Audacity — Edit Recordings, Remove Noise, Make Podcasts. This Free Tool Is the Gold Standard of Audio Editing
In a word: Multi-track recording, waveform editing, noise reduction, EQ, compression, format conversion — everything you need for recording and audio post-production. Free and open source, with over 200 million installs.
Audio Editing Seems Like a High Bar — Until You Open Audacity
You recorded a podcast episode. Your voice sounds a bit muffled, there’s an air conditioner humming in the background, and the first 30 seconds are silence and microphone testing with “check, check.”
You want to trim the beginning, brighten your voice, and remove the AC noise. But you don’t want to learn a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) for this 10-minute task, and you certainly don’t want to spend thousands on professional audio editing software.
Audacity is the answer for this scenario. Drag your audio file in — the waveform unfolds clearly before you. Select the first 30 seconds with your mouse, hit Delete. Select a section with only AC noise → Effects → Noise Reduction → “Get Noise Profile” → Select the entire track → Open Noise Reduction again → OK. Noise gone. Effects → Equalizer → Boost the mids — your voice sounds brighter.
This whole process, if you’re a first-timer with a tutorial, takes 10 minutes to learn. After that, it’s 3 minutes every time.
What Can Audacity Do?
1. Recording: Microphone, System Sound, Mixed Recording
Audacity can record audio from any input source on your computer:
- Microphone recording: Via USB mic, audio interface input, or built-in laptop mic
- System audio recording: Record sounds playing on your computer (requires setting audio host, e.g., Windows WASAPI Loopback)
- Multi-track simultaneous recording: Record multiple microphones/line inputs at once (useful for dual-person podcasts or instrument recording)
- Timed recording: Set start and end times for recording
The waveform displays in real-time during recording, so you can see if the volume is too high (clipping) or too low.
2. Editing: What You See Is What You Get
Audacity displays audio as a visual waveform. You see the shape of the sound:
- Silent parts → flat waveform → select and delete
- Speech parts → waveform with起伏 → keep
- Coughs/table taps → sharp spikes → select that section, Delete
- Need to swap the order of two segments → select one, Ctrl+X cut, click another spot, Ctrl+V paste
All operations can be undone with Ctrl+Z. Audacity keeps a complete undo history.
3. Noise Reduction: Remove AC, Fan, and Electrical Hum
This is one of Audacity’s most praised features:
- Find a section of audio that has only background noise, no voice (like a pause before speaking)
- Select this pure noise section → Effects → Noise Reduction → “Get Noise Profile”
- Select the entire track → Open Noise Reduction again → Preview and adjust parameters → OK
The first time you use it, you’ll have a “this can’t be possible” feeling — with the right noise type and parameters, Audacity’s noise reduction can eliminate persistent low-frequency noise (AC, fans, electrical hum, computer fans) completely cleanly.
Note: Noise reduction cannot remove sudden noises (door slams, pet sounds). Those have to be manually deleted.
4. Equalizer (EQ): Make Your Voice Go from “Muffled” to “Bright”
Recordings sound “muffled,” like speaking through a blanket? That’s too much low frequency and not enough mid-high frequency.
Audacity has a built-in graphical EQ: Effects → Equalizer → Draw curves. A common operation:
- Cut ultra-low frequencies below 100Hz (not needed for voice, just introduces AC noise)
- Slightly boost the 3-6 kHz region (makes voice clearer and more present)
- If there are sibilants (hissing S sounds), gently reduce at 6-8 kHz
For most voice recording scenarios, this simple EQ adjustment can take your sound from “amateur” to “clean and professional.”
5. Compressor: Even Out the Volume
Have you ever had this experience: parts of your recording are very quiet, so you turn up the volume, and then suddenly someone laughs or bangs the table, and your ears get blasted?
An audio compressor does this: brings quiet sounds up, pushes loud sounds down, making the overall volume even and smooth. Audacity Effects → Compressor, adjust the threshold and ratio parameters.
For podcasts and voice content, compression is almost mandatory. It prevents listeners from constantly adjusting their phone volume.
6. Other Common Effects
- Normalize: Adjusts the overall volume of the entire track to a specified peak (e.g., -1 dB), making it loud enough without clipping
- Fade In/Fade Out: Smooth transitions from quiet to loud at the beginning and loud to quiet at the end
- Pitch Change/Tempo Change: Change pitch (voice effect) or playback speed (slow down for transcription)
- Silence: Silences selected sections directly
- Reverse: Flips the waveform backward (for special sound effects)
- Generate: Generate various test tones (like 1kHz sine wave, white noise) or DTMF dial tones
7. Format Conversion
Audacity can open almost all common audio formats (WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AIFF, AAC, etc.) and export them to your desired format. It also supports batch processing — convert a group of files to the same format and parameters.
