Value, Ease of Use and Efficiency for Podcasts
We use Audacity to edit and record two podcasts. It is a major help in efficiency and affordability.
Overview
What is Audacity?
Audacity is a free and open source audio recording and editing software.
Recent 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
Principal and Owner
AGPR/AlexanderG Public Relations, LLC (Public Relations & Communications, 1-10 employees)
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?
57 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.
Product Details
- About
- Tech Details
- FAQs
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 Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
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).
Comparisons
Compare with
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!
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
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
February 28, 2024
Value, Ease of Use and Efficiency for Podcasts
- 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.
August 09, 2023
Archivist experience with Audacity
- 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
June 25, 2023
Very satisfied!
- 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.
November 03, 2022
Basic sound editing and recording in a dead-simple package
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- 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.
August 23, 2021
The Only Free Audio Editor You'll Ever Need
- Splitting broadcast WAV files
- Editing audio files quickly
- Fast loading
- More robust mixing
- Better plugin support
July 16, 2021
Great DAW to start any recording
- 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.
May 08, 2021
Great free app for new users
- 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
April 29, 2021
Having the Audacity to compete for free
- 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
April 14, 2020
A lot of value for the price
- Quick audio cuts.
- Easy transitions.
- Can't update edits once they are made.
- Not easy to do major edits like removing background noise.
March 20, 2020
Excellent product for simple audio editing needs
- 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.
February 21, 2020
Doesn't hurt to have a free product in my tool set
- 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).
February 20, 2020
Audacity has been perfect and easy to work with
- Flexible.
- Easy to use.
- Integrated tutorials would be nice.
- A bit more UI customization out of the box
February 16, 2020
Fun, fancy, and free!
- 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.
February 12, 2020
Audacity makes my end product better and my life easier!
- 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.
February 05, 2020
The best you can find for the price
- Basic recording.
- Editing.
- Open-source so no actual support.
- Time between updates vary.
January 23, 2020
Audacity is my go-to audio editing software hands-down!
- 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.
January 21, 2020
Audacity, the alternative audio recording and editing software!
- 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
January 17, 2020
Powerful audio editing tools with a no-frills interface
- 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)
March 20, 2019
Use Audacity (a Free Open-Source Software) for Robust Easy Editing of Your Audio Files
- 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.
March 20, 2019
Powerful, free audio suite that's virtually essential for acoustic analysis of linguistic data
- 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.
March 20, 2019
Audacity: Quick and Easy Audio Editing
- 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.