What a great niche and what an awesome moniker. Jerry Franklin, the Audacity Guy, led a session at the International Podcasting Expo on basic editing techniques using Audacity.

While I know everything there is to know about Audacity, I did pick up these tips:

• Use the solo button in the track control panel to only listen to one track at a time when you have many tracks open. That way, you don’t have to move things around just to isolate the sound your really want to hear from one track.
• The Audacity Guy warned against editing out every um, ah or what he called “artifact.” It’d take too long, but more importantly, everyone will sound the same. Your goal is to make your guest sound authoritative and you want your podcast to move along, but don’t edit to the point where the personalities are removed.
• Don’t forget to save early and save often.
• The Audacity Guy took us through the envelope tool. Unfortunately, I was distracted by something my mother was saying to me, so I missed it. It appears the envelope tool can help you increase and decrease the volume of a chunk of your audio without having to use the selection tool.