Professional Media and User Reviews
| Source | Review |
|---|---|
| How-To Geek | ”Audacity is the gold standard of free audio editors — powerful, accessible, and irreplaceable” |
| PCMag | ”Audacity packs pro-level audio editing into a free, open-source package that’s become an essential tool for podcasters” |
| TechRadar | ”For podcast editing, simple music recording, and audio cleanup, Audacity is still unmatched in the free software world” |
What Real Users Say
“I’ve been podcasting for three years, from episode one to episode one hundred, all edited with Audacity. It’s not that I don’t know about more professional DAWs — it’s that Audacity is enough. Trim flubs, noise reduction, EQ, compression, export MP3. A 40-minute podcast takes 15 minutes of post-production.” — Podcaster, Zhihu
“University professor. During the pandemic I recorded online courses, using Audacity to edit audio + noise reduction + EQ. Students said the audio was very clear and asked if I bought professional equipment. It was actually just Audacity’s noise reduction + EQ saving my laptop mic recording.” — University Professor, V2EX
“I study linguistics and often analyze speech samples. Audacity’s waveform and spectrogram are free speech analysis tools — you can see vowel formants, consonant closures, and pitch contours. More intuitive than the professional tool Praat.” — Linguistics Graduate Student, Xiaohongshu
“Making music demos. Audacity’s 8-track recording + effects are enough to capture guitar, vocals, and bass ideas for demos. I use Pro Tools for正式 recording, but 90% of pre-production is done in Audacity.” — Independent Musician, Bilibili
Comparison with Similar Tools
| Dimension | Audacity | Adobe Audition | Ocenaudio | GoldWave |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-track Recording/Editing | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Supported | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Professional | ⭐⭐ Limited | ⭐⭐ Limited |
| Noise Reduction | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Top-tier | ⭐⭐⭐ Basic | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Good |
| Built-in Effects | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rich | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Massive | ⭐⭐⭐ Basic | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rich |
| Spectral Analysis | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Supported | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Professional | ⭐⭐ Basic | ⭐⭐ Basic |
| Waveform Editing Experience | ⭐⭐⭐ Adequate | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Smoothest | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Intuitive | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Smooth |
| Plugin Support | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ VST/LADSPA | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ VST/AU | ⭐⭐⭐ VST | ⭐⭐⭐ VST |
| Learning Curve | ⭐⭐⭐ Moderate | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Steeper | ⭐⭐ Simple | ⭐⭐ Simple |
| Cross-Platform | Yes Win/Mac/Linux | Yes Win/Mac | Yes Win/Mac/Linux | No Windows only |
| Open Source | Yes GPLv3 | No Paid | No Closed (Free) | No Paid |
| Price | Free | ¥154/month | Free | $19/lifetime |
Selection advice:
- Making podcasts/voice/audio editing, need free full-featured tool → Audacity (industry-standard free tool)
- Only need simple audio cutting/volume adjustment/format conversion → Ocenaudio (simpler, smoother, but no multi-track)
- Professional audio/broadcast/video post-production → Adobe Audition (Premiere integration, most professional features)
- Simple recording editing, traditional interface → GoldWave (veteran tool, cheap one-time purchase)
Download and Installation Guide
Official Download (Recommended)
Audacity’s only official website is audacityteam.org:
| Channel | Download Address | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Official Site | audacityteam.org | Windows/macOS/Linux |
| GitHub | github.com/audacity/audacity | Open source repo + Releases |
Safety Note: Audacity’s official site is
audacityteam.org. The software is completely free and open source (GPLv3). Note: In 2021, after Audacity was acquired by Muse Group, telemetry was added (collecting usage data), which caused significant community backlash. It was later changed to be off by default and optional. If you have privacy concerns, you can use the community-maintained fork without telemetry (like Tenacity) or install an older version (pre-3.0).No bundled software during installation.
2-Minute Quick Start
- Open audacityteam.org, download the Windows version
- Install and launch, click the red circular “Record” button to start recording
- Waveform displays in real-time, click the square “Stop” button to end
- Select unwanted sections with your mouse → Delete key to remove
- Effects → Noise Reduction → follow the noise reduction process above
- Effects → Equalizer → adjust sound tone
- File → Export → Export as MP3 (first export requires downloading the free LAME MP3 encoder — Audacity will guide you)
Recommended Settings
- Edit → Preferences → Audio Settings: Select the correct recording and playback devices
- Edit → Preferences → Interface: Can switch to dark theme (easier on the eyes)
- When exporting: Podcasts choose MP3 128kbps mono, music choose MP3 320kbps stereo or FLAC lossless
- Save projects: Use .aup3 format to save Audacity project files (preserves all tracks, effects, and edit history)
FAQ
Q: Can Audacity record system audio (internal recording)? A: Yes. Select “Windows WASAPI” in the audio host, and select your speakers/headphones as the recording device (Loopback mode). This lets you record any sound playing on your computer — YouTube videos, game sounds, online meetings, etc.
Q: Why does Audacity need an additional encoder to export MP3? A: The MP3 encoding algorithm is patent-protected (though most have expired). To avoid legal risks, Audacity doesn’t include an MP3 encoder. The first time you export MP3, it will prompt you to download the LAME MP3 encoder (free and open source) — just one .dll file placed in the Audacity directory. Only needed once.
Q: Can Audacity be used for music production? A: It can do simple multi-track recording and demos (record instruments, vocals, simple mixing). But Audacity is a “waveform editor,” not a “DAW” — it has no MIDI editing, virtual instruments, metronome grid, or automation curves, which are core music production features. If you want to make electronic music or do professional music production, use Cakewalk (free), LMMS (free), or DAWs like Ableton Live / FL Studio.
Audacity is the Notepad of the audio editing world — a simple interface, adequate features, open a file and start working. It’s not fancy, but tens of millions of people worldwide rely on it for everything from podcasts to online courses to music demos.