How to Record and Edit a Podcast in Audacity (Complete Tutorial) Video Lecture | Become an Expert at Podcasting - Career Development

hey it's Pat here and in this video I'm
going to teach you how to use audacity a
free software so that you can edit and
record your podcast this is available
for both Mac and PC users I'll show you
exactly how you can make sure your mics
are all set up properly your levels are
okay and also we'll do a little test
recording to I'll show you exactly how
to do that but also just realize that
this is a lesson that's actually pulled
out from my more premium course power of
podcasting so it may reference other
parts of that course if it happens don't
worry about it just go in learn how to
use audacity and have fun this is a
tutorial for those of you who are going
to be using the free tool audacity to
edit your podcast it's great for
recording for editing for mixing from
multitrack similar to GarageBand it's
great to use and it's free and to get it
all you have to do is go to audacity
team dot o-r-g again that's audacity
team dot o-r-g and it's great if you're
a Windows user because you can just
download it right to your computer it's
also available for Mac and also Linux
too but mostly those of you who are
watching this are likely gonna be on
Windows because you've been looking for
a free solution to edit your show and
here it is I'm going to show you exactly
how to use it right now okay here we are
in a blank audacity file and the first
thing you want to make sure is that the
microphone that you want to use is the
one that's selected as the input device
and the input device area is right here
next to this little microphone and all
you have to do is click on this
drop-down menu and just make sure that
the microphone you want is there and if
it's not if you're a TR microphone is
maybe not there make sure it's turned on
make sure it's plugged in make sure it's
all good and then it should be available
for you to select then you can choose
between mono input Channel and stereo
input Channel and typically I recommend
recording your voice with your podcast
for mono or in mono and that means your
voice that you record is going to be
heard equally on both the left hand side
and the right hand side without any
worry of having it pan between the left
and right side or having it be only in
one year that kind of sounds weird when
you're listening to something and it's
only coming in on one here now sometimes
just to warn you when you import a file
from an external source maybe it's an
mp3 file that is your interview that
you're recorded with somebody on skype
or maybe it's the music that you
downloaded online or the voiceover that
you received from somebody when you
import it typically it may actually be
in steer
and that's okay as long as when you play
it back you're hearing it equally on
both the left and right hand side that's
what matters and typically you won't
have to ever worry about that anyway
just kind of wanted to give you give you
that warning now we're gonna do a test
recording here and then we're gonna play
around with that file and those tracks
and I'm gonna import other tracks and
show you kind of how to create an
episode on the fly here so that you know
how to use these tools then you can move
forward with the tutorials in this
particular module so to record in
audacity all you have to do is click on
this red button here and then I'm gonna
do that right now and just start talking
and I'll play this back for you in just
a minute but I want you to notice a few
things right now you can see that it's
mapping my voice in the form of
waveforms here and there's little peaks
and valleys and the number one thing you
need to worry about is if those Peaks
are extending too high kind of outside
of this region of this track and if it
is doing that then you are too loud
that's called clipping clipping is bad
because when a person listens to an
audio file that's clipped it's gonna
sound distorted it's not gonna sound
very pretty at all and if you notice
that that's happening now when you're
testing and you will be doing a test to
check the to check this out all you have
to do is adjust the volume on the fly
here with this little input volume
slider and that'll help you adjust it
one way or another the best practice the
best ideal situation is to as you are
speaking normally in your normal podcast
speaking voice when you are recording
that it's never getting beyond the the
outer limits here and it's getting as
close to the top as possible sometimes
you'll record it in a it'll be very
small and yes you can sort of raise the
volume levels there but the best
practice the best quality audio will be
when it's just like this quite high into
the 0.5 to one region without getting or
extending beyond those parts now I'm
gonna click stop to stop and just kind
of warning you that when you are editing
your files which I'll show you in a
second don't click pause when you click
pause and try to edit actually all of
your editing features will go away and
it'll become very frustrating and you're
not gonna know why if for whatever
reason you find that your editing tools
are just not working for you maybe
because you pause and sort of stop so
just practice using the stop button
instead of the pause button here on
audacity now you can see that we
recorded a nearly 1 minute and 15
seconds worth of audio here that's great
I'm gonna
on this button here to skip back to the
beginning and then just press play and
show you what happens that right now and
just start talking and I'll play this
back for you in just a minute but I want
you to notice a few things right now you
can see that it's mapping my voice in
the form of waveforms here and there's a
little okay so that works out and checks
out pretty good now what I want to do is
actually before I start editing and
slicing and show you how to move things
around I'm actually gonna import some
music really quick and show you how easy
this is to do and then then I'm gonna
show you actually how to adjust volumes
of certain things so that your voice can
kind of come over there the music and
the music won't be too loud and all
those sorts of things now I have a file
here at mp3 file that I downloaded from
a website that has royalty-free music
and this allows me to use it in my
podcast with no worry of somebody like
