Don't Use Audacity to Edit Your Podcast | Pod Sound School

all right let's look at this video I just found called don't use audacity to edit your podcast there are better free Daws for podcast editing so that's interesting I recommend audacity for um for beginners because it is free and it's available cross-platform Windows and Mac and it works great has tons of plugins and uh they are constantly making updates and stuff like that so let's take a look and see what why we shouldn't be using it I'm sorry hey welcome to the Pod sounds cool I'm Studio Steve I'm an audio engineer what's up Steve I've never heard of the Pod sounds cool but it's uh seems like a pretty big Channel with some good info so excited to check this out your podcast producer all around content creation nerd and on our Channel every week we post videos to help you take your online content and your podcast to the next level so in today's video I am going to stop the misinformation and try to stop the spread that you see here on YouTube and blogging and all over the interweb yeah that's my bad sorry telling people to use audacity to edit their podcasts now if you are someone who does use audacity to edit your podcast and you've been doing it for a really long time and you're finding yourself getting offended don't just hear me out this is going to be some really good information for you and if you're somebody that is brand new to creating podcasts and you're looking for a good editing solution avoid audacity there are way better Solutions and there's one is it just you or not is there's a lot of motion I'm not getting kind of dizzy watching all the zooms and motion going on but that's a sad Point really great solution that I'm gonna recommend in this video so why should you not use audacity well first let's answer why are so many people using audacity and why is everybody telling everybody to use audacity and that's for the one reason that audacity is really cool and that is that it's free but that's not really that good of a reason because there are other free solutions that are even better so there are many reasons not to use audacity to edit your podcast but in my mind there are two big ones and one really big one deal breaker and that is that audacity does something called destructive recording means that once you save your project yeah I've known about this and it is a pretty big downside he'll obviously explain it here in a second but um you know it's just one of those things that you deal with if you want something free but they actually have either fixed this or are just about to fix this I think it's already been changed so um they no longer have destructive uh recording and editing and then close out of audacity and come back into it again all of those edits that you made to your project have now become permanent so let's say that you accidentally cut out a sentence or that you were too aggressive with where you decided to cut in or out of something right you cut out a breath or in the middle of a word and you didn't notice that until you were listening to your podcast later and you're like oh no I want to go back and fix that well too bad you were using a destructive recording editing software and then the other reason number two that audacity is a pain in the ribs is because thousands of users have reported that it is constantly crashing on them that there are tons of workarounds that they have to do that they're basically sitting in praying playing sometimes when your project is rendering so with that basically we're so I haven't got a lot of complaints I mean I tell tens of thousands of people to use audacity and I haven't had those same issues but I mean they're clearly out there so that's good to be aware of it is a free software so um you know kind of get what you pay for in a sense but even paid for programs can have issues can crash I use logic and um you know there's times where it will crash or have issues but probably less often than audacity but um yeah you just kind of get what you pay for sometimes saying that it is inefficient or that it's not a good solution if you're looking for productivity and speed now if you've been using audacity for years you've probably found all those workarounds and gone really fast at it but if you spent even a fraction of that time that you

spent building workarounds and a workflow that works for you in audacity toward a better Daw or audio editing solution you would be rocket fast and chances are that your podcast would even sound better than it does in audacity so that's it and despite my own personal opinion of audacity like when I open it up and actually edit in there to try it out it's very clunky and I just don't think that the interface is very intuitive I will say that it looks really dated I mean this looks like um Windows 98 or something so I definitely could use some upgrades there I think they have done a few but um yeah definitely not the prettiest thing I definitely agree there intuitive but all those things really come down to my taste the two things that I mentioned destructive recording and time wasting those are big deal breakers and I really want you to take the editing for your podcast very seriously and if editing is going to stay fun if it's going to be something that we can stay excited and enthusiastic about Episode by Episode by episode then it needs to be yeah so I think that really depends I think a lot of people especially beginners just want to do some basic edits at least that's what I recommend you know um kind of trim up the beginning and end maybe add some intros or whatever and um maybe it's an ad spot or an affiliate promotion or something a little bit of music but nothing overly complicated I wouldn't um spend a ton of time editing so I think audacity is perfectly fine more than capable and wouldn't slow you down if you're just doing those basic things I think it's when you start getting into more advanced edits and chaining different things and you know really um you know if you're doing this as your profession you're not going to use audacity you're going to use something uh a little better so I think you kind of have to align the program with your abilities in that sense something that is fast and efficient so for that there are many better Solutions but the solution that I'm going to recommend I think is the best all-around solution for independent and professional podcasters is Reaper and you can find out more about Reaper by going to Reaper so my understanding is that Reaper is sixty dollars um which is really cheap for an awesome software so it definitely recommend that you'll get a lot more functionality and obviously you know it's being recommended here and I have recommended it myself um but it's you know he says there are better free Daws and I wasn't aware that it was free maybe there's a trial we'll check it out for dot fm we are not Affiliates of Reaper I've tried to be but I can't get a hold of the company so I don't know how we can become Affiliates but Reaper is amazing it's 100 customizable it is non-destructive recording so you can always go back and edit and find things that you may have cut out it is completely upgradable it comes with hundreds of really great sounding plugins right out of the box and it's actually free now Reaper says that it's free for 60 days and then Reaper will ask you for a one-time sixty dollars after that 60-day trial but many people report never paying that sixty dollars and they stay on what's called an evaluation that sounds like a little bit of a work around I mean sure you can try it out for free but you know if you're using this software to produce a podcast I would pay them you know don't try to be a freeloader I guess and uh you know if you're using it for a business or something like that just pay the 60 bucks simple as that license so every time they open up Reaper says hey are you ready to buy a Reaper yet and they say nope still evaluating and they just do that for their whole life but I think that it's worth sixty dollars it's worth hundreds of dollars and so I would always encourage people to pay that sixty dollars that's part of how that's good to hear I'm glad that we uh we're on the same page there the reaper is able to make so many great updates it's constantly updated it's very robust great DAW and if you want to get started in Reaper you can go to Reaper FM right now to download it I also do have a free ebook that is an introduction to Reaper for podcast editors and it just kind of goes through the basics making sense of the interface when you first open it up how to record some of the basic editing functions and some of the quick keys that you'll need to know to get working in revert right off the bat and you can download that free ebook book I'll leave the description in the description box below right where you're watching this video person I am sorry if I offended you but please take some time give Reaper a try that way you can't make the well audacity is free and you can't get better than that excuse anymore because it is worth your time and your effort to

get into a Daw Solution that's going to be more efficient for you and hey stop so yeah definitely I definitely agree I usually recommend people use audacity or GarageBand depending on you know what operating system you're on just because it's free and it reduces that barrier to entry lets you get started and you can use them learn and then down the line once you're you know 10 20 50 episodes in go ahead and try out some different softwares and see what you like a lot of them uh have trials and I use logic I use the Garageband for the longest time um if you're on a Mac I Reaper is a great one because it's a doesn't cost a ton if you're just doing podcast editing and you don't want to do anything with uh music Hindenburg is a great one it's got a ton of Integrations with a podcast hosting platforms and it's really designed for a spoken word podcast and editing around that so the workflow is just is quite a bit different than your standard does but that's uh that's Hindenburg if you want to check that one out too spreading the LIE help out your fellow potsky and tell them hey do not edit in audacity and I will be very happy that you did thank you for tuning in on this video today remember to grab your free cool thank you pod sounds cool for this video and we'll see you in the next one