9 Audio Editing with Audacity: Creating a Podcast Episode with Single-Track Main Content

This module will show you how to use the Audacity audio editor to take recordings that you have made and align them to create a single-speaker podcast episode with an intro, main content, and an outro.

You will be guided through how to use audio files containing individual parts of a podcast episode (extracted from Episode 1 of the Field Notes podcast, which is created by Martha Tsutsui-Billins and available under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license). Then, you will be provided with audio files from an episode of the Some Stutter, Luh! podcast, and you will apply your knowledge to turn those raw audio files into a complete, structured episode.

Note that each part of the tutorial can be completed with a mouse, or using only a keyboard. As a result, the instructions in this tutorial come in two sets: one that involves a mouse and one that does not. You can choose whichever option you find more comfortable, but for each set of steps, make sure to only follow one of the sets of instructions and not both (for example, if you are following the keyboard-based instructions for splitting a clip, don’t follow the mouse-based instructions for splitting a clip; instead, move on to the next part of the tutorial).

Podcast structure

When creating a podcast, it is useful to think about how each episode will be structured. Typically, a podcast will have an intro, main content, and an outro. Below, you can see what is often included in each of these sections.

Intro

The intro typically consists of music, optionally a preview quote from later in the episode, and a spoken introduction to the podcast and the episode.

A preview quote is a section of the main content that is placed at the beginning of the episode to give the listener a glimpse into what the episode will be about. Specifically, a preview quote consists of a short snippet of something a guest or a host on the podcast says later in the episode. Preview quotes are optional, and many podcasts do not have them, so you can decide whether a preview quote is something you would want to include in your episode.

In the spoken introduction, the host introduces the podcast, the topic of the episode, and the name and background of the guest(s) (if any). The introduction does not have to be very long and could be something like: “Hello, and welcome to the Example Podcast. My name is John Host, and today I will be talking about how to create intros for podcasts.”

Below is an audio file containing an intro that is a modified version of the intro from the first episode of the Field Notes podcast (you will notice that it contains music and a spoken intro, but no preview quote):


In the following intro to Episode 15 of the Some Stutter, Luh! podcast, you can hear music, followed by a preview quote, followed by a spoken introduction:

Main content

After the intro comes the main content. The main content could be a variety of things, depending on the nature of your podcast. It could involve:

  • A discussion between two or more hosts
  • An interview between the host(s) and one or more guests
  • Reading out a pre-written script or essay
  • A narrative format. In this format, there are clips of people discussing the topic of the episode. Interspersed between these clips could be a narrator introducing who the person speaking is.

In this tutorial, we will be focusing on creating a podcast episode involving a single speaker (the host), but the principles in this chapter are useful for creating media in the other formats as well.

Outro

After the end of the main content, there is generally outro music followed by an outro script that contains one or more of the following:

  • Information about the podcast (such as websites where the podcast is available)
  • Credits containing the names of the people working on the podcast
  • Ways to contact the podcast producers
  • Attribution for any media used in the podcast (this is necessary if you use any freely licensed media whose license requires attribution)
  • Ways listeners can support the podcast

These elements are present in the following outro (which you will hear in the next chapter) from the Some Stutter, Luh! podcast:

Some Stutter, Luh! is hosted by Greg O’Grady. It is produced, recorded and edited by Paul De Decker, as well as Luca Dinu, who, by-the-way, wrote this jazzy theme music. Leah Bugden and Aleisha Meggison command our pages on Instagram and TikTok. Editing assistance was provided by the Labrador Languages Preservation Laboratory (or “Labradory”) at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. You can listen to or subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Anchor, and Spotify. Video versions of each episode are found on our YouTube page. Some Stutter, Luh! is a production of the Communication Collaborative. Thanks for listening!

The outro above can be divided into the following elements:

  • “Some Stutter, Luh! is hosted by Greg O’Grady. It is produced, recorded and edited by Paul De Decker, as well as Luca Dinu, who, by-the-way, wrote this jazzy theme music. Leah Bugden and Aleisha Meggison command our pages on Instagram and TikTok. Editing assistance was provided by the Labrador Languages Preservation Laboratory (or “Labradory”) at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.”
    • These are credits listing the people on the podcast team and any organizations associated with it.
  • “You can listen to or subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Anchor, and Spotify. Video versions of each episode are found on our YouTube page.”
    • This is a description of the platforms and websites where the podcast can be accessed.
    • It also provides listeners with a way to support the podcast (subscribing to the podcast).
  • Some Stutter, Luh! is a production of the Communication Collaborative.”
    • Much like the mention of the Labradory, this sentence acknowledges an organization that is associated with the podcast.
  • “Thanks for listening!”
    • Many podcasts will include a statement at the end of the outro thanking their listeners.

Tutorial: Editing a podcast

Introduction

In this section, you will take raw audio files (mostly adapted from Episode 1 of the Field Notes podcast) and use Audacity to edit them together into a podcast episode. Follow along with the instructions on your own computer. The final result will sound roughly like this:

Shortcuts in Audacity

Before we get into the tutorial, it may be helpful to consider the following keyboard shortcuts that can be useful when editing in Audacity:

  • Play/Stop: Space
    •  This will play the audio starting from the current cursor position (if the audio is not currently playing) or stop the audio (if it is currently playing)
  • Split: Ctrl+I (Cmd+I on a Mac):
    • This will split a clip into two or more separate clips
  • Delete: Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac)
    • This will delete what you have selected, and move the following part of the track backwards by the length of the part you deleted
  • Copy: Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on a Mac):
    • This will copy what you have selected
  • Cut: Ctrl+X (Cmd+X on a Mac)
    • This will copy and delete what you have selected
  • Split Cut: Ctrl+Alt+X (Cmd+Alt+X on a Mac)
    • This will cut what you have selected, but unlike the Cut and Delete shortcuts, it will delete the section you have selected without moving anything else
  • Paste: Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac)
    • This will paste the last thing you copied or cut
  • Zoom in: Ctrl+1 (Cmd+1 on a Mac)
    • This will make the interface zoom in so you can make more precise selections and edits
  • Zoom out: Ctrl+3 (Cmd+3 on a Mac)
    • This will make the interface zoom out so more of each track is visible
  • Cursor Short Jump Left: Comma key
    • This will move the cursor backward by 1 second
  • Cursor Short Jump Left: Period key
    • This will move the cursor forward by 1 second

You can find a more complete list of shortcuts by going to the official Commands and Keyboard Shortcut Reference page in the Audacity manual.

There are a number of shortcuts listed in the shortcut reference page that are not assigned to any keystrokes by default. Some of these are labeled in the manual as “Extra” and can be enabled by turning on the full set of shortcuts by going to Edit > Preferences > Keyboard > Defaults > Full, and then clicking OK. Other shortcuts are labeled in the manual as having no keystrokes because they must have keystrokes assigned to them manually in the Keyboard section of the Audacity preferences.

One shortcut that is useful but is not enabled by default is the “None” shortcut (which has the keystrokes Ctrl+Shift+A or Cmd+Shift+A), which deselects all tracks. It can be turned on by enabling the full set of shortcuts in the Preferences dialog. Alternatively, the same function can be applied without a shortcut by going to the Select menu and clicking None.

