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EH 103 Spring 2023 Instruction Guide

A digital handout for EH 103 in the Spring 2023 covering how to reserve or use recording space and equipment in the UAH Library and how to use Audacity to record, edit, and finish a podcast.

Saving

As you're working on your podcast, you'll want to save your progress along the way. This means you save your podcast as an audio project file, which will only work for editing the podcast in Audacity. Once you're completely finished and ready to turn in your podcast, you'll need to export it as a different file type. Please see the "Exporting" section below for how to do that. 

To save your podcast as an audio project file (.aup3 file type):

  1. Click File from the menu bar above Audacity's toolbar
  2. Click Save Project from the drop-down menu
  3. Click Save Project 
  4. A pop-up window will appear warning that this is not saving the file as an audio file, but an audio project file. Click Okay to move past it. 
  5. On the final pop-up window, select where you would like to save your project and choose what to name it. Once you're done, click Save to save the project. 

Your podcast is now saved as an audio project file. You may continue editing it and saving your progress along the way. It is best to save your work often. After you save it the first time, you'll only need to complete steps 1 through 3 to save your progress, or you can use the keyboard shortcuts for saving (Control + S for Windows, Command + S for Apple). 

Exporting

Exporting is the final step in creating your podcast. This will turn your podcast into an actual audio file that you can play on devices and this will be the file you submit to your professor for the podcast. 

To export your podcast:

  1. Click File from the menu bar above Audacity's toolbar
  2. Click Export from the drop-down menu
  3. Select Export as MP3 (there are other file type options, but this is the file type being using for this assignment and is a common audio file type). 
  4. On the pop-up box, edit your podcast name and the location where it will be saved. You can also change the file save type here, as well as adjust the Format options. Using the default Format options will work just fine for your podcast. 
  5. A final metadata pop-up box will now appear. This attaches specific metadata information about your recording to the audio file. This part is optional and applies primarily to audio files that could be considered part of an album, like a music track. You can fill these out or leave them blank. If you imported any content like music or sound effects, it's information may appear automatically in the fields. You can delete them or leave them. Click Okay to close the pop-up window and save any changes you make.
  6. Your podcast file will now appear in the location you saved it in. However, it may take several minutes, depending on the length of the podcast, to finish exporting. It won't be playable until it's finished exporting.