How to Add Music to Your Podcast Using Audacity

After you've recorded your podcast, it's a good idea to add background music to your show, both in order to set the mood and to keep the listeners engaged. Here's how you would do that using Audacity.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• computer
• internet
• Audacity

1. Open up Audacity, which is a free digital audio editor online that is very popular in the podcasting world.
2. After you have your voice recorded, decide what you want to add. Music to intro your segment? Background music for your entire episode? Sound effects? Make sure the mp3 file is downloaded and saved onto your computer.
3. Go to Project Menu and click on Import Audio.
4. Pick your audio of choice. Or, you can also just drag the audio file into Audacity. This creates a track with two different channels.
5. Now that you have the audio imported, you have to decide how much you want and where you want to play it. To select, there is a menu at the top left corner. The select button has the letter I on it. Click on that, and it'll allow you to select and delete what you don't need.
6. In the same menu area, there is a button that has a horizontal line with two arrows pointing in opposite diretions. That is the Move button. Select that, and you can either move your music forward, or you can move your voice recording further back, so that your podcast episode starts with intro music.
7. After you've placed all the tracks in their appropriate positions, you probably want to consider fading the audio in or fading it out. To do this, go to the top menu, click on Effects/Fade In or Effects/Fade Out. This makes the sound transition smoother and more natural.

Tips & Warnings

• If it doesn't sound right, there are volume controls next to each of the audio tracks. You can turn your voice track up and then turn the background music volume down. Adjust it until you feel like it works.
• Choose music that is appropriate for your podcast. Music is good for segment transitions.
• Make sure the music you choose is not copy-righted. There are plenty of places online to get free, legal music for your podcast.