saying hey that's my song so to import
these things and you can also employ
import voiceovers that you get and also
like I said earlier your interviews that
you have to put them in here all you
have to do is click on that file and
drag and drop it and literally just let
go in audacity and it should map out its
own track for you
right there and you can see this song is
about you know two and a half minutes
long it's a little too long because my
voice only goes over to this part and of
course remember this is just a
demonstration so I'm just kind of you
know showing you how to use the tools
but let's say that I want to remove this
end portion here of this song to do that
all you have to do is click on the
selection tool which is typically there
by default but I'm just gonna click on
that and start here select this area
after my voice and that highlights it
you can see it's a different color and
that's that that's kind of that's the
thing that I'm focusing on right now and
all I have to do to delete that is just
click delete on my keyboard and there
you go now there's a number of different
ways to zoom into this area
my favorite way is just to simply click
this button here which is called fit
project you can use these plus and minus
magnifying glasses here too but this
will essentially just have it stretch
out to the length of your window so I'm
going to do that right now
so I can see things a little bit better
now if I were to click play you'll
notice that there's two tracks here and
yes there are three lines and that's
because this second track here the one
that I just highlighted this is a song
it's actually in stereo and in stereo
you see actually the left side and the
right side now like I said because
they're both equal on both sides you can
actually see that here I don't have to
worry about it it's when you see
one of them flat and one of them having
sound that means it's only gonna come
out in one year and it's gonna sound
very weird you can actually adjust this
if you wanted to
using this tool here which is the pan
tool and I can adjust it you'll see that
L here for left and the are here for
right you can move things to the left
side of the right side typically when
you're recording a podcast you don't
need to do that when you're recording
music then that's more relevant so let's
see what I want to do now is not play
play it for you because I can tell that
well if I were to play it for you the
music is gonna be too loud the voice is
going to be too loud it's just gonna be
a lot of stuff going on typically what
happens when you record a podcast is
that the music will come in and then
your voice will come in later so I'm
going to show you how to do that right
now and to move things around you're
gonna use this tool here that's the time
shift tool and I'm going to show you
what happens when I do this right now
I'm actually gonna do mout a little bit
because I know I'm gonna need some extra
room so I'm gonna click on the time
shift tool and what this allows me to do
is literally move these things that I've
already recorded or inputted around and
that just makes it very easy and
typically these things will snap into
place for you to you know places like in
the beginning and that's how you do that
now typically you're gonna want to move
certain parts so let's say for example
that I wanted to break up this in the
middle and then move it now to do that
you have to actually select the portion
of the actually go to your selection
tool then select the part of the track
that you want to kind of have as the
breaking point now quick tip don't
select this part at the top here this
will kind of auto play that part that's
mostly used for music into listening
things over and over and over again if
you want to select a certain portion of
the timeline click within a track that
you're working in so I'm just gonna
click in there for example as you could
see that just puts a little finger right
there showing me that's precisely where
I want the break to be and of course you
might need to play it and kind of zoom
in a little bit to make sure that's
correct but for now I'm just gonna do
this portion right here I'm gonna break
up this single track not both tracks but
just this single track only and to do
that all you have to do is select that
part go to edit clip boundaries and
split or you can use ctrl I on your PC
or command I on your Mac and I'm going
to do that right now and you
see that that hardly did anything at all
right it kind of just made this little
black line but that line is really
important because now when I use my time
shift tool when I move this part opens
up now I'm not moving the whole thing
because it's broken in the middle and
now let's say for example this is a part
in the intro where I wanted to feature
this music so I want this part the music
to stand out here and kind of my voice
to go away which is why that's broken
like that now I have some little extra
parts here at the end of this so what
I'm going to do is actually hit the
selection tool remove that bit there now
it's even now let's say I want the
beginning to be just the music so I'm
gonna actually use the time shift tool
move this over a little bit too so as
you can see this is just just becomes a
way for you to play around with things
now the other important thing I want to
share with you besides we did deleting
already we did splitting again remember
splitting it's kind of hard at first you
go to edit you go to clip boundaries and
then split or you can do your ctrl I
command in your PC or the or command I
on your Mac now the last thing I want to
share with you is to how to adjust the
volumes and kind of have things fade in
have things fade out all as things are
going and let's do that right here using
the envelope tool this is sort of the
volume adjuster tools I think it should
be called instead so I'm gonna click on
that and now you'll see that it kind of
highlights certain moments of these
files here so I'm not going to adjust
the volume within my voice I always want
that to sort of be you know at the right
volume the music is what I want to
change so what I want to happen is you
know this is you'll see when you click
on this it adds a little dot and that
dot becomes sort of a point at which the
volume becomes kind of down to that
level and now I can take this bar and
adjust it a little bit it actually
