Freeware

Audacity: Cut the Crap Off of Your Tunes

By EAN ⋅ July 31, 2007 ⋅  Email this Post ⋅  Print this Post ⋅ Post a Comment

Developer: The Audacity Team
Version: 1.2.6
Download it Here.

My music collection is a beast of its own that doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon. I tend to add a few new songs each week to my playlists, which is all well and good, but not every song I add sounds like I want it too. Because I listen to a lot of electronic stuff, I buy a lot of music where the songs have been mixed together - leaving chunks of other songs on the front and rear of the song that I wanted to hear. While it’s tolerable for a couple of songs, it becomes a big annoyance if I am listening to song after song that just don’t sound good. That’s where Audacity comes into play. A free program that can chop a song up as I please.

Audacity really is an amazing piece of free software with a hell of a lot of functionality. Even though I have used the program for a couple of years now, I know that I am still just scratching the surface of what it can do - and even with the small amount of power that I use, Audacity really is impressive. While it seems as though I’m doing a lot by chopping bits and pieces off of the heads and tails of songs, I realize that I am only clicking on about a quarter of the buttons and menu items.

Despite the overwhelming amount of audio editing tasks that Audacity can handle, it all feels really easy to use. The buttons are clear and easy to understand, and there is really no reason to read any help files unless you are really trying to delve into the deeper aspects of the program. As a quick and simple audio editor though, Audacity is incredibly easy to use.

There is one problem though - not with the software, but with my own habits. If I am playing a song on Audacity, I cannot simply pause it if I want to do some editing. I actually have to press the stop button. For some reason, I always forget that step and it drives me crazy when I’m trying to just cut a song down really quickly. Nevertheless, that one “flaw” doesn’t detract from the program at all.

So what are some good applications for Audacity? I use it primarily to crop the beginnings and endings off of my songs, but I also cut down songs to around thirty seconds or so for use as ringtones on my cell phone (Sony Ericsson W810). Beyond that, though, it would be really easy to use Audacity as a way to make my own music. The draw tool, for example, has a lot of potential that I have never tapped into. Audacity would also be a great tool for making podcasts or some other kind of voice recording. With a few clicks I could even use it to totally change the tone and the pitch of a song. Absolutely amazing amounts of functions for such a small program.

I highly recommend that you download Audacity yourself and give it a go. If you like to tinker with your tunes as much as I do, you will completely fall in love with this program.

I’m not digging that icon, though.

Try it for Yourself.

- Eric Norton