GarageBand

What do you like best?

Easy to manipulate multiple tracks and visualize as you work with them. The visual audio levels are so clear and it's very simple to get a clean cut when editing a person talking to take out the "ums, ers, ahs" etc. When you use it long enough you can even point it out by looking at the audio waves without hearing it. Very easy to drag in MP3 and slide them where you want it. I have a folder of MP3 I use for every podcast episode such as intro and outro music. I have used other audio editors like Audacity which I did not find to be intuitive.

What do you dislike?

Can't save the preferences for the tracks such as turning off reverb etc. Project files are large, a 30-minute podcast episode with only 4 tracks is typically around 1 GB. I use version 6 since the other more recent versions were either more difficult to use or did not support podcasters directly. It would be cool if Garageband could combine with other technologies/apps where it could automatically silence the track of the person not speaking. I previously would upload podcast album art to the project file so it would be included in the MP3/4 but I stopped as all that information can be taken from the blog post associated with the episode.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

Look no further, best of the audio editors for podcasters.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

Audio editing for podcasts. You can export in different sizes. Easy to cut pieces and over lap so intro music can fade as the talking part of a podcast starts.