Audacity 2.0

Audacity is a free, open source audio editor. You can use it to record, import, export or edit files to and from the most popular audio formats.

The interface is clear and simple and the buttons are placed where you would expect them to be. It performs basic audio editing in an intuitive way so that new users would have no problem in adapting. You can use it to edit and mix a large number of tracks and you can also add effects to your recordings. The list of effects includes amplify, fade in and out, echo, invert and many others. Besides MP3 files, it supports a wide range of audio formats: WAV, AIFF, AU, FLAC, OGG, AC3, AAC or WMA.

When it comes to audio quality it performs up to professional standards. It can record and edit 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit (floating point) samples, and up to 96KHz, sample rate.

It's very helpful software for recording or cutting tracks. Howeverб it's not ideal for loops and multi-tracking, mainly because when you use different tracks they are not truly synced together. For most podcasting jobs this is not a big deal but for multi-track music this can be a problem.