Audacity

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.

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.

Splitting broadcast WAV files

Editing audio files quickly

Fast loading

More robust mixing

Better plugin support

Easy stereo recording

Simple interface for those with minimal experience

Easy workflow

Improved GUI

Create version for Mac

Better VST integration

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 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

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

Quick audio cuts.

Easy transitions.

Can't update edits once they are made.

Not easy to do major edits like removing background noise.

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.

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).

Flexible.

Easy to use.

Integrated tutorials would be nice.

A bit more UI customization out of the box

Simple to use.

Free download.

Free version has possibly limited options for someone with more advanced skills.

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.

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.

Basic recording.

Editing.

Open-source so no actual support.

Time between updates vary.

Very intuitive

Free to use

It takes a while to get the hang of it.

Integration with popular video/audio apps.

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.

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

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.