The intro/main content

In some podcasts, the spoken intro and the main content are separate sections of the podcast. However, in the episode in this tutorial, the intro and main content form a single continuous section. As a result, we will import two files: a file containing the main content (which includes a spoken intro) and a file containing intro music. You can download these files by clicking the links below:

Tutorial main content

Tutorial intro music

One way to import an audio file into Audacity is to click on the “File” menu in the upper-left-hand corner of the interface or press Ctrl+Shift+I (Cmd+Shift+I on a Mac), open the Import submenu, and click “Audio…” Then, you can navigate to the location where you have downloaded your file and select it. Once you have done this, you can import the file by either (1) clicking Open, (2) pressing Enter, or (3) double-clicking the file. Below is a video showing how to do this:

Alternatively, you can import the files into Audacity by selecting them in your file browser (Windows Explorer on Windows, Finder on a Mac), then dragging them into the tracks section of the interface, which is in the middle of the interface between the toolbars on the top and the toolbars on the bottom.

Each audio file that we have imported shows up as a separate track in the interface, as shown in the screenshot below:

An image of the Audacity user interface after the two recordings have been imported

In the screenshot above, the “Intro-and-main-content” track is above the music track because the tracks were imported simultaneously and therefore occur in alphabetical order. If you need to move a track up or down, you can open its track menu by selecting the track (by clicking on it or using the arrow keys), pressing Shift-M, and clicking on “Move Track Up” or “Move Track Down.” You can also move a track by pressing Shift, selecting the track control panel of the track you want to move (the track control panels are the boxes with sliders on the left-hand side of the screen), and dragging the track to the desired position.

Now that we have imported the files, we have to edit and align them. We can do so as follows.

The intro music is about two minutes and so it is too long to be left in the intro in its entirety. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will have it end after about 18 seconds, and we will take the rest of the music and move it to the end to serve as outro music. To do this, we will:

  1. Split the clip in the music track into two clips
  2. Move the second clip of music to the end in a new track to serve as outro music
  3. Apply a Fade Out effect to the intro music

To split the clip in the music track into two clips:

Steps

  • Mouse:
    1. Select a point in the “intro-music-Hold-on-a-Sec” track about 18 seconds after the beginning of the music
    2. Click the Edit menu, go to Clip Boundaries, then click on Split
  • Keyboard:
    1. Deselect all tracks by going to the Select menu and selecting None
    2. Using the up or down arrow keys, highlight the “intro-music-Hold-on-a-Sec” track
    3. Press Enter to select the “intro-music-Hold-on-a-Sec” track
    4. Press J to move the cursor to the beginning of the track
    5. Press Shift+> to move the cursor to the right by 15 seconds
    6. Press the Period key three times to move the cursor to the right by 3 seconds
    7. Press Ctrl+I (Cmd+I on a Mac)

To move the second clip in the music track to a new outro music track:

Steps

  • Mouse:
    1. Go to the Tracks menu and click on Add New > Mono Track
    2. Click on the clip handle bar at the top of the second clip in the music track
    3. Drag the clip down into the empty track created in step 1
  • Keyboard:
    1. After having pressed Ctrl+I in the previous step (but before doing anything else), select the second clip using one of the two following options:
      • One option is to press Tab until the second clip is selected (if you are using a screen reader like Narrator, it will tell you which clip is currently selected).
      • The other option is to press Shift+K, which selects everything to the right of the current cursor position.
    2. Press Ctrl+X (or Cmd+X) to cut the clip you have just selected
    3. Press Enter to deselect the current track
      • Alternatively, deselect all tracks by either:
        • Going to the Select menu and selecting None, or
        • (If you’ve enabled the Full set of shortcuts) pressing Ctrl+Shift+A (or Cmd+Shift+A)
    4. Go to the Tracks menu (on Windows, you can navigate the menus at the top of the interface by pressing Alt and using the arrow keys), then go to Add New, and select Mono Track
    5. Press Ctrl+V (or Cmd+V) to paste the music you previously cut

You have the option of renaming the new outro music track you have just created to something like “Outro Music” as follows:

Steps

  • Mouse:
    1. Click the drop-down menu in the track control panel on the left side of the track
    2. Click on “Name”
    3. Type in the new name
    4. Press OK
  • Keyboard:
    1. Press Shift+M while the outro music track is highlighted
    2. Select “Name” in the menu
    3. Type in the new name
    4. Select OK

