Audacity: A Baisc Audio Editor
By Gary Ferrington

Audio editing programs are often expensive for those just starting to work in the filed of multimedia. If your strapped for cash and you need a good sound editor this is a program that Proscenia has recommended to its Interns over the years. Audacity is a solid program with which users can accomplish more than just basic sound recording and editing.


Audacity 1.2.3 is a free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.

With Audacity you can:

  • 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.
  • Change the speed or pitch of a recording - and more such as adding effects and removing static, hiss, hum and other constant noise backgrounds.
There are a number of online resources that will be of value for those interested in using this program.
  • Audacity Tutorials. These tutorials give step-by-step instructions for common tasks using the free Audacity sound editor.
  • Audacity Tutorials. This site provides a nice overview of digital audio and editing for beginners, as well as showing how to do common editing tasks.
  • An Audacity Tutorial. By Daniel James. This is a short tutorial that one can follow on their own machine, which should leave an individual with a complete music track when done.
  • Basic Sound Editing with Audacity Audacity is a basic sound editing program that you can use to record, edit and output sound clips in a variety of ways.  This tutorial covers recording a sound from a microphone and CD, selecting the bits you want, basic amplitude correction, some filters and output to mp3 format suitable for voice work.
  • Editing wants to be FREE! An audio editing solution for Mac, Windows and Linux. By Jeff Towne. Audacity has a few drawbacks, but has the benefits of being free, continually updated and improved, and will run on just about any operating system.
  • Introducing Audacity. Part I. From PC Plus 220, September 2004. Become the master of your waveforms and manipulate your tracks with what this article calls a superb free sound editor.
  • Recording with Audacity Part II. From PC Plus 221, October 2004. Illustrates how simple it is to set up your own home recording studio.
  • Digital effects in Audacity Part II. From PC Plus 222, November 2004. Adding digital effects with Audacity can totally transform a simple recording.