Cut the stumble
Drag along the ruler over the stumble, or over its words in the transcript, and press Delete: the time goes and the gap closes, so nothing after it moves. Silence (Shift+Delete) mutes it and keeps the gap instead. Split (S) cuts a clip in two at the playhead, and a clip dragged over its neighbour's end crossfades with it. Every edit can be undone with Ctrl+Z (Ctrl means Cmd on a Mac), back to the start.
Noise, pauses, level
Select a second where only the room is heard and press N (Use as noise); Process → Reduce noise then takes that noise out of the selection or the whole project, as one step. Truncate silence (Shift+T) finds the pauses quieter than a level and longer than a time and shortens each, keeping half at each edge; shorter quiet stretches are left alone, since they are the rhythm of speech. Process → Leveler raises the quiet passages and lowers the loud ones, and holds its gain through the pauses, so the room between words is not raised to the voice's level.
Loudness for the feed
The readout beside the master shows the short-term and integrated loudness and the true peak as the episode plays, and the export target. Process → Normalise sets the selection or the whole mix to a LUFS target in one step. Podcast platforms publish a target, commonly −16 LUFS, and the readout says where the episode sits.
Chapters from markers
Press M at the playhead to put a marker there, and name it; the markers sit in a lane under the ruler, and a double-click renames one. Export's "Write chapters from the markers" writes them into the file where podcast apps look for them: MP3, M4A, Ogg and FLAC; a WAV carries none. An M4A carries them as Nero chapters, which Apple's apps do not read: for Apple Podcasts, export the MP3.
Export the episode
Export opens on MP3 (small file, plays everywhere), WAV (full quality, for more editing), or the others, and the tags go in with it. "What to export" writes the mix, each track, each region, or from each marker to the next. The project stays here for the next episode, and Projects keeps as many as you have.
Where it stops
Noise reduction is a pass in Process, not a live effect: it is applied, heard, and undone if it is wrong. Recording takes one microphone at a time, so a guest down the line is a file they send you. The transcript, if you use it to find the stumble, gets about one word in ten wrong on ordinary speech. On a phone the layout is trim, delete, split, fades, Process, Record and Export, tried in emulation only.
Questions
- How do I add chapters to the MP3?
- Put a marker at each chapter's start (M) and name it, then in Export tick Write chapters from the markers. MP3, M4A, Ogg and FLAC carry them; a WAV does not.
- Does it work offline?
- After the first visit, yes: the page and the editor open with no connection, and import, editing, recording and export work. Chrome and Edge install it as an app.
- Can I open my Audacity episode here?
- Yes. A .aup3 or .aup4 opens as a project of its own, with its tracks, clips and labels; Audacity's effect settings do not come across.