Skip to main content
TrustRadius
Audacity

Audacity

Overview

What is Audacity?

Audacity is a free and open source audio recording and editing software.

Read more
Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Audacity has been widely used by various individuals and organizations for a range of audio editing needs. Its robust features make it a …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing
N/A
Unavailable

What is Audacity?

Audacity is a free and open source audio recording and editing software.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?

56 people also want pricing

Alternatives Pricing

What is GarageBand?

Apple offers GarageBand, a digital audio workstation packaged with its operating system.

What is Audition?

Adobe offers Audition as part of the Creative Cloud suite, a sound and audio editing and creation application.

Return to navigation

Product Details

What is Audacity?

Audacity Video

A basic tutorial on how to do simple audio editing in Audacity for your podcast, videos, or presentations.

Audacity Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Audacity is a free and open source audio recording and editing software.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 5.

The most common users of Audacity are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(101)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Audacity has been widely used by various individuals and organizations for a range of audio editing needs. Its robust features make it a preferred choice for editing audio in video recordings and podcast episodes, as users have found it helpful for cleaning up audio and making the editing process easy. With Audacity, users can accomplish advanced tasks such as compressing and normalizing audio for multiple platforms. It is also handy for syncing prerecorded audio segments to presentations, allowing attendees to view them at their own pace. Faculty and staff use Audacity to create media for students, including classroom use and public-facing content like podcasts. It is appreciated by film, TV, and commercial composers due to its speed and small footprint, making it ideal for recording audio for YouTube channels without the need to purchase expensive software. Additionally, Audacity is commonly utilized by instructors to support students in developing audio editing skills for podcasts. Its cost-effectiveness and cross-platform compatibility make it a popular choice in the podcast production industry for multi-track editing and post-processing. Audacity's simplicity, ease of use, and ability to trim, edit, and extract audio in various formats make it a favorite tool among users with varying audio needs. Whether it's editing meeting recordings, creating music samples or karaoke tracks for sale on websites, or simply applying quick tweaks and cuts in video production work, Audacity proves to be a reliable secondary audio editing software. Its versatility extends even further, as it is used by linguistics labs for recording and manipulating audio data for analysis and by eLearning video producers for seamless audio editing tasks such as adding music and ensuring smooth transitions. Overall, users rely on Audacity for its ability to efficiently handle a wide range of audio editing tasks with its user-friendly interface.

Word count: 278

Robust Audio Editing: Users have consistently praised Audacity for its robust capabilities and wide variety of controls, with many stating that it meets their audio editing needs. The program allows users to splice audio segments together seamlessly, ensuring a smooth editing experience. Additionally, the availability of basic editing features such as cuts and fades is appreciated by users who are looking to make simple edits.

Ease of Use: Many reviewers have highlighted how easy it is to navigate and use Audacity's user interface. They find it simple and intuitive, even for those with minimal experience in audio editing. The program's workflow is considered easy and straightforward, allowing users to quickly complete tasks without feeling overwhelmed. Furthermore, the learning curve for Audacity is small, making it accessible to new users who want to get started with audio editing right away.

Free and Cost-effective Solution: The fact that Audacity is free has been widely appreciated by users looking for a budget-friendly option. Its open-source nature makes it accessible to anyone without having to spend money on expensive software. Users also value the program's compatibility with both Mac and PC platforms, allowing a wide range of individuals to access its features at no cost.

Onboarding Tutorial Needed: Some users have suggested that Audacity could benefit from implementing an onboarding tutorial walkthrough within the software to help new users understand its full capabilities and features.

Issues with Exporting Files: Several reviewers have reported encountering difficulties when exporting files in specific formats. They mentioned having to download patches or additional plugins to enable the desired functionality.

Messy Dashboard and Navigation: A common complaint among users is that the dashboard of Audacity appears cluttered and lacks intuitive design, making it challenging to navigate through the various options efficiently. Improving the navigation system would greatly enhance the overall usability of the software.