To apply the Fade Out effect to the intro music:

Steps

  • Mouse:
    1. Click on the end of the clip in the “intro-music-Hold-on-a-Sec” track (a yellow line will show up when you are hovering over the end)
    2. Drag the cursor to the left until you have selected a few (2-4) seconds of audio (the length of your selection will be displayed in the selection toolbar at the bottom of the user interface)
    3. Click on the Effect menu
    4. In the Effect menu, click on Fade Out
  • Keyboard:
    1. Deselect all tracks by going to the Select menu and selecting None
    2. Using the up or down arrow keys, highlight the “Intro music” track
    3. Press Enter to select the “Intro music” track
    4. Press K to move the cursor to the end of the clip in the Intro music track
    5. Press the comma key 3 times to move the cursor 3 seconds back
    6. Press Shift+K to select the audio between the current cursor position and the end of the clip
    7. Go to the Effect menu
    8. Select Fade Out

Now, we need to move the main content so that it starts when the intro music ends. To do this:

Steps

  • Mouse:
    1. Click the handle bar of the clip containing the main content (it is in the “Intro-and-main-content” track)
    2. Drag the clip so that the beginning of it is aligned with the end of the intro music clip (a yellow line will show up when they are aligned)
  • Keyboard:
    1. Deselect all tracks by either:
      • Going to the Select menu and selecting None, or
      • (If you’ve enabled the Full set of shortcuts) pressing Ctrl+Shift+A (or Cmd+Shift+A)
    2. Highlight the main content track using the up or down arrow keys
    3. Press Enter to select the main content track
    4. Press J to move the cursor to the beginning of the track
    5. Press Shift+K to select the rest of the track (which in this case is the entirety of the main content clip)
    6. Press Ctrl+X (or Cmd+X) to cut the main content clip
    7. Deselect all tracks by going to the Select menu and selecting None
    8. Highlight the intro music track
    9. Press Enter to select the intro music track
    10. Press K to move the cursor to the end of the intro music track
    11. Deselect all tracks by going to the Select menu and selecting None
    12. Highlight the main content track
    13. Press Enter to select the main content track (because of step 10, this will result in a point being selected that is aligned with the end of the intro music track)
    14. Press Ctrl+V (or Cmd+V) to paste the main content

Now, the intro music and main content are aligned (the intro music ends at the beginning of the main content clip), as in the screenshot below:

The Audacity interface when the intro and main content have been aligned

However, we are not quite done yet, since the episode still doesn’t have a spoken outro, and the outro music starts at the same time as the main content rather than at the end of the episode. In the next section, we will add the spoken outro and move the outro music to the end of the episode.

The outro

The outro will consist of a spoken outro, followed by outro music. Download the outro at the following link, and import it into your Audacity project:

Spoken outro

We can move the spoken outro to the end of the main content as follows:

Steps

  • Mouse:
    1. Click on the handle bar of the clip in the spoken outro track
    2. Drag the clip to the right until it syncs up with the end of the main content (a yellow line will show up when this happens)
  • Keyboard:
    1. Deselect all tracks by either:
      • Going to the Select menu and selecting None, or
      • (If you’ve enabled the Full set of shortcuts) pressing Ctrl+Shift+A (or Cmd+Shift+A)
    2. Highlight the spoken outro track using the arrow keys
    3. Press Enter to select the spoken outro track
    4. Press J to move the cursor to the beginning of the track
    5. Press Shift+K to select the rest of the track (which in this case is the entirety of the spoken outro)
    6. Press Ctrl+X (or Cmd+X) to cut the spoken outro
    7. Deselect all tracks by going to the Select menu and selecting None
    8. Highlight the main content track
    9. Press Enter to select the main content track
    10. Press K to move the cursor to the end of the main content track
    11. Deselect all tracks by going to the Select menu and selecting None
    12. Highlight the spoken outro track by using the down arrow key
    13. Press Enter to select the spoken outro track (given step 10, this will result in a point being selected that is aligned with the end of the main content)
    14. Press Ctrl+V (or Cmd+V) to paste the spoken outro

