Audacity 101: Voice Over, Audiobook, Content Creation

Learn to keep the desired audio and remove unwanted sections in the waveform. Use undo, silence, cut, copy, paste, and manage the timeline with shortcuts.

Increase loudness after recording through post-processing, using the gain slider or normalize effect. Remove unwanted parts and normalize to minus three decibels for clean final audio in audacity.

Learn to increase the gap between spoken words in Audacity by copying silent sections, pasting into gaps, splitting clips, and renaming them in the timeline.

Learn to reduce constant background noise in audacity with a two-step process: select a noise profile and apply noise reduction using six decibels, six sensitivity, and six frequency smoothing.

Learn to remove unwanted frequencies with Audacity's equalization, using the spectrum view to target 100 Hz rumble and apply low-roll-off for clear speech quality.

Learn how to fix uneven recordings in Audacity using compression and normalization to -3 dB, balancing low and high volume parts with threshold, ratio, attack, and release settings.

Discover the four essential voice editing effects—normalize, noise reduction, eq, and compressor—and their correct order to improve voice quality for audiobook narration.

Learn to measure audio improvement by applying platform guidelines and AC check in Audacity. Apply normalization, noise reduction, EQ, and compression to meet AC requirements and improve listener experience.

Learn to install the ACX check Nyquist plugin from Audacity plugin site, add it via Nyquist installer, and understand AC check's noise floor measurements and its half-second silence requirement.

Assess audio quality with AC check: keep noise floor below -60dB, peak under -3 dB, and RMS around -18 to -23 Ms, while ensuring room tone and avoiding artifacts.

Learn to remove mouth clicks, lip smacks, and breaths in Audacity using deletion, silencing, and room tone replacement with punch copy and punch paste, plus plugin workflows.

Learn why the order of effects matters in audacity, from normalize and noise reduction to eq and compression, and when to apply mouth clicker and loudness normalization.

Learn how to record in multitrack within Audacity, including starting new tracks with Shift+R, overdub on/off, muting tracks, and choosing mono or stereo for voiceover.

Export audio from multiple tracks in Audacity, mixing down to one file or exporting separate tracks. Learn soloing, mix and render, and track naming with metadata.

Learn how the amplify effect compares to normalize in Audacity, how peak amplitude and clipping work, and how to set -3 dB safely for voiceover tracks.

Learn to apply reverb and echo effects in Audacity to create space and character for voiceovers. Explore room size presets, reverberance, pre-delay, tone controls, and echo decay with practical previews.

Learn how to use the limiter effect to tame extreme spikes and prevent clipping. Compare hard and soft limit options, and observe how limiting interacts with normalization.

Use auto duck in Audacity to lower music when your voice plays, with the voice as the control track. Adjust duck amount and threshold to suit podcasters.

Learn to use the envelope tool in Audacity to create auto duck effects, adjust volume with control points, and selectively shape waveform regions.

Learn how to apply fade in and fade out effects in Audacity, including selecting the right audio segment and building a smooth start or end without configuration.

Learn to instantly remove silent gaps in audio using Audacity's truncate silence effect. Configure the -28dB threshold, duration, and truncate to length to shorten long silences and compress pauses.

Learn to use a label track to take notes during editing in Audacity, typing labels, extending ranges, and selecting tracks before deleting to keep audio and labels in sync.

Lock all tracks with the sync lock feature in Audacity to prevent accidental shifts during multi-track edits. Label or time tracks create groups for selective locking.

Learn how to work with mono and stereo audio in Audacity, converting between channels, splitting and duplicating tracks, panning, and exporting stereo voiceovers.

Adjust Audacity’s record on a new track setting to keep recordings on the same track; use Shift R to start recording on a new track when needed.

Explore the audiobook production bonus and learn how to meet audio submission requirements in Audacity, including achieving a noise floor no higher than -60dB RMS.

Explore how to evaluate and manage the noise floor for ACX compliance by balancing RMS and peak levels, choosing noise reduction or noise gate, and avoiding dead silence.