A short parable

This morning I had the opportunity to help a fellow podcaster with their audio quality. They'd lovingly recorded everything as separate tracks. One track didn't sound as good, and the issue seemed to be clipping. I have amazing software that magically "heals" digital clipping (iZotope RX), so I offered to help fix it.

In a modern audio editor, you simply process the audio and replace the source file. Because edits are non-destructive — they just reference the source — it would've been a trivial fix.

This podcaster uses Audacity, an audio editor that works exactly the same way SoundEdit did 30 years ago. Every edit changes the working file, and every save requires overwriting the file or creating a new one. In this case, fixing the audio would've meant a complete re-edit, which was prohibitive.

If you use Audacity, please consider moving to a modern, non-destructive audio editor. It will be painful for the first few hours as you "unlearn" Audacity. The payoff is that editing will be easier, more fun, and a lot more flexible.