So if you don’t have anything recorded yet, but want to enter show notes or set up the episode details, you can either Record a snippet as a placeholder or you can simply put in a sound effect from Transitions and click Save Episode to move on. Note, however, that you cannot move into the next section of the episode without at least some audio on the right side. It will also show a timeline of any audio clips or sections in that episode, and you can reorder them as you want. To the right of the screen is the Your Episode box, where you can upload pre-recorded audio (what most people will do, honestly). Transitions are the Anchor catch-all for music and sound effects that you can use for background audio, etc.The library is any audio that you have previously recorded or uploaded, and it can be inserted into an episode at any point.Messages let you add a voice message a listener has left for you.You can just press record and make a show. You won’t need external software if you don’t want it. Record is exactly what it says: “Capture audio right from your browser”.You get 4 options here for the audio, all of which are important, but some that are used more than others. Immediately upon clicking Let’s Do It, you’re brought to one of the main pages within Anchor: the episode audio creation page. But there’s a method behind the madness here. To some (we too), this seems like an odd first step.

The first one on the list, strangely, is Make Your First Episode. Once you’ve signed up for the account, Anchor shows you a chart of the next steps you’ll take. That said, most people won’t be going that route, so we’re going to focus on creating a new podcast from scratch. If you’re moving from a different host to Anchor, there is also an Import link at the bottom, which gives you a place to paste your RSS feed from your existing host, and then Anchor will import that media for you and go through the process of getting your information and redirecting your feed.

When you click the Sign-Up link in the upper right corner of the landing page, you are taken to a standard form asking for a name (yours, not the podcast’s), password, email, and reCAPTCHA. It has everything you need integrating into one place from editing with the mobile app to creating segments with its episode builder. Among the free options for podcasting, Anchor is one of my favorite options out there.

Anchor app podcast