Audacity is a free and open source digital audio editing and recording application that is available for Windows, MacOS, Linux and Unix-like operating systems. If you are an aspiring YouTuber who wants to upload your first video, or a casual users who wants to adjust the audio quality of an amazing song you just downloaded from Internet, you need a professional audio editing and recording program like Audacity to do you a great favor.
Audacity is a professional, easy to use audio recording and editing software. The program is compatible with most common audio formats. Sound can be recorded from sources such as microphones or mixing consoles as well as USB/Firewire devices, streams and many more. Music files can be edited by cutting, copying, pasting and deleting. Audacity is an open-source audio solution with extensive functions including recording. It is a good way to convert music tapes into digital files or download online songs. According to our survey, some users reported that the recording function is not always working. Therefore, we share the troubleshooting to help users fix this problem quickly.
If you find your Audacity is buggy, crashy or you are not used to using it, you can check this list for top 10 Audacity alternatives.
Part 1. Top 5 Audacity Alternatives for Audio Editing
1. Ocenaudio
Oceanaudio(https://www.ocenaudio.com/) is an easy, fast and powerful video editor that is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It supports VST (Visual Studio Technology) plugins, giving users access to numerous effects, and the VST effects can use real-time preview to aide configuration. As we all know it's an important part of audio editing to apply effects such as EQ, gain and filtering, etc. But it's tricky to get the desired result by adjusting the controls configuration alone, you must listen to the processed audio. With Ocenaudio, you can easily hear the processed signal while adjusting the controls by using its real time preview feature.
Pros:
- The multi-selection feature for delicate editions can speed up complex audio files editing, you can select different portions of an audio file simultaneously and listen, edit or even apply an affect to them.
- The real-time preview feature enables you to play with the parameters of the effect and hear the changes instantly.
Cons:
- This Audacity alternative only supports single stereo/mono files. You can't have a multi-track session and record several instruments in your home studio and mix them.
2. WavePad
WavePad(https://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html) is a full-featured professional audio and music editor for Windows and Mac computer. It's also a good alternative to Audacity because it lets you record and edit music, voice and other audio recordings easily and quickly. On top of all the basic audio editing features you can expect, WavePad supports all of the effects, compression, batch processing, scrubbing, bookmarking, VST plugins and son on.
Pros:
- It's free for non-commercial use.
- It contains sound editing tools like cut, copy, paste, delete, insert, silence, auto-trim, compression, pitch shifting and more, audio effects like amplify, normalize, equalizer, envelope, reverb, echo, reverse and many more.
- Supports almost all audio and music file formats including MP3, WAV, VOX, GSM, WMA, AU, AIF, FLAC, real audio, OGG, AAC, M4A, MID, AMR, and more.
Cons:
- Compared with other Audacity alternatives, the rendering on WavePad is relatively slow.
- WavePad requires software extensions for simple tasks.
3. WavoSaur
WavoSaur(https://www.wavosaur.com/) could be the most lightweight alternative to Audacity, as it is under 1 MB in size. Its multi-document interface enables you to edit more than one audio files in one session, and it has all the features to edit audio (e.g. trim, insert silence, cut, copy, paste, etc.), produce music loops, analyze, record, batch convert, and more.
Pros:
- It's lightweight with multi-document interface.
- Batch processing feature lets you apply an effect to an entire folder of audio files.
- You can record audio and then convert it to text.
Cons:
- This Audacity alternative only has standard features.
- WavoSaur is only available for Windows computer, if you are looking for audacity similar software on Mac, it's not your option.
4. Ardour
Ardour(https://ardour.org/) is also a cross-platform free program that can record, edit, mix and master audio files and MIDI projects on Windows, Mac and Linux. It's more suitable for professionals who have heavy audio projects for audio engineering needs. The primary audience of Ardour consists of audio engineers, recording artists, musicians, soundtrack editors, and composers.
Pros:
- It enables you to cut, move, stretch, copy, paste, delete, align, trim, crossfade, rename, snapshot, zoom, transpose, quantize, swing, drag, drop your audio files. And all these effects come with unlimited undo/redo.
- Since it's free but with bunch of powerful audio editing features, Ardour can be one of the best Audacity alternatives.
Con:
- There are too many plugins in Ardour, it's not so user-friendly for beginners.
5. FL Studio
Hip Hop artists love FL Studio(https://www.image-line.com/flstudio/) for its high-quality production tools and loops, and many famous music bands as well as music directors use this Audacity alternative for audio production. It's compatible with Windows and Mac OS.
Pros:
- FL Studio has the most customizable interface for music production.
- There are a ton of presets in this alternative to Audacity to mix your sounds.
- It's also compatible with a wide range of third-party VST plugins, which further widens the number of effects FL Studio can offer to you.
Con:
- This Audacity alternative is not free, in contrast, it's a little expensive with the price ranging from $99 to $899.
Part 2. Top 5 Audacity Alternatives for Audio Recording
1. Vidmore Screen Recorder
Just as its name suggests, Vidmore Screen Recorder is a convenient and easy-to-use screen recording application that allows you to record HD video and audio, capture any part of your computer screen, and take screenshots any time you like. It's compatible with both Windows and Mac OS.
Features:
- This Audacity alternative can help you record your favorite music online, or record computer screen, 2D/3D gameplay, webcam videos, online videos from YouTube, Dailymotion, Facebook, TED and more, and take screenshot easily.
- Record any sound from various audio applications. It can record any audio on your computer as well as your voice from microphone.
- Set the task name, starting time and ending time as well as duration to make a scheduled audio recording.
Check the detailed steps below to record audio with Vidmore Screen Recorder.
Step 1. Free download, install and run this Audacity alternative on your computer. In the home interface, click 'Audio Recorder' to enter the audio recording interface.
