Sep 03 2008
Show Off Sound Editing Skills With Audacity, Your Free Sound Editor
Don’t have Adobe Audition or Sony Sound Forge? Well, that’s not a problem at all. Audacity, a free, opensource sound editor software offers you a fully functional and complete suite of sound editing tools that will definitely fit your needs. With it, you can work like a professional. Although it lacks the strength of commercial sound editors, it doesn’t fall behind the line. Its recording and editing capabilities are still top notch and it is cross-platform, which is not the usual thing for commercial sound editors which are mostly tailored for Windows platform. Besides Microsoft Windows operating systems, it can also run from Mac OS X, GNU/Linux variants, and other operating systems — which I think, is great (despite being a long-time avid Windows user).
Audacity’s layout looks similar as other commercial sound editors except it looks less advanced. However, looks can be deceiving for sure as it features a lot of functionality that I would always rejoice for being free. Depending on your system’s resources, you can have as many tracks in mono or stereo during editing. The control is fast and smooth and there are fewer buttons for simplicity.
Sound Effects
The audio effects available in Audacity are quite decent and professional. They are very useful when you have some serious audio projects and you can’t find any commercial editors around. As of this writing, I am using Audacity 1.3.5 Beta which has the following built-in effects: Amplify, AutoDuck, BassBoost, Change Pitch, Change Speed, Change Tempo, Click Removal, Compressor, Echo, Equalization, Fade In, Fade Out, Invert, Leveller, Noise Removal, Normalize, Nyquist Prompt, Phaser, Repair, Repeat, Reverse, Truncate Silence, and Wahwah. Additionally, it also includes Cross Fade In, Cross Fade Out, Delay, GVerb, Hard Limiter, High Pass Filter, Low Pass Filter and SC4. Now, that’s a lot!
Extensibility
I was thinking that the in-built effects are more than enough. However, it is interesting to know that you can still extend Audacity’s functionality by installing plug-ins.
On Audacity’s official website, you can download separately the LAPSPA installer that contains over 90 plug-ins for Audacity. If you also want to export your edited audio to MP3 format, you will have to download the LAME MP3 encoder. Additionally, you can configure Audacity to accept VST plug-ins by installing the VST Enabler. These are all great for Audacity and they are free!
International Recognitions
Audacity has been hailed by PC World as one of the 100 Best Products of 2008, a recognition that validates its great usability, features, performance and technology innovation. In addition, Audacity sound editor was also included in PC Magazine’s Best Free Software last February, so you’ve got no reasons not to try it.
Download and try Audacity here now. It’s freakin’ awesome!
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September 3rd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Sounds good! If I didn’t already have thousands of Digital audio and video professional editing software, I probably would snatch this up.
Any adware/spyware?
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
No, this is opensource. There is no adware or spyware. Likewise, do a virus scan if you must. I have this software installed on my system just today.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:09 pm
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