum in your track. But most speech in your track won't be nearly that loud.

With speech compression, you grab those loud peaks and pull them down some. Now your track is all well below that digital ceiling, and you can pull everything up and make it (somewhat) louder. That's where not overdoing it comes in. A little is good. A lot is fatiguing to listen to.

The deets: While recording in Audacity, make most of your audio peaks hit about -15 dB. That leaves you room for someone to get excited and loud - hitting maybe -5 or so - without clipping. But that's a uselessly low audio track, so in 'post' (in editing) you have to bring it up. Set your 'threshold' at about -18, and your ratio about 4:1. Now any audio that rises above -18 is held down. If it starts 4 dB above your -18 threshold (so the peak hits -14), the result will be only a 1 dB increase. Finally raise the output (sometimes called 'makeup gain') so peaks reach around -3. Set a hard limiter at -0.5 dB and you catch those occasional transients that get really loud and keep them from clipping.

Just listen to the podcast and if it sounds bad, make it sound better. Others have mentioned best practices, and some of those things will work for you and some won’t. Try stuff and see what you like and what sounds good.

These are my steps for editing:

1. Clean up each track
   1. Noise Removal on Audacity (best NR I know)
   2. Run it thru Levelator, it's free and will help you a lot
2. Sync your tracks
3. Clean all tracks together
   1. Remove stutter, dead air, breathing, coughing, etc...
   2. Rearrange any time someone is talking over another person
   3. Remove anything that's not needed. Ex.: someone goes out of topic for a couple of minutes that don't add anything to the conversation
   4. Remove repeated lines. Sometimes people repeat themselves, keep the best version, remove the rest.
   5. Resync as needed. Sometimes tracks can desync after an hour or so of recording.
4. Separate talking topics in blocks
   1. Yes, even if your recording is not organized, organize it. Pull things left and right to make more sense to the audience
   2. Don't be afraid to remove anything that doesn't add to the cast
5. Add soundbites (optional)
6. Add background track (get freeuse songs)

Always start your podcasts with the same intro, then fade into the recorded audio tracks for the introduction. This creates a sound signature that your audience will quickly relate to and know who/what they are listening to.

Curious to hear others' takes on this: I'd say upload as uncompressed mixed wavs if your platform auto converts to 128kbps mp3, because I've heard of people uploading at 128 only to have it re-converted to 128 by the platform - especially if they're adding any ads (not that that's an immediate prob for the OP, but I'm talking about best practice moving forward). You want only one stage of data compression. What's the current state of play with auto-conversion on the various platforms?

Goes without saying but make sure you get a separate audio track for every person.

If I could go back in time to baby podcaster me in 2023, I would tell myself to learn how to use Reaper instead of wasting time on Audacity. Sure, Audacity is fine, but I personally found that Reaper is loads easier to use once you learn the DAW, and my edits are super fast and sound great. It's free to try out for 60 days, then only $60 to buy the license after that. https://www.reaper.fm/purchase.php

If you invest the two hours to watch this tutorial and work alongside it, you will know how to use it and can get started right away. I felt pretty dang confident after watching this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Tu14fG4C8

This is also an invaluable channel for Reaper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPeUilYS4rc

If you are looking for an easy to learn, solid entry level DAW that is free, nothing beats Audacity.

Audacity (WIndows / Mac)
Garage Band (Mac)
Can try the free Riverside plan
Worth investing in a decent budget microphone. Most of them would be in the $75 - $100 range.

GarageBand has been amazing