Next, we need to (1) move the outro music so that it begins at the end of the spoken outro, and (2) shorten the outro music (it is currently almost two minutes long and so lasts too long after the end of the spoken outro). To move the outro music:

Steps

  • Mouse:
    1. Click on the handle bar of the clip in the outro music track
    2. Drag the outro music to the right so that the beginning of it lines up with the end of the spoken outro
  • Keyboard:
    1. Deselect all tracks by either:
      • Going to the Select menu and selecting None, or
      • (If you’ve enabled the Full set of shortcuts) pressing Ctrl+Shift+A (or Cmd+Shift+A)
    2. Highlight the outro music track using the arrow keys
    3. Press Enter to select the outro music track
    4. Press J to move the cursor to the beginning of the track
    5. Press Shift+K to select the rest of the track (which in this case is the entirety of the outro music)
    6. Press Ctrl+X (or Cmd+X) to cut the outro music
    7. Deselect all tracks by going to the Select menu and selecting None
    8. Highlight the spoken outro track
    9. Press Enter to select the spoken outro track
    10. Press K to move the cursor to the end of the spoken outro track
    11. Deselect all tracks by going to the Select menu and selecting None
    12. Highlight the outro music track
    13. Press Enter to select the outro music track (given step 10, this will result in a point aligned with the end of the spoken outro)
    14. Press Ctrl+V (or Cmd+V) to paste the outro music

Now, the different sections of the episode are correctly aligned and occur in the order intro music > main content > spoken outro > outro music, as in the screenshot below:

A screenshot of the Audacity interface when the clips in all the tracks have been aligned

(In this screenshot, the tracks look smaller because they have been collapsed. You can collapse a track by clicking on the black arrow in the lower-left corner of that track’s track control panel.)

However, we still need to shorten the outro music. To do this:

Steps

  • Mouse:
    1. Select a point about 20 seconds into the outro music
    2. Press Ctrl+I to split the clip
    3. Delete the clip on the right by selecting its handlebar and pressing the Delete key
  • Keyboard:
    1. Press J to move the cursor to the end of the clip in the outro music track
    2. Press Shift+> to move the cursor to the right by 15 seconds
    3. Press the Period key 5 times to move the cursor to the right by 5 seconds
    4. Press Shift+K to select the rest of the track (which in this case is the entirety of the outro music)
    5. Press the Delete key to delete the track

The outro music has now been shortened, but there are still two things left to do: apply the Fade In effect to the beginning of the outro music, and apply the Fade Out effect to the end of the outro music.

To apply the Fade In effect to the beginning of the outro music:

Steps

  • Mouse:
    1. Select the first few (2-4) seconds of the outro music
    2. Go to the Effect menu
    3. Click on Fade In
  • Keyboard:
    1. Press J to move the cursor to the beginning of the clip in the outro music track
    2. Press the Period key 3 times to move the cursor 3 seconds to the right
    3. Press Shift+J to select the audio between the beginning of the outro music clip and the current cursor position (i.e., the first 3 seconds of the outro music)
    4. Open the Effect menu
    5. Select Fade In

To apply the Fade Out effect to the end of the outro music:

Steps

  • Mouse:
    1. Select the last few (2-4) seconds of the outro music
    2. Go to the Effect menu
    3. Click on Fade Out
  • Keyboard:
    1. Press K to move the cursor to the end of the outro music track
    2. Press the Comma key 3 times to move the cursor 3 seconds to the left
    3. Press Shift+K to select the sound between the end of the outro music clip and the current cursor position (i.e., the last 3 seconds of the outro music)
    4. Open the Effect menu
    5. Select Fade Out

The project will now consist of aligned clips in all the tracks, with a Fade Out effect applied to the intro music, and the Fade In and Fade Out effects applied to the outro music, as shown in the screenshot below:

A screenshot of the Audacity interface when all clips have been aligned and had the appropriate effects applied to them

Exporting the project

Now that you’ve finished editing the episode, it’s time to export it as an audio file that can be uploaded to a platform. To export the project as an MP3 file, go to the File menu, then to Export > Export as MP3. Type in the file name you want the audio file to have (e.g. “Edited podcast episode.mp3”), navigate to the folder where you want to save your file, and press the Save button or press Enter.

