Visuals drive multimedia content. However, audio is needed to engage the audience longer.
Audio takes the form of voice-overs, background scores, or standalone content formats (podcasts and songs). Whenever audio is included, it requires special care to ensure the right quality and volume of audio is produced without overpowering the visuals.
Thus a reliable audio editing software is required. One can undoubtedly record live audio and use that. But to fine-tune the audio, a software can help significantly. Sound editing software can reduce noise, amplify low or high tones, cut, extend, or merge audio clips as required.
There are many advanced tools available that only edit audio, and they produce excellent results. Most of them are paid though, and not every content creator has the budget to invest in audio editing.
To help you filter these tools, we have created a list of the top 7 free audio editing software in 2021.
But before we jump into the best free audio editing software, let’s discuss what you should consider when looking for a sound editing software.
What to Look for in a Free Audio Editing Software
Budget
This one goes without saying. Any investment you make for your content production activity should align with your set budget.
As mentioned, audio is one of the important parts of production, but there are also many other essential aspects that need to be taken care of before audio editing.
Keep the balance and decide whether it’s a viable step to invest in an audio editing software.
In this guide we give you free audio editing software that are good enough to fine-tune the audio of your content.
User Interface
User interface is the most crucial aspect of any software.
You must be sure the software has a user-friendly interface. Otherwise, you will end up wasting a lot of hours just trying to learn the system.
Features
Depending on your production style, you need to decide if those features are supported within the software, such as VST plug-ins, 8- to 32-bits help, lots of file format support, etc.
Now let’s dive deep into the tools.
Top 7 Free Audio Editing Software
As shared above, we have made a list of free audio editors that you can use right away so you can start creating impeccable audio content for your materials.
#1 Audacity
Audacity is the perfect software for content creators seeking an enhanced yet user-friendly audio editing tool for their multimedia content.
Thanks to its open-sourced nature, Audacity is free to use. It works on all the leading computer operating systems, like Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Audacity can record live audio from a microphone or mixer. It can also digitize audio from other multimedia content.
Users can edit, import, and combine audio files and export those audio files into various formats.
It supports 16-, 24-, and 32-bit audio. It also supports several plug-ins so that you can get granular control over the editing process.
You can restore all the versions of editing through the unlimited undo and redo feature.
Pros
- Excellent to cut small audio clips
- Has a lot of helpful documentation to understand the tool
- Open-sourced
- Cross-platform support
- Executes multiple tracks and attenuates each one of them as required
Cons
- Does not have presets
- UI not very modern
- Not supported on smartphones
#2 Acoustica
Acoustica is a very reliable tool for advanced and in-depth audio editing on Mac and Windows.
It can seamlessly edit, master, and restore audio content. Acon Digital develops Acoustica.
It has a professional UI that will save you a lot of time and trouble as you can quickly get acquainted with the software.
It supports VST or DirectX plugins. Such support will give you access to a wide range of sound effects and filters to edit your tracks and produce better results for your audience.
The current Acoustica version does not have a free version, so you have to download its last free version, i.e. Acoustica 6.
Pros
- Professional interface
- Advanced features
- Stable interface
- Supports third-party plug-ins
Cons
- Cannot do multitrack mixing
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#3. Wavepad
For intermediate and professional usage, Wavepad is an excellent free audio editing software. It has a ton of features to calibrate audio and elevate the production quality.
It can effortlessly do the primary activities—like cut, copy, paste, and trim the audio files. You can amplify, normalize, and equalize the audio and sound effects by just a couple of clicks and settings within this tool.
It lets you batch-process audio editing so that you can replicate the same effects in your entire folder.
You can maintain the quality of your audio through the restoration process. It reduces noises very effectively and keeps the details while doing so.
It also allows you to create region bookmarks for efficient browsing of your content. The sample rates range goes from 6 to 190 kHz. It works with stereo or mono and can work with 8, 16, 24, and 32 bits.
Pros
- Precise audio restoration
- Helpful features for a free tool
- Software and user interface very stable
- Lots of supported file formats
- Seamless basic audio editing
Cons
- No customer support
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#4. Ocenaudio
Ocenaudio is another impressive and open-sourced free audio editing software available for Mac and Windows users.
It supports VST plug-in, which is used for accessing numerous sound effects.
One more excellent feature of this tool is its real-time preview feature. That means once you make any adjustment in your audio signal, they will give you a real-time preview so that you will know how the actual audio would sound like if you adjust and apply those effects.
Pros
- Real-time preview of edited audio
- Cross-platform support
- Lightweight, flexible, and free sound editing software
- Works efficiently with large files
- Access to fully-featured spectrogram
Cons
- Does not support mobile
- Does not support multitrack editing
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#5. Wavosaur
Wavosaur is another impressive open-sourced free audio editing software that works seamlessly with WAV and MP3 files.
It has all the essential features that an audio editor software needs. You can cut, copy, and paste different audio files segments and create engaging audio in your required format.
It effortlessly creates music loops and smoothly records, analyzes, and batch-converts audio formats.
It can work with 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bits track efficiently. You can also apply autotrim, remove silence, and tweak the audio easily.
Pros
- Supports 8, 16, 24 and 32 bits
- Very easy to use
- Different advanced feature
- Best process for audio editing feature
Cons
- UI is very average
- Only supports Windows
- No active community support
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#6. Ashampoo Music Studio
This is a very reliable tool. Ashampoo Music Studio lets you define keyboard shortcuts to utilize the software and make creative and editing decisions quickly.
It selects automatic recording by default. It has a lot of templates so that you can bifurcate your songs and organize them efficiently.
This particular software is ideal for music composers and singers. The entire user interface is designed to help singers and artists create beautiful songs easily.
Pros
- Capacity to burn audio and MP3 discs
- Very intuitive user interface
- Effortless trimming of MP3 files
- Smooth learning curve
- Lets you apply tags to organize audio tracks
Cons
- Audio conversion supported only in 6 formats
- Only supported in Windows
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#7. Waveshop
Waveshop is another prevalent free audio editing software. It is a bit-perfect audio editing software, which means the original audio does not get affected.
It is fast and lightweight software that works on any decent hardware environment on Windows.
You get the chance to revise and restore the previous versions, thanks to the unlimited undos and redos.
It supports a wide range of file formats, so you don’t have to worry about exporting and importing your files in your preferred format.
You also get a real-time spectrum analyzer to get granular control over the audio editing process.
Pros
- Bit perfect software
- Supports a wide range of audio format
- Very user-friendly for all the skill levels
- Covers all the essential features
- Supports multithreaded processing
- Gives a real-time spectrum analyzer
Cons
- Old-fashioned UI
- Limited number of filters and effects
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Conclusion
All in all, these open-sourced audio editing tools are the perfect addition to your production tool kit.
Let me know in the comments below about what you think of these tools.