PodEditor

Quick Start: your first episode

This walks through one episode from a blank project to a finished MP3. It takes about ten minutes. Nothing you do here changes your original audio files, so it is safe to experiment, and Undo (⌘Z) takes back any step.

New to multitrack editing? Skim Editing concepts first, or keep it open alongside this page.

1. Start a project

Choose Create a New Project in the Welcome window, or File ▸ New… (⌘N). The project opens untitled with a set of empty tracks. PodEditor asks where to keep it the first time you save (⌘S).

2. Bring in your audio

Choose File ▸ Import Audio… (⇧⌘I), or drag audio files onto the window. A track appears for each file straight away, and its waveform fills in as the audio is prepared.

If a file has two channels, PodEditor measures it and asks whether to split it into two tracks or blend it into one. Choose split for a recording where each speaker is on their own side, such as a two-person call saved with one voice per channel. The measured suggestion is already selected.

To record instead, click the R button on a track to arm it (or press ⇧R), then press ⌘R to start. Press Space to end the take. The first time, macOS asks for permission to use the microphone.

3. Find your way around

  • Space plays and pauses.
  • Click the ruler at the top to move the playhead.
  • ⌘= and ⌘− zoom in and out; ⌘0 fits the whole episode in the window.
  • Home and End jump to the start and end.

4. Cut

Cuts are made at the playhead.

  1. Play to the spot where the bit you want to remove begins, and press Space to stop.
  2. Press ⌘B to split there. With clips selected, only those are split. With nothing selected, every track is split at the playhead.
  3. Move to where the bit ends and split again.
  4. Select the middle piece and press ⇧⌫ (Ripple Delete) to remove it and close the gap. Plain ⌫ removes it and leaves a gap.

A faster way: mark the section first. Put the playhead at its start and press I, then at its end and press O. Now a single ⌘B splits at both ends and leaves the piece between them selected, ready for ⇧⌫.

That is the whole editing loop: split, select, delete. To move a clip, drag it. Clips snap to neighboring edges, so edits line up cleanly. Hold ⌃ while dragging to turn snapping off for that drag.

5. Even out the levels

Select the clips you want to level (⌥⌘A selects all of them) and choose Edit Audio ▸ Auto Level (⇧⌘L). Each clip is brought to a common speech level, so a quiet guest and a loud host sit together. The status bar at the bottom says how much was applied. With nothing selected, Auto Level works on the focused track. Undo if you do not like it, or choose Remove Auto Level (⌥⇧⌘L).

6. Add chapters

Move the playhead to where a new topic starts and press ⇧⌘↩︎ to add a chapter marker. Open the Markers panel with ⇧⌘M to see the list, and double-click a marker’s name to rename it. Chapters are written into the MP3, so podcast apps that support them show a chapter list.

7. Export

Choose File ▸ Export… (⌘E). Set Encoding to Podcast: a mono MP3 at 64 kbps, normalized to −16 LUFS, with a limiter and your chapters included. Click OK, choose where to save, and you have your episode file.

In the App Store version, exporting and recording need an active free trial or subscription. Opening, playing and saving projects are always free.

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