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A few good places to start.

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 13 OF 17

Audacity lesson 5: save the project and export the episode

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

Updated

Audacity has two very different ways to “save”. Mixing them up is the most common beginner mistake, so this lesson starts there.

Projects vs exported audio

Save ProjectExport Audio
MenuFile > Save ProjectFile > Export Audio
CreatesAn .aup3 project fileAn MP3, WAV or other audio file
KeepsEvery track, edit, label and undo pointOnly the final mixed sound
Opens inAudacity onlyAny player, podcast host or app
Use it forWorking on the episodePublishing the episode

Save the project as soon as you finish recording, and again as you edit. Keep it (and back it up) until the episode is published, in case you need to fix something.

Export a master copy

Before making the MP3, export a WAV (uncompressed) master and keep it in your archive. You can always make a new MP3 from it later without losing quality.

Export the MP3

  1. Choose File > Export Audio and pick MP3 as the format.
  2. Name the file clearly, for example myshow-012-interview-with-sam.mp3. Avoid spaces and special characters.
  3. Set the channels to mono for voice-only shows, or stereo if your show relies on stereo music or sound design.
  4. Choose a constant bit rate. 64 kbps mono or 128 kbps stereo is a good balance of quality and file size for speech; 96 kbps mono gives a little extra headroom for music.
  5. Set the sample rate to match your project (44100 or 48000 Hz).
  6. Click Export, then fill in the tags (below).

Constant bit rate is safest: some players estimate durations and skip positions badly with variable-bit-rate MP3s. To see how bit rate affects size and bandwidth, try our podcast file size calculator.

Fill in the tags (metadata)

Audacity shows a metadata editor when you export. Fill in:

  • Artist name: your show’s name or host.
  • Track title: the episode title, ideally with its number.
  • Album title: the show’s name.
  • Track number and year.
  • Genre: “Podcast”.

Podcast apps mostly use the details in your RSS feed, not these tags, but listeners who download the file directly will see them. Click Template > Save to reuse the same values next time.

You’ve made an episode

That’s the whole Audacity workflow. Next, the episode needs a home: choosing a podcast host.