Editing a Podcast in Audacity — The Complete Free, Open-Source Audio Workflow
Editing a 30-minute podcast episode in Audacity takes about 45 to 60 minutes once you're practiced, at zero cost. Its noise reduction, loudness normalization, a
Editing a 30-minute podcast episode in Audacity takes about 45 to 60 minutes once you're practiced, at zero cost. Its noise reduction, loudness normalization, and multitrack editing are enough to produce a finished file that meets Spotify and Apple Podcasts submission specs — the only things you'll need to handle elsewhere are ID3 tags and chapter marks. Where Audacity Actually Sits in the Podcast Production Chain Audacity is currently the most-downloaded open-source audio editor. According to "Audacity has surpassed 120 million cumulative downloads on FOSSHub alone" (source: FOSSHub) , its user base far exceeds that of most commercial DAWs. The software is licensed under GPL v2 and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux — no feature locks, no watermarks, no time limits. Its limits are clear: Audacity is a destructive editor, meaning operations write directly into the audio data rather than stacking on a non-destructive layer. That means a clip you cut is gone for good once it falls outside the undo stack, so saving a project file right after importing your raw recording is mandatory. By contrast, Reaper ($60 personal license) and Adobe Audition (about $22.99 per month) offer non-destructive tracks and real-time effect chains. For a solo or two-person conversational podcast, this limitation barely matters. The bulk of podcast editing is cutting filler, evening out volume, and removing room noise — Audacity handles all three completely. The situations that genuinely call for Reaper or Audition are: synchronized recording of more than 4 tracks, music mixing that needs automation envelopes, or post-production requiring real-time VST3 preview. Three Pre-Recording Settings That Determine 80% of Your Final Quality Sample rate and bit depth should be set to 44100 Hz / 32-bit float before you record. Set "Project Sample Rate" in Audacity's lower-left corner to 44100 Hz, then go to Edit → Preferences → Quality and set the default sample format to 32-bit float. The point of 32-bit
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Where Audacity Actually Sits in the Podcast Production Chain
Audacity is currently the most-downloaded open-source audio editor. According to "Audacity has surpassed 120 million cumulative downloads on FOSSHub alone" (source: FOSSHub) , its user base far exceeds that of most commercial DAWs. The software is licensed under GPL v2 and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux — no feature locks, no watermarks, no time limits. Its limits are clear: Audacity is a destructive editor, meaning operations write directly into the audio data rather than stacking on a non-d
Where -16 LUFS Comes From, and Why It Matters
-16 LUFS is the podcast industry's de facto standard for stereo programs. Platforms handle it differently in practice: "Spotify normalizes all audio to -14 LUFS and turns down anything louder than that" (source: Spotify for Artists) , while Apple Podcasts uses its Sound Check mechanism to align to roughly -16 LUFS. Handing your file over and letting the platform normalize it is not a good strategy. Platform normalization only turns audio down; it won't raise a level that's too quiet. If you deli
Two Things Audacity Can't Do, and What to Use Instead
Audacity can't write podcast chapter marks. The chapter feature relies on the ID3v2 CHAP frame inside the MP3 file, and Audacity's export dialog only supports basic ID3 fields (title, artist, album, year, comments). To add chapters, export the MP3 and then write them in with Auphonic (2 free hours per month) or the open-source tool mp3chaps . The other is automatic speech transcription. Audacity has no built-in transcription, so transcripts have to be produced separately. You can run OpenAI's op
Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Audio sounds underwater after noise reduction : The noise reduction amount is set too high. Go back to the pre-noise-reduction version of the project and redo it with the amount lowered to 8 to 12 dB. Noise reduction can't be repaired by layering more processing on top — once it's wrong, you have to start over from the original file. That's exactly why step 1 says to keep the raw wav. Two speakers at very different volumes : Don't run a single loudness normalization across the whole track. Split
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