audacity

By Jeremy Rue   ·   Updated Dec 5, 2010   ·   Print Print

Introduction

Audacity LogoAudacity is a piece of sound-editing software that is widely known for being open-source (free of charge) and offering cross-platform compatibility.

Because it is free, however, there are some drawbacks. Generally, Audacity is not as robust and polished as some other professional sound-editing programs, and there are some bugs in the software that can cause it to crash unexpectedly.

Some of the advantages of Audacity:

  • Free of charge
  • Compatible with Mac OSX, Windows, Linux and other operating systems
  • Lightweight and a relatively small program size
  • Open source with community support working to continually improve it

Some of the drawbacks of Audacity are:

  • Several known (and unknown) bugs exist that can cause the program to become unstable
  • The program is limited in its mixing capabilities
  • Some aspects are more complex, and not as user-friendly
  • The program is not as complete, as you will have to install plug-ins/encoders separately

 Audacity can be downloaded at the following location:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

(This tutorial was written using Audacity for Mac OSX version 1.3.6 in November 2008. While the screenshots and some menu items are Mac specific, it is written to cater to all platforms. Due to Audacity's open-source nature, the program tends to update regularly, and some information may become outdated. We will try to keep it updated when possible.)

Filed under: Audio