creates another dot where I eventually
let go and I can move things around a
little bit I can sort of adjust it so I
want the music to start out you know
quite loud at that part in the beginning
and then I wanted to get softer as my
voice comes in so I'm actually gonna you
know move it down a little bit more I
might need to actually move this even
down more like that now I'm gonna go
back to the beginning and just play this
for you and kind of we'll just see what
it sounds like
[Music]
right now and just start talking and
I'll play this back for you in just a
minute
but I want you to notice a few things
right now you can see that it's mapping
my voice now that was pretty cool right
loud music to start and then it faded
out it faded out a little early so what
I might want to actually do is kind of
move this over a little bit so I begin
talking as it's fading out let's
actually try that I'm gonna go to the
selection tool select this part here and
then click play right now and just start
talking and I'll play this back for you
in just a minute but I want you to know
now that's not bad now obviously when I
clicked record earlier it was as I was
in the middle of a sentence so maybe I
can make this sound a little bit better
by moving these things over and I'm
gonna actually record in the middle of
this track even before all this stuff
comes in so to do that just make sure
that your track is highlighted the one
that you want and then click the Select
tool I want to start recording at this
point and just hit record it's gonna
pick up right where your cursor is watch
hey guys thanks so much for being here I
appreciate you and your awesome let's
keep going here boom oh no what happened
I recorded up here and I was in this
track and now it recorded a new track
down here what's going on don't worry I
did that on purpose because this used to
really bother me I wasn't really
understanding what was going on but
here's the deal
when you hit the record button whether
it's this red button here or you go and
click the R button which is a shortcut
to record it always starts where you
left off or where your where your
selection tool is selected in the
timeline but it always adds a new track
if I were to hit record now you'll see
that as a fourth track down below and
that's not cool I wanted that to be up
here so what's going on well there may
be opportunities and times where you
want to create a new track and that's
totally okay but if you don't want these
things that you mistakenly recorded all
you have to do is click on the X button
at the top left corner of each of these
tracks here that'll get rid of it we
want to record and add to this file here
now there's a couple ways to do that to
add to this particular track the first
one is called append record and that
means to add to the end of this
recording so when you append this
recording and I'll show you the button
to do that in just a moment it'll always
start where you left off on this track
the very last bit of audio it'll just
pick up right right from there and to do
that you go to transport and then hit
append record that'll always work to
record at the very end no matter where
you are selected in the timeline here
it'll always start recording at the end
on this side but I would recommend if
you're gonna do that to hit shift R
because that's a lot more convenient and
just makes more sense to do that so just
keep that in mind now what is the use
case for this well let's say for example
you're recording on a on one single
track just like this and you're going
fine and then you might be forgetting
something you're about to say so you hit
stop and you want to pick up right where
you left off because you're gonna look
down at your notes or kind of reframe
what what you're talking about
or just try and figure out what to say
really quick before you hit record again
just hit shift R to continue where you
left off I know it's kind of weird and
inconvenient but at first yeah it's kind
of weird but you actually get used to it
over time don't hit this record button
or else it'll pick up right where you
left off but in a new track and then you
kind of have to copy paste or drag and
drop that back into the other track
which is a minor inconvenience but all
you have to do is just make sure that
is selected again it could be anywhere
you want and then hit shift R and it'll
add to the end of that just like this so
as you can see it's just adding to the
end of this track just like that now
let's say that you actually wanted to
record something here and remember we
may be intro music loud and we fade it
out so that we could come in with our
voice and this part here in the
beginning of what we initially recorded
was kind of weird so we're gonna record
something else and add it in there how
do we do that how do we record right
into an initial track like this well
you're gonna actually have to create a
new track and then just copy and paste
and put it in there and it's just very
simple so all you have to do is click
record and actually one thing I like to
do when I'm recording a new section is
to kind of mute to everything else so
there's a couple things you can do you
can mute the existing things like for
this music I'm going to meet that
because I know that's playing at this
part which I'm going to record over and
then I'll unmute that when I play it
later just to hear it so I needed it
here now this solo button that's if you
only want to hear that track and
everything else meets automatically so
so you can see the other track muted
there and any other tracks would meet at
the same time so I'm gonna click mute
because I don't want to hear that and
I'm gonna record and like I said it's
gonna record it in a new track below
this music track but then we'll do
something with it really quick to move
it back up here and move things around
so hey guys what's up it's Pat here
thank you so much for joining me on this
show today we're gonna be talking about
this and that and then also that so
there you go so I'm gonna play this back
and I'm actually gonna turn the music
back on and we haven't moved it yet but
I just want to show you what this sounds
like
[Music]
hey guys what's up it's Pat here thank
you so much for joining me on this show
today we're gonna be talking about this
and that and then also that so kind of
cool right the music came in and then it
faded out my boys came in I could
