Cost free professional audio editing (Audacity)

Member Name: thole09

Product:	Audacity
Date:	30/03/09 (108 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ease of use

Disadvantages: May require newer computer to run

Audacity is a digital audio editing application released for the personal computer in May 2000. It's primary purpose is to edit sound input into the program with various effects and noise cancellations, but I have found it mostly used to capture audio from my computer's sound card. As someone who listens to Internet radio and other transmissions frequently, I find Audacity indispensable in saving these pieces of audio for future listening pleasure. Its primary "exports" are .wav by default and .mp3 by a separately downloaded add-on.

The program boasts simple ease of use when capturing audio. The various audio effects are not something I have tested so they are not something I can comment on, but when using it to record audio it is a simple process of changing the sound input to "Stereo Mix" by a drop down menu and pressing the record button. Whatever audio is played will be recorded in a predefined sample rate; the option I find to give the best results is Stereo at 44100Hz with a 32-bit float. When the user has finished recording a certain sample then, after clicking the "stop" button, he or she can tweak the recording by applying one of the aforementioned effects or erasing certain parts from play. Saving the sample is done by clicking "File" and "Export".

The system requirements of Audacity vary by the operating system used. For a modern Windows Vista computer, the minimum required specifications are a processor capable of 1 GHZ and 512 MB RAM. For Windows XP it is recommended to run Audacity using at least a processor capable of 300 MHZ with 128 MB RAM. The developers of Audacity claim that the software is not supported under Windows 95 or Windows NT. The program is also available on other systems such as Macintosh and various Linux distributions. The installation itself is through a typical graphical interface and executes successfully with every attempt.

Audacity is distributed as freeware and has been a regularly used application on my system for many years. It seems to have a professional feel with the numerous effects and other insertions but is simple enough for the average use to operate.

Summary: Thumbs up

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