Best Free Audio Editing Software

Podcasting has become more popular than ever, and more and more podcasting enthusiasts are looking for easier ways to record, edit, mix, and save sound on their PCs.  In fact, they no longer want to simply record only their voices for their podcasts, they want to make entire downloadable shows that have been edited and mixed to such quality that the results sound almost as good as a professional production.  Software that can do all this editing has been, historically, very expensive (such as the $349 "Adobe Audition"), and although "Windows Sound Recorder" will record voice, it's very basic and the editing and mixing features are almost nonexistent. But there are now some excellent free products available that will give that professional touch to your recordings.

Audacity does all the recording and editing I need, and is much simpler and faster to use than a lot of pay products.  It allows you to select and apply a noise profile and just as easily remove it.  According to the web site, Audacity will also, "record live audio, convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files, cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together and change the speed or pitch of a recording."  Audacity supports plugins for LADSPA, Nyquist and VST, and there's also support for real-time monitoring, though it's not enabled by default.

Note:  Audacity supports VST plugins, but this support is not "built-in".  Because the VST code is not 100% open-source, it must be kept separate for licensing reasons.  The "VST Enabler" is available for download from the Audacity website (see the link in the "Product Specifications" section below), and is available for Windows, Mac OS-X and Linux.  Support is limited for the time being - but note that full support is coming.

Kristal Audio Engine is a powerful multi-track recorder, audio sequencer and mixer - ideal for anyone who  wants to get started with recording, mixing and mastering digital audio.  According to their website, "It is designed as a modular system.  The main application provides a mixing console, while the audio sequencer, live audio input and so on are loaded as separate Plug-Ins."  It supports an ASIO audio driver, which may be appealing to those who are concerned with latency during multi-track recording.  It's based on a 32-bit floating-point audio engine that can handle sample rates of 44 to 192 kHz with word sizes of 16, 24 or 32 bits.  It comes with a three-band parametric EQ and supports WAVE, AIFF, FLAC, and OGG Vorbis file formats.  It can only handle a maximum of 16 audio tracks, though the web site mentions an upcoming version 2 that will handle more tracks and provide support for MIDI, virtual instruments, and a wider range of VST plugins. Like all media-editing programs, Kristal requires a modern fast PC.  Don't even think about using it with a sub-1Ghz machine.

Wavosaur weighs in at a total uncompressed filesize of 491K and is the only product in this review that requires no installation, which makes it extremely portable.  What surprised me about it was that, for such a small program, Wavosaur packs a lot of advanced features, including resample, bit-depth convert (8,16,24,32 bits), pitch shift, vocal removal, DC offset removal, auto-trim, silence remover, interpolate, auto detect region, crossfade loop, and export of multiple .wav files from regions.  It also supports ASIO drivers and VST plug-ins, has many analysis tools and is skinnable.

Thanks to subscribers Jay Eitelman, Rinchen Tsepal, and Brandon Tanner for contributing to this review.

Product Specifications:

Audacity
Website:  http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Download link:  http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
Author:  The Audacity Team
Current version:  1.2.6
Version date:  11/15/2006
License:  Free - GNU General Public License
Download file size:  2.1 MB
Operating systems supported:  Windows 98-Vista, Mac OS-X, Various Linux Distros
Additional software required:  None
64 Bit version available:  Yes, available only for Linux distros here
Portable version available:  Yes - Available here
Non-English languages supported:  None
Other relevant information: 

• Plug-Ins for LADSPA, NyQuist, and VST available here.

Kristal Audio Engine
Website:  http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/
Download page:  http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/index.php?section=download
Author:  KristalLabs Software Ltd.
Current version:  1.01
Version date:  6/14/2004
License:  Free for personal, educational and non-commercial use
Download file size:  3.51 MB
Operating systems supported:  Windows 98,ME,SP,2K,XP
Additional software required:  None
64 Bit version available:  Unknown
Portable version available:  No
Non-English languages supported:  None

Wavosaur
Website:  http://www.wavosaur.com/
Download page:  http://www.wavosaur.com/download.php
Author:  The Wavosaur Team
Current version:  1.0.2.0
Version date:  4/25/2007
License:  Free
Download File Size:  190 KB
Operating systems supported:  Windows 98,ME,SP,2K,XP
Additional software required:  None
64 Bit version available:  Unknown
Portable version available:  Program is portable
Non-English languages supported:  French
Other Relevant Information: 

• VST Plug-in and ASIO Support

Related Topics:

• Best Free CD/DVD Burning Software
• Best Free "Windows Media Player" Replacement
• Best Free Audio/Video Format Conversion Program
• Best Free CD Ripper

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