Users commonly recommend using Audacity for simple audio works, home projects, or low budget editions. It is suggested as a support tool for audio editing, including audio on video, and for filtering out background noise from recordings or for experimenting. Audacity is frequently recommended for quick edits on small audio projects. However, some users caution against considering it a professional digital audio workstation or a tool for creating high-quality audio files. Despite this, many believe that Audacity is a great tool for beginners in audio editing and offers simplicity and power for editing or creating tracks. Users also recommend Audacity for podcasting needs, easy and straightforward audio editing, basic sound editing, desktop audio editing, and personal or business use. It is highly recommended for technical and hands-on teams on a limited budget. Users suggest trying out Audacity due to its user-friendly nature and the belief that it can rival paid products in terms of features. They also recommend watching tutorials and consulting online manuals for assistance. Overall, users think Audacity is an excellent choice for beginners, a good starting point for those entering the field of audio editing, and a reliable option for basic yet powerful audio editing tasks.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 25)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Alex Greenwood | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Audacity to edit and record two podcasts. It is a major help in efficiency and affordability.
  • Edit Audio for podcasts or commercials.
  • Record Audio for podcasts or commercials.
  • Convert Audio for podcasts or commercials.
  • Sometimes Audacity will update and create an issue for users, but those are generally resolved quickly.
  • The learning curve may be steep for newbies.
  • It occasionally hangs up my computer and I have to reboot.
If you are a hobbyist or small- to mid-sized podcaster, this is a great editing and recording solution.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Audacity for audio recording, editing, normalizing audio levels, and more. It's especially handy when I need to sync prerecorded audio segments to a presentation so it can be viewed more than once by attendees at their own pace. The program offers quite a bit of functionality for a free software.
  • Splicing audio segments together
  • Recording & re-recording directly in the program
  • Editing sound levels so segments aren't dramatically louder or quieter than another
  • Adding more instructions: it's a simple program but users may need an external guide to get started
  • Automatic filter for background noise
  • Speech to text captioning
Audacity is well-suited for any basic audio recording and editing needs. If you have a small budget, only need a program for a small, specific project, or don't need too many extra tools, Audacity is the perfect program for you. It helps me prerecord presentations before posting them online, so I'm not giving the same presentation over and over again.
June 25, 2023

Very satisfied!