probably move it over just a little bit
more like kind of over to here to give
myself a little bit more room and then
the music keeps playing it's just kind
of like background music cuz I'm talking
and then typically what would happen is
you would fade that music out not have
it abruptly end like that as I continue
to talk and that just becomes a very
professional but easy way to kind of
have a fading sequence into sort of the
content of your show that's pretty cool
now let's continue on here I want to get
this up here how do we do that well
there's a couple ways to do that you can
double click on this actually make sure
the selection tool is on double click on
that and hit copy or you can go to edit
and copy just come up here and then
paste that and then you can move it
around to where you want to move it
using the time shift tool so I'm gonna
do that there I'm gonna move this back
and move this around I'm gonna take this
part off the end there and then I'm
gonna remove this clip because I've
already pasted it and there you go so
let's listen to this again hey guys
what's up it's pat here thank you so
much for joining me on cool that sounds
great now the last thing I want to share
with you before I show you how to export
with this tool and then you can get into
the further lessons to kind of walk you
through the entire process here creating
your master file putting your episodes
together all those sorts of things
really easily if let's say for example
that this section here actually let me
fit to screen this section that we have
highlighted here let's say this is like
a coughing fit that I had or a sneeze or
a mistake that I know I made I want to
remove that but then I also want to add
into that so there's a couple ways to do
that typically I would just like delete
this but then I would hit edit clip
boundaries and split you can do that
remember command I or ctrl I and now I
can move things around so I can insert a
file or audio track or audio recording
into that so I'm just gonna move that
around you know I got rid of that
coughing fit which is great but then I'm
gonna hit
that right there actually that's that's
the thing you don't want to do is click
on this area up here to auto plays
wherever if you wanted to just auto play
at a particular point just click in the
timeline up here where the numbers are
fly here with like that just make
servers it seems to nom but typically
when you are editing that's that's very
frustrating and again make sure that
when you want to select a certain time
point in your timeline here select it
within a track like that and you won't
have to worry about it auto playing like
that but again I want to move things
around and just kind of make room for a
file that I'm about to record and so
let's go into the selection tool I'm
gonna pick it up right where I left off
right there and I'm gonna hit record
it's gonna record it into a third track
and then I'm just gonna kind of copy and
paste it and put it in there no problem
hey guys this is what I meant to say and
there you go so I'm gonna copy that I'm
just gonna click on that and paste it
and move things back to where they were
and yes this is gonna take a little bit
of practice it does seem like it's a lot
of hard work up front and it is but
you'll get used to it you're gonna find
that you're gonna make less mistakes
over time and delete this and now this
kind of file has been inserted into the
middle where that coughing fit was and
we are a-okay
that's less common than say for example
you know you picked up right where you
left off before so typically you'll just
kind of remove the error portion there
hit delete and then things just kind of
squeeze together nicely for you and then
you kind of like zoom into that area to
kind of get very precise with where you
want to go and how you want things to be
cut and then you can kind of fit to
screen again and then things just kind
of fall into place which is great so
there you go that's how you use the
basic editing tools here on audacity for
you to be able to kind of put your show
together yeah
so that that's how you do it now the
last thing I want to show you is how to
export it's quite simple actually
alright in to export all you have to do
is go to file and then export very
simple and then name it you're gonna
name it a sample file and then where to
save it and then you want to click on
the format now WAV file is a very common
audio format although compared to an mp3
file it's significantly larger so you're
gonna take it more space if you're gonna
share this with anybody or uploaded to
any tools which you will potentially do
in this course it's gonna take a little
bit longer so I typically recommend to
select mp3 files and then the quality
can be anywhere in this upper level I
like 192 it's not a huge deal when you
get into the lower levels here which
will significantly decrease the file
size it'll definitely significantly
decrease the quality of that file as
well so just keep it in the upper levels
up here hit OK and now when I hit save
there's one more step it's gonna ask me
if I want to edit any of this metadata
now I'm gonna share with you in a later
video exactly how to edit your metadata
you don't need to do it right now but I
would recommend actually clearing this
out because you could as you can see
here the artists name the track title
this is all related to the music that
they imported in here we don't want that
so I'm gonna clear that out and I'm just
gonna hit OK and I'm just gonna leave it
at that your tracks will be mixed down
to two stereo channels that's totally
fine don't show this warning again okay
and then it's just gonna think a little
bit and then we are good to go and
that's that so that was a deep dive on
how to use audacity to edit and record
your podcast which is fantastic but
obviously there's a lot more components
to setting up your podcast properly of
course now if you aren't already in my
mini class you can actually get access
to that three-day mini class right now
for free by going to podcasting tutorial
com it'll walk you through a three day
process to help you get your podcast set
up from scratch to up on iTunes so that
people can find it so if you're ready
for that go to podcasting tutorial com
if you aren't they're already in taking
my mini class so thank you so much and
good luck on your show