Because Tecshplosive.com had already reviewed podcasts and personal digital recorders, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight a great piece of audio recording and editing software called Audacity. Audio recording and editing software spans a wide spectrum of prices and capabilites. Audacity is a free software containing basic and intermediate features, depending on the user’s capability and familiarity with the software.
For the basic podcaster or amateur musician, Audacity is the perfect recording option. Audacity offers an unlimited amount of track recording and layering. Audacity’s tracking capabilites are completely versatile as well. While the default view goes by the half second, Audacity allows users to zoom in on the track and take notice of all of the wave and frequency variance. This zooming capability allows the “producer” to add effect more specifically and accurately than if they were restricted to seeing and guessing on the half-second view. For the editor, Audacity offers a audio import feature giving users the capability of editing and playing around with already recorded files or songs. Audacity also gives users a wide range of special effects such as echo, pitch changer, and a tempo changer. If you don’t user for anything else, it is worth trying just to make your favorite music artist sound like chipmunks by doubling up on the tempo.
How does Audacity measure up to other recording and editing programs? Well, it isn’t as good professional recording software that comes at a cost of over $500, but what would you expect from a free software? For the Apple user, GarageBand may be the order of the day for simplicity and usability, but once you learn how to use the advanced features of Audacity, you will wonder how you ever got along without it. I have to admit that Audacity does come with a bit of a learning curve, but nothing that can’t be solved from a few YouTube video tutorials. For more info about Audacity, or in the case that I have convinced you to download a copy – visit the Audacity website. For more features and cool Audacity stuff, check out the Audacity Store as well.
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The only bad thing with Audacity is that you can’t export directly to MP3 format without download extra software. And even when you try to download it, it’s very hard to find. Otherwise it’s pretty decent. Although I’d suggest GarageBand and a MIDI keyboard if you have a Mac.
Joe’s last blog post..Meanderthals – Desire Lines
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ethan Reply:
May 21st, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I agree Joe. Plugins are a pain to try to install and integrate as well – at least the vocoder/autotune one is. I guess I won’t be sounding like Mr. T-Pain any time soon…
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