Janet Denison | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Audacity for almost every video I record. In addition, since I'm promoting literacy, I also create an audio recording to accompany almost every web page and all my course pages. This way, my clients can listen as they read, and their reading skills can improve as they are learning how to learn.
  • Ease of recording.
  • Simple steps to increase the volume of the recording.
  • Simple to save and export the audio file.
  • It's not always easy to replace audio sections.
  • I don't use most of the options available, so finding what I do need can be a little difficult.
I've never had any wish to try any alternatives to Audacity, so this is a difficult question to answer. Audacity serves my purposes, and the cost is more than reasonable.
Jo Ströhfeldt | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I want to be able to take a meeting recording, audio memo, or song idea; then quickly edit and export it. Audacity does this flawlessly and doubles as a simple recording interface.
  • Simple editing of waveforms without much prior knowledge of audio manipulation.
  • The UI is very simple, but also helpfully sparse. This cuts down on the sense of feeling overwhelmed by the task.
  • It does incredibly well with different audio formats and is able to work with all major audio sources.
  • Although the UI is very simple, it's not great to look at. Making the program more exciting visually would be a great plus.
  • The functionality has never been lacking for what it is, but has also not seen major additions in a long time.
  • The support base of the community is truly impressive, but is also very intimidating to wade through. Having better standardized help avenues would be a benefit to new users.
Audacity has always been my go-to program for basic recording and editing of sound bites, voice memos, song ideas, and meeting recordings. It has a super simple UI and all the basic features. If you are looking to compete with high-end audio editors like Adobe Audition, the feature list will be disappointing and the UI frustrating.
Rob Gokee | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a film, TV & Commercial composer, I spend my live inside DAWs (Digital Audio Workstation) - I started my career on Pro Tools, moved to Cubase, then Abelton. One DAW I consistently come back to is also one that costs nothing - Audacity. As robust as the other DAWs are, there are often things that Audicity can do faster, and small footprint makes it easy to jump in and out of.
  • Splitting broadcast WAV files
  • Editing audio files quickly
  • Fast loading
  • More robust mixing
  • Better plugin support
If you've got a WAV or AIFF file that needs editing or tweaking, for me, it's faster to drop it into Audacity and make the changes than do it in my DAW. Also, if you've got a WAV file that needs splitting (multiple tracks in one file), most paid DAW's won't do this for you - Audacity does it free and fast.
Carey Roberts | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use the live audio from [Audacity] to do a live to 2-track stereo recording with audacity from our Behringer X32. After service, we'll use the effects to compress and normalize the audio which will then be uploaded across multiple campuses. Services will then be uploaded online for other members to listen to after the fact or used for coaching/improvement.
  • Easy stereo recording
  • Simple interface for those with minimal experience
  • Easy workflow
  • Improved GUI
  • Create version for Mac
  • Better VST integration
For just a quick down and dirty audio recording from computer source, Audacity is a no-frills solution that any user can get up and running with quickly without the intimidating functions seen in most standard DAWs. This would be a great tool to start with to record church services, or basic live performances where someone wouldn't want to use a full DAW like Ableton Live or Studio One.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Audacity to record audio for our YouTube channel. Audacity addresses many problems such as eliminating the cost to buy recording software. Audacity is completely free and open-source, there are many other recording software [programs] that are free but I think that audacity is a simple-to-use and feature-packed software.
The recordings are clear and audio can also be edited in audacity.
We use Audacity to record audio, eliminate background noise, and also add reverb and other effects that come built in to Audacity.
  • Simple user interface for anyone to use.
  • Open-source, so it's completely free.
  • Comes with a huge list of features, [and] it also has the option to add plugins.
  • Doesn't require a large amount of RAM and can be used on almost any computer.
  • The user interface theme has only two options, light and dark. It would be better if it was more customizable.
  • Sometimes there is a lag or break when opening the software.
  • There is no option to listen to the audio live with effects while you are recording.
Audacity is great for pretty much anyone, it can be used for many tasks ranging from professional audio recording to recording just for fun.
It's more or less beginner-friendly, at the very beginning there might be some difficulty in getting to know where everything is but there isn't too much to see so getting used to the software won't be hard either.
I would recommend audacity to anyone who is starting out with audio editing and recording, but if you are doing this professionally the better choice would be to go for a paid software like Adobe Audition.
Paul Weber | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Audacity is being used by individuals as a standalone audio recording and editing software for audio projects as well as to record, edit, or mix audio in support of video projects. Faculty and staff usually create media to be used by students, often within the classroom. Some users create public facing content including podcasts.
  • Audacity is great at supporting users across platforms and is equally approachable on Mac and PC
  • Audacity gives good basic editing (cuts and fades) and recording (usb or internal microphone) functionality for free
