Audio editing skills development for podcast editing

There are only eight core competencies to get your podcast off the ground with reasonable audio.

By

Sherwin Arnott

February 19, 2026
Sherwin Arnott is a cofounder of Pink Sheep Media, and is the lead designer and researcher. He thinks we all have a lot to learn from libraries.

Audio production is a big topic. Audiophiles and sound engineers can fill books with how-to’s and the art and science of audio editing.

But for the rest of us, how can we get our podcasts across the finish line with good sound and without going too far down the rabbit hole?

My suggestion is to lean into Audacity. Yes, Descript, Riverside, and Hindenburg are great. But Audacity is also great.

There are only a handful of core competencies you need to have, whatever software or tech solutions you choose to have. As a first approximation, you need to know how to:

  1. “cut and paste”,
  2. make the sound less annoying,
  3. make the sound more enjoyable.

But this is perhaps too simple. As a second approximation, you need to know how to:

  1. import, cut, clip, move, delete, synchronize, and mix tracks,
  2. remove room noise,
  3. remove clicks and pops,
  4. normalize audio,
  5. improve dynamic range,
  6. export your files to MP3s,
  7. manage versions,
  8. store records.

What’s great about pursuing these core competencies in Audacity is there’s a large community of generous users who want to help you develop these skills. Here are a few: