Recording Audio in Audition

At this point, you should be ready to record the introduction to the podcast. As part of this process, you'll make a new file and ensure the file's settings are appropriate for where the file will be used. After recording the introduction, you'll save the completed file for later use.

Optimal settings for audio files

When creating an audio file, there are some file settings you'll need to pay attention to: the file's sample rate, audio channels, and bit depth. A recording's sample rate indicates how many samples of audio are taken per second of audio, and is measured in hertz (Hz). Audio channels refer to a stream of recorded sound, and Audition allows us to record in mono, stereo, or surround sound. Bit depth refers to the resolution of the audio file — a higher bit depth will provide a higher-quality audio file, while a lower bit depth will result in lower quality audio. Audition gives us the opportunity to modify the settings for each of these as we create a new file, in the New Audio File dialog box:

The New Audio File dialog box shows Audition's default values for each setting, but you'll want to change these to meet the needs of your file. You might be tempted to set everything to the highest value, in order to get the best sound, but that would likely be overkill for many projects. This would also result in incredibly large file sizes, which is something you'll want to avoid when working with audio. Setting the recording options to appropriate values for the end result of your file will help ensure good quality audio, while still keeping a manageable file size.

Following are suggested settings for each of these options, depending on the final destination of your audio file:

Since the file you'll be recording is only going to include dialogue, and will be used in a podcast, the ideal settings for the file you're about to create will be the values listed in the table for audio (primarily dialogue).

Let's go ahead and create the new file, then record the intro to the podcast.

NOTE: If your audio recording for the introduction doesn't come out sounding the way you like, or if you flub a line, simply repeat steps 2a through 2c until you're satisfied with the results.

Saving a Completed File

Once you've completed recording the introduction, you'll want to save your file. The file type you choose will depend, once again, on the intended destination of your audio.  Knowing which file type to choose is important, as choosing the wrong format could have an impact on your audio project.

Understanding Audio File Formats

There are a large number of formats you can use for saving audio files. Different file formats use different types of compression when saving your file, which can influence which file type you use. There are three main groups of audio files, based on the type of compression they use: uncompressed, lossless, and lossy. The following table details each type of compression.

Choosing between uncompressed, lossless, and lossy audio files depends on the end use of your audio file — for example, if you need a high quality file for video, you might want to choose an uncompressed file type, while if you're working with audio that might be downloaded from a website you may want to choose a lossy file type to ensure shorter download times.

Following is a table with common file types that Audition can save to, the type of compression they use, and what types of projects they're best used for.

NOTE: For more information about different audio file types, visit FileInfo's page on audio file formats.

Since you're creating audio that will ultimately be used in a podcast, you might think it best to save the file as an .mp3 at this point. However, the introduction you just recorded isn't the final version of the podcast you'll be creating — so it's best to save it in an uncompressed format at this point, so you have a copy of the audio file with all the original data present. Once you've assembled the audio clips that make up the podcast, and everything is arranged to your liking, that's when you'll save as an .mp3 file.

Let's go ahead and save the introduction as a .wav file.

NOTE: The following steps assume you have downloaded and extracted the exercise files to your computer's desktop.  If this isn't the case, navigate to the location where you extracted the exercise files instead of the desktop.

Recording the Podcast Outro

Now that the introduction to the podcast is recorded, it's time to record and save the outro. This will follow the same process used for recording the introduction. The following steps will guide you through the process:

1. Create a new audio file, and name it outro.
2. Record the outro using the following script:
   Well, that's it for today's Tech Talk podcast! Thanks for listening, and we'll see you again soon!
3. Save the outro in the Audition Basics folder as a .wav file.

Make sure to leave intro.wav and outro.wav open, as you'll be using them later. Now, we're ready to start editing some audio clips that were previously recorded for the podcast.