Best free audio editing program

By Kim Komando

October 23, 2017

At this point, I’m sure you know how much I love everything digital. As technology progresses, our gadgets are getting smarter, lighter and easier to carry around. Newspapers, magazines, books, games and music have all gone digital. Even so, it stands to reason that you might still have a few physical books and magazines around the house, so I bet you have some cassette tapes or vinyl records sitting around the house that you’d love to convert to digital files. Digital files are so easy to use and keep. You can load them on your music player, burn them to a CD or just make sure you have them when your cassettes and records wear out. Of course, that still leaves the question of “How?” Well, if you already have a record player or tape deck, you can plug it into your computer’s Line-In or Microphone port and transfer your audio with a program the pros use.

This program is simple, strong and free

What program am I talking about? It’s Audacity, of course. Audacity is a sturdy and versatile audio editor and it’s completely free. Don’t let its simple design fool you, Audacity has a bundle of basic and high-quality features for every user. Audacity can perform basic recording and editing with ease if that’s all you need. You can record audio from a microphone, cassette deck, record player or streaming audio. If you’re looking to spruce up those old recordings, you can cut out dead air or mix two audio files together. Add some reverb, pitch-shifts or time-stretch and you’ll have a great audio file in no time. Audacity has dozens of tweaks you can use to find the best sound. Audacity can open and save most major audio formats. The tutorials in the Help section will turn even the most amateur music editor into a pro. You’ll wonder how you lived so long without it!

Download Instructions

To download the program, go to the Audacity download page or by using my blue links below. Click on the appropriate download link for your operating system and click on the first blue text link in the page. Your download should begin immediately. When the download is complete, open and run the installation package. Choose your language to continue. Be sure to read the License Agreement before continuing with the installation. Remember, you should always read the fine print on everything you download to your computer! I recommend using the default installation settings. Audacity will create a desktop shortcut for easy access to the program, but if you don’t want an icon on your desktop, you can uncheck the box when you come to the appropriate screen. The very last window of the installation contains the Read-Me for Audacity. This is the form that tells you everything you need to know about the program. I recommend giving this a quick read before continuing on.

Note: You may see a window detailing the plug-ins that will be installed with Audacity. This is not spam or malware, they’re extensions on Audacity that help it to work better for you.

When the installation and setup are complete, Audacity will launch. Now you can mix and edit your audio, old and new, to your heart’s content.

Free media player that plays just about everything

These days, computers double as full-fledged media players. But, there’s a problem. Depending on where some of your music or videos came from, there’s a good chance that your computer can’t play every file. Luckily, there’s a way that you can watch all your home videos, movies and music. All you need is a program that can handle nearly every media format. Click here for a free media player that’s one of my favorites.

Tags: magazines, malware, operating systems, tutorials