The final result

Congratulations! You’ve edited a podcast episode. You can check your work by listening to your audio file and comparing it to this audio file of the complete episode (which was also shown at the beginning of this tutorial).

Creating a reusable template

Following all of the steps above every time you want to edit a new podcast episode is cumbersome if each episode has the same structure. One thing that is useful to do to minimize the editing time required for creating future episodes is to create a reusable template. This reusable template will consist of any audio content that is shared between episodes, as well as empty tracks or spaces for content that is specific to each episode. This way, when you edit a new episode, parts of the editing process will already be done.

To create our reusable template, we can create a copy of the current project as follows:

Steps

  1. Go to the File menu in the upper-left-hand corner
  2. Select Save Project
  3. Select Backup Project
  4. Navigate to the folder you want to save the template in
  5. Type in the file name (which in this case could be something like “Reusable template”)
  6. Hit the Enter button or press Save

The reusable template should include audio that is shared between episodes, but exclude audio that is different each episode. In this case, the shared material is the intro music and outro music, as well as the spoken outro. This leaves the main content as the part that should be removed from the reusable template.

We can remove the main content by deleting the track containing it. Open the Audacity project for the reusable template you have just created, and then delete the main content as follows:

Steps

  • Mouse:
    1. Click the “x” in the track control panel of the main content track (the track control panel is on the right-hand side of the screen)
  • Keyboard:
    1. Deselect all tracks by either:
      • Going to the Select menu and selecting None, or
      • (If you’ve enabled the Full set of shortcuts) pressing Ctrl+Shift+A (or Cmd+Shift+A)
    2. Highlight the main content track using the arrow keys
    3. Press Enter to select the main content track
    4. Open the Tracks menu
    5. Select Remove Tracks (if you have only selected one track, as should be the case now, then only one track will be deleted)

You now have a template where most of the editing for the intro and outro has already been done in advance, such that for any future episodes, you do not need to apply any more effects.

Exercise

Below, you will find links to audio tracks for the different parts of Season 2, Episode 15 of the Some Stutter, Luh!  podcast. Download them and import them into Audacity.

Exercise main content

Exercise spoken outro

Exercise intro music

Align and edit the tracks to create an episode structured like the Field Notes episode in the tutorial above. Specifically, the sections of the episode should occur in the order intro music > main content > spoken outro > outro music, and the intro music should fade out before the beginning of the main content (the outro music is short enough that you can either have it fade out or continue to the end).

When you are done, use the self-assessment checklist below and compare your result to the audio file below the checklist.

Self-assessment checklist

Now that you have finished editing the episode, check to see if the following statements apply.

  • The episode contains intro music that fades out before the main content begins
  • The episode contains a main content section
  • The episode contains a spoken outro
  • The episode contains outro music
  • The parts of the episode occur in the following order: intro music > main content > spoken outro > outro music

This is an example of how the episode could be edited:

Troubleshooting

If you are editing a podcast episode and are using pre-made clips that consist of stereo audio (such as music from freepd.com) in your project, you may get the error message “Copying stereo audio into a mono track is not allowed” if you try to copy content from the tracks for those clips to non-stereo tracks within the same project. To get around this, you can convert the stereo track into a mono track by:

Steps

  1. Selecting the stereo track
  2. Going to the Tracks menu, then to Mix > Mix Stereo Down to Mono

Attribution

License

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