Using Audacity

The opening screen in Audacity was rather intimidating. When watching videos from ACX University, or any other video on YouTube that explained Audacity, I soon began to see the screen as a digital recorder with controls similar to the old cassette players I owned "back in the day." 

ACX says that

There are all those terms and numbers that I didn't (and still don't quite) understand. My new friend, Wayne Hughes, understands, though. 
kbps = kilobits per second
MP3 = a way of compressing a sound sequence into a small file (much smaller than a wav file)
kHz = kilohertz, a measurement of audio frequency in data chunks per second
CBR = constant bit rate
room tone = specific quality of background noise during a live recording
dB = decibel, unit used to measure the intensity or pressure of a sound
dB peak values = maximum sound levels before distortion