Audacity for ALL your sound editing requirements - Open Source and Free
January 23, 2020

Audacity for ALL your sound editing requirements - Open Source and Free

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Audacity

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.

Pros

  • Trimming of sound files
  • Joining of sound files

Cons

  • It would be nice to change the size of some interface elements as they can be small on some screens.
  • Easy to use - Great ROI as Free Software
  • Many features - Great ROI as Free Software
We have not used direct support for Audacity, other than using the information available on their website, which resolved the issues we were experiencing so we had a good experience in that regard.
As this is Open Source FREE software, I don't believe there is direct support available.
In saying that, it has the following great support options:
  • Online documentation and FAQ
  • Online tutorials covering all functions
  • Online user forums where questions are asked and answered by other users
  • Online wiki with more information
With these options most issues should be able to be resolved to get full use from Audacity.

Do you think Audacity delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Audacity's feature set?

Yes

Did Audacity live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Audacity go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Audacity again?

Yes

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.

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