Step 2. Select the audio output as 'System Sound' or 'Microphone' according to your need.
If you need to record your favorite music online, you just need to toggle on 'System Sound' and off 'Microphone'.
If you want to record your own voice, you need to turn on 'Microphone'.
Step 3. Click 'REC' to start recording the audio file on your computer. The default preference will check 'Show countdown before recording', so once you click the 'REC' button, there will be three-second countdown appearing on your screen, you can start playing the audio you want to record within the three seconds quickly.
Step 4. Once the audio stops playing, you can click the Stop button to listen to the recorded audio and click 'Save' to export it to your computer.
Note: You can also use the clip feature when you preview the audio recording to cut unwanted parts of the recording.
2. Garageband
Garageband(https://www.apple.com/ca/mac/garageband/) comes free with any Mac computers. It's a fully equipped music creation studio with a complete sound library that includes instruments, presets for guitar and voice, as well as an incredible selection of session drummers and percussionists. It would be a good Audacity Alternative for Mac, especially for beginners and novice who need to do any multi-track recording and minor mixing work.
3. MixPad
MixPad(https://www.nch.com.au/mixpad/index.html) is an Audacity similar program for multi-track recording. It can record single or multiple tracks simultaneously. It's also able to mix an unlimited number of audio, music, sounds, and voice tracks. You can add audio effects including EQ, compression, reverb and more to your audio recording files.
4. OBS Studio
OBS Studio(https://obsproject.com/) is also free and open source software for video/audio recording and live streaming. Similar to Audacity, it's available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It can create professional productions with real time audio capturing and mixing. It has an intuitive audio mixer with per-source filters such as noise gate, noise suppression, and gain. You can take full control of your audio files with VST plugin support.
5. SoundTap Streaming Audio Recorder
SoundTap(https://www.nch.com.au/soundtap/index.html) can record any audio playing on your computer in MP3 or WAV formats. It's also able to record any streaming audio like conferences, radio and more in perfect audio quality. If you have any uncommon voice recording files in your computer, it can also convert them to MP3 easily, so that you can play them on any device.
Conclusion:
In this article, we have recommended 10 Audacity alternatives altogether, five for audio editing, and five for audio recording. You can read their features and pick one to try according to your demand.
Last Updated on December 30, 2020 by Robert Jackson
Audacity is installed and used by millions of users for its excellent audio recording and editing capacity.
To enjoy the great audio recording service of Audacity, you need to cope with the complex interface and preset. You must set up the audio source or audio tracks before starting an audio capture.
If you're new to Audacity and having queries about Audacity audio recording, this tutorial will show you the very details of how to record desktop audio with Audacity. Also, if you want to record a voice-over with Audacity, you can find the steps here.
Audacity recording:
I. Audacity Audio Recording
Audacity Recording Programs Online
II. Audacity alternative
I. Audacity Audio Recording
1. How to record computer sound with Audacity
Audacity Recording Program
Follow the steps below to record the playback on your computer and create a high-quality audio file.
Step 1 Launch Audacity
After you installed the program, launch it on your computer. (Click here to download Audacity)
Step 2 Set up for mono/stereo audio recording
On Audacity, there're 4 options you need to pay attention to, the Audio Host, Recording Device, Recording Channel and Playback Device. The first 3 options are much more important and as for the Playback Device, you can just use the defaule one.
If you want to record a mono-audio file:
- Use the default Audio Host, normally it's the Windows WASAPI.
- Then, on the Recording Device option, Speaker or Stereo Mix will all do.
- The most vital one is to change the Recording Channels to Mono so that the audio file will sound mono.
If you're about to record stereo audio:
- Set the Audio Host as Windows WASAPI.
- Next, choose Stereo Mix (If there's any) or Speaker as the Recording Device.
- As for Recording Channels, you need to make it Stereo.
Step 3 Start recording
Finish setting up, you can click Record to initiate recording the desktop audio.
Song Editor
You can pause the recording by clicking the Pause button, and click again to resume.
Click Stop when you want to end the recording. To preview the audio file, click Play.
Above are the detailed steps of how to record speaker audio with Audacity. You can now start to record on your own.
2. How to record a voice-over with Audacity
Want to record a voice-over with Audacity? No problem, follow this:
Step 1 Launch your Audacity
Step 2 Set up the audio device
You can set the Audio Host to MMEor Windows WASAPI. And select Microphone as the Recording Device.
Step 3 Start recording
Finish setting up, Audacity will only record the sound coming from the microphone. You can click Record to start and begin speaking to your microphone.
Click Pause when you want to have a break, and click Stop and end the recording.
3. FAQs:
Since Audacity has been established for 2 decades, many users have confronted with various problems while using the app. Here are some common ones.
♠ How to save the audio file I just recorded on Audacity?
To save the file on Audacity, you need to go to the toolbar and click File. Then, move your cursor to Export and choose to export the file as a target format.
Audacity will prompt you to choose a folder for storing the file.
♥ Can I record both system sound microphones at the same time in Audacity?
Unfortunately, you cannot. Audacity only supports to record the sound from one audio source for the time being. You can only record the computer sound and microphone sound separately.
If you want to record both sounds on your computer, you can try an Audacity Alternative.
♣ Why is Audacity not recording sound?
There are quite a few reasons for the issue, you can try to fix your Audacity not recording sound issue here.
♦ Can I record a video with Audacity?
No, you cannot. Audacity is an audio recorder and audio editor. It doesn't support video capture and playback.
If you want to record a video with high-quality audio performance, you can try an Audacity alternative.
II. Audacity alternative
Since Audacity can only record one audio device at a time, so if record computer sound and microphone audio simultaneously, you can try Aiseesoft Screen Recorder.
- Aiseesoft Screen Recorder is a professional tool to record all