  • Audacity has several helpful tips geared towards the novice user, including helping them to export a file rather than just save an Audacity project
  • Audacity has changed some icons recently for certain editing functions and that can be confusing for users and support
  • The interface isn't the worst I have seen but the UI isn't exactly enjoyable on Mac or PC
  • Some of the functionality can quickly feel overwhelming to a new user, pointing toward help documentation the first time an advanced tool is used would be appreciated
Audacity is great for a person doing a one-time or hobby level audio recording where they need to keep costs low or are just recording something quickly and not regularly needing an audio editor. As a professional, I rarely use Audacity myself because the interface isn't enjoyable and some features are better supported on paid software such as Audition, Logic, Pro Tools, etc.
Samuel Lyons | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I've used Audacity for a number of years to support our students in developing their skills in audio editing podcasts. It's a fantastic tool that offers pretty much all the features you find in the leading competitor software. It works perfectly in the learning environment and provides easy access to students. Its interface is simple and intuitive. Students take to it like a duck to water and it offers them the opportunity to learn the essentials of audio editing.
  • Clean straightforward editing/recoding of audio
  • Multitrack compilation and recording
  • Effects and tools--a wide range of tools to clean up and improve quality
  • Its native format is FLAC
  • Can offer a wider range of file imports
  • More advanced editing/effects
Excellent for a learning environment with students, large teams, projects that are low budget. When your team has experience working with Adobe Creative Cloud or other Adobe software such as Premier, it makes sense to use the Adobe equivalent. Additionally, for a professional team working on a large range of productions with different file formats, I believe Audacity may fall behind or slow the process down.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have used Audacity for quick audio edits for radio commercials and voice overs for video.
  • Quick audio cuts.
  • Easy transitions.
  • Can't update edits once they are made.
  • Not easy to do major edits like removing background noise.
It is easy to use for those who haven't edited audio before. It's not overwhelming with features. It's also free which is a good way to start learning about audio editing. Not appropriate for major edits or something with lots of layers of audio files.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Audacity as a quick and simple tool to edit audio files for use on our website, to add to simple videos, to make mashups of my music and vocal clips and to do fade-ins and fade-outs when putting groups of songs together. I also use it to quickly make loops of my music for uploading to royalty-free sites. When I'm not on my Mac Audacity is my go-to (free and simple) program to edit audio tracks on PC.
  • It's simple and intuitive.
  • I can quickly and easily see where I need to cut off or extend tracks.
  • It's easy to raise or lower volume and to add silence to areas of a track.
Audacity is great when you just need something simple and easy to use for editing audio tracks. If you only have very basic needs (cutting off the end of a too-long track, inserting silence, raising or lowering the overall volume, fading in or out, combining tracks--even making simple loops) and don't need or want to pay for a program with greater functionality, Audacity is perfect as it is free and very simple to use.
Tamar Weinberg | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Right now, we are using Audacity after recording podcasts to edit the output of the resulting audio file. This includes splicing, adding an intro and outro, removing "ums" and "you knows" as well as any other interference, as well as removing other unnecessary noise.
  • Open-source.
  • Community support, lots of help documents.
  • Difficult interface to understand without the help documents.
  • Some functions require the use of third-party plugins that are more expensive than the product (which is free).
Audacity is a free open-source product that does a great job with audio editing, handling pretty much all files with ease. While out of the box, you may require some free plugins to process the audio file you work with, some of the functionality for more advanced tasks requires paid plugins that may not necessarily even resolve the issue. In particular, Audacity doesn't seem to have a seamless solution to remove echo, and many of the various help documents seem to suggest that a paid plugin would resolve this issue; none of them work. The interface looks very professional, but to that end, it's also intimidating to use and it's difficult to figure out how to do things at times. You may need to refer to help documents on a regular basis; for every podcast I've recorded, I've had to revisit another help issue. I've done more than 40 hours of editing since I've started but I still don't feel confident I understand how to amplify the volume in text or to reduce it. I feel like a newbie and perhaps I shouldn't be one at this "late" stage. That said, Audacity is perhaps one of the best audio solutions on the market, and it doesn't hurt that this is free.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I used Audacity as the main mixing software for my Podcast. We were three participants, and I was the only user. It's great because you can learn ''on the job'' while using the software, and tons of tutorials exist on YouTube for example. It feels like a very polished, fleshed out product in every way.
  • Flexible.
  • Easy to use.
  • Integrated tutorials would be nice.
  • A bit more UI customization out of the box
It's free - can't go wrong there! Plus it's open source, so anything is possible. If you are new to audio mixing, and are looking for the right software to get you started, Audacity is up there with the best of them. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys mixing, podcasting or even singing.
February 16, 2020

Fun, fancy, and free!

Jennifer Stirling | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Audacity to create samples of music, karaoke tracks, and piano accompaniments that we sell on our website. I appreciate the simplicity of the product, ease of use, and ability to trim, edit, and extract the audio in a usable format (it allows you to choose between AIFF, WAV, mp3, AC3, M4A, MP2, FLAC, AMR, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, etc. and options for various bit rate modes, quality, variable speeds, and channel modes (stereo/joint-stereo). I also appreciate the ability to change the speed of the music without changing pitch and the ease with which I can transpose. The sound quality of the transposed music is surprisingly good.
  • Simple to use.
  • Free download.
  • Free version has possibly limited options for someone with more advanced skills.
I think for novices who need to slow down/speed up music, trim or edit music, or do general editing of the music with effects Audacity is a great software program to use! If you're looking to be a producer the free version probably isn't going to have enough options.
John Marshall | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Audacity is a free app that allows VoIP users to create custom greeting and announcements for Auto Attendants and on-hold messaging. Its multi-track capability allows mixing, fading and adding of background music, as well as combining tracks into mono or stereo files in a variety of audio formats.
  • Aggregate multiple tracks, attenuate each separately.
  • Fade tracks in and out for messaging.
  • It's super, but there is bit of a learning curve to become proficient.
Instead of hiring a professional audio consultant to create and manage your VoIP phone system prompts and messaging, Audacity allows you to keep this in-house to be able to react in real-time to special messaging requirements. This is very well suited for the 8X8 Virtual Contact Center (VCC) which allows for separate inbound channel scripting and messaging to create a customized brand, experience, and messaging silos for each inbound caller type.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My team produces eLearning videos for our own products. We use music for title slides and the like—and I am very picky about my audio. I like to use clips that make sense and don't just start and stop. Audacity allows me to do some basic editing and to do it fairly easily.
  • Editing of length; creating clips, etc.
  • I like that I can adjust the volume before pulling in a recording to my video. This makes for less work on the video end of my project.
  • I know there are other features I could probably use but I'm still learning.
  • There are so many things that this program will do and I'm sure I don't even know the half of it.
  • I would like to see a simpler version that works for people like me that aren't professional musicians or using it for that purpose.
I LOVE using Audacity for my audio clips! I'm very picky about the audio quality on my own videos and Audacity helps me to maintain that high level of quality. I can edit the music files I pull in, copy, cut/paste, etc. It's really great and provides me a great deal of flexibility!
Keith Lillico, M.Ed, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My time runs on a tight budget and you can never beat the price of free. What makes it even better is that even with it being free software it has the ability to do just as much if not more than all the professional software that is on the market.
  • Basic recording.
  • Editing.
  • Open-source so no actual support.
  • Time between updates vary.
Audacity is well suited for any scenario where you need to edit audio or do any sort of audio recording. I have used it to record voice-over for eLearning courses, record podcasts, narration for videos, and even to do editing in audio that was recorded somewhere else. You cannot beat the flexibility of this software.
Justin McClelland | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Audacity a lot for the editing of podcast audio as well as audio that supports video files.
  • Very intuitive
  • Free to use
  • It takes a while to get the hang of it.
  • Integration with popular video/audio apps.
It's a great tool to use that I've grown to love over the years. I don't use anything else to edit my audio at this time. It's an excellent app that I don't have any suggestions for improvement.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our primary use of Audacity within our business is for the editing or recording of sound files to use in our PBX phone system. We have also used it for other projects such as editing sound files for corporate videos.
The main functions we have used is recording, both from microphone but also from playing computer sounds (what you hear), and editing functions:
  • trimming
  • joining/merging
  • cutting and pasting
  • volume adjustment
  • stereo to mono conversion
  • fading in and out
  • sample rate conversion
  • format conversion
It is mostly used within our IT and Marketing departments to create new sound files with speech, or modify existing sound files we have to better suit a project via trimming and joining in different order, and saving in the correct format. Using Audacity has allowed us to be cost effective and nimble with our existing recordings as we can modify them to suit current needs rather than requesting and paying for new recordings. Re-using existing recordings also means it feels familiar to our customers, even if the message is different.
  • Trimming of sound files
  • Joining of sound files
  • It would be nice to change the size of some interface elements as they can be small on some screens.
Overall Audacity is a great program for audio editing in a wide range of uses. It is quick and easy to start using it for basic tasks but has the functions to do more advanced tasks with a little understanding of the interface. Audacity has many editing options available and a wide range of keyboard and mouse shortcuts so anyone using it professionally would be able to navigate it quickly and efficiently.

It is available on the three main computer platforms, Windows, MacOS and Linux, and being open source software it has the source available for those that want to change it and make the product better. Audacity is a small download and small install meaning start up is quick, and running multiple instances is possible and doesn't hog machine resources.

The only time I think it may not be suitable is for complete novices that may need a program with less options or features as the amount of options, switches, and sliders in Audacity could be confusing for them.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We develop videos and guided exercises and require an audio software to assist in mixing music and narration as well as making slide shows with audio.
  • Recording sound WASAPI (Recording sound directly from computer)
  • Record live studio
  • Interface is not as streamlined or easy to use
  • Audacity is unable to record multiple devices without special drivers
For those who are on a budget and enjoy open-source programs, Audacity will work well for most. It is fairly easy to use and has multi-track audio editing capability. It's great for podcasting, narrations, and most everything else involving voice and music. Audacity may not be appropriate for those who want to create music. Easy publishing options may not be available. Real-time audio effects are not automatically applied. Generally, for our needs, Audacity works well for multiple users.
Jeff Eaton | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our team produces a number of podcasts on development, design, and content strategy — audio editing isn't a normal part of our workflow, so we don't have a suite of high-end editing tools on hand to use. Our hunt for a low-cost, cross-platform audio editing tool flexible enough for multi-track editing and post-processing led us to Audacity and we've been using it ever since.
  • Audio filtering and processesing
  • Multi-track editing and audio compositing
  • User experience and workflow is… very open source
  • Lacks presets or guidance for common export targets (podcasting, CD-quality music, etc)
We use Audacity as a podcast editing, prep, and export tool; it has enough filtering and audio-processing features to perform tasks like balancing tracks, removing background noise, and it lets us make fast edits across multiple synced audio tracks. A common scenario for us is chopping out a minute or two of irrelevant conversation from the three parallel tracks for each podcast participant — some of the simpler editing tools we evaluated required that edits be made track-by-track, all but ensuring the audio falls out of sync.

The more complex the editing, the more Audacity's clunky interface can frustrate — it's impossible to beat the price (free!) but it's also easy to feel lost when trying to accomplish something basic until you learn its idiosyncrasies.
Jarem Atkinson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Audacity on a weekly basis for editing the audio of our video recordings in our online courses and editing the audio of our podcast episodes. It is just used by the marketing department within the company. Audacity helps us to easily clean up the audio in our video and audio recordings, and more importantly, it makes the editing process very easy. The learning curve for using Audacity is small, yet it is a robust software, allowing room for learning more and getting advanced things done within audio editing.
  • Audacity has a wide variety of controls and capabilities for editing, making it a very robust tool for audio editing.
  • Even though it's a robust tool, it is very easy to use to get many basic things done in audio editing. The learning curve is small.
  • Love that audacity is free! What else could you ask for? There really is no reason not to use it.
  • While Audacity is straight forward and easy to use, it takes a lot of digging through the software to really understand the full capability of what you can do with it. It would be great if there was some kind of onboarding tutorial walkthrough within the software that you could go through when you start using it.
  • I'm not sure it's a problem everyone experiences, but I've had issues with the software, trying to export files within specific file formats. I had to download patches to the software that made it possible. If the software came with the functionality built in, that would be great. Especially considering the fact that the formats I've been exporting to are mainstream formats. (i.e. .mp3, .wav, etc.).
  • The dashboard of audacity is pretty messy. It's not super intuitively built. Improving the navigation of the software would make it more usable, in my experience.
For robust audio editing needs, Audacity is a great tool to use. When you want to comb through the layers of audio and make small or large changes to your file, and even being able to export to various file types, Audacity is my recommended tool. For people who need small audio editing changes like simple clippings of audio, there are more user-friendly tools out there than Audacity.
Jerry Janes | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Audacity for both business and pleasure. Since I use Linux with only open source solutions, it works perfectly for my varying needs.
  • It is very lightweight. Uses relatively few resources, but is robust with its functionality.
  • It is highly intuitive, user-friendly. If you want simplicity without a huge learning curve, this is a great solution.
  • I know this is specific, but its Noise Reduction tool is excellent. For anyone needing to remove background noise, quickly and easily, with quality and fine-tunable results, you can't go wrong!
  • My biggest complaint is when multitracking, on occasion, Audacity's source files corrupt and are NOT recoverable. If you have an important, complex project, Audacity might not be the ideal solution for this reason alone. I have scoured the forums for help, and have found many well-thought suggestions, but more than once I have had to go back to square one, which is very frustrating.
  • The UI could use some updating. Although user-friendly, some icons/functions are not immediately clear.
It is well suited for simple vocal recordings, such as Podcasts. Based on the issues I have experienced multitracking, it is not ideal for recording multitrack songs.
Ho'omana Nathan Horton | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Audacity in the linguistics lab to record audio through a USB pre-amplifier (typically the Focusrite Scarlett Solo) and to re-sample or re-encode audio data in other formats which may not be readable (or maybe too big) for analysis software like Praat. We also use Audacity for some post-recording manipulation for perceptual studies.
  • Audacity is free and user-friendly but also allows for outstandingly fine-grained tuning if you know what you're doing.
  • We find this software invaluable for recording or re-encoding audio data for linguistic analysis.
  • We're also able to manipulate audio files (e.g. by changing pitch) to present for perceptual studies. Audacity's algorithms really do an excellent job of manipulating only the selected variable and maintaining the integrity and crispness of the audio file.
  • Audacity has an older-looking interface that can make a large number of options overwhelming sometimes, but it's free, so I've never really found this to be worth complaining about.
  • The included documentation also uses a pretty outdated interface, but again, it's free and there are a huge amount of much more thorough resources available online.
Audacity is absolutely invaluable as a free resource for making high-quality audio recordings on a computer and editing those recordings. Sure, there are other paid options with newer interfaces, but they are typically super expensive. Audacity works, it works well, and it's totally free. As a linguistic researcher who does recording, analysis, and manipulation of files, there's virtually no audio problem I've come across that Audacity won't work for.
Dan Talvi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a digital media arts instructor, we utilize Audacity as a secondary audio editing software for video production work. In conjunction with other professional audio production software that can feel bloated or overly complicated for small tasks, Audacity fills the gap for projects when we need quick and efficient tweaks and cuts, rather than full audio engineering work.
  • Easy to learn user interface.
  • Reliable
  • Compact (small install size and can be loaded onto a flash drive).
  • Cannot natively export audio to MP3: requires download of LAME MP3 encoder to enable that functionality.
  • Multi-track recording can be difficult (clunky) to work with.
For individuals looking to record and/or only make quick, small edits or tweaks to audio, Audacity should be your go-to software. Tools are mostly self-explanatory and easy to use. Requires some computer literacy to initially set up, but otherwise is easy to use. Audacity, however, is not best suited for multi-track or advanced audio engineering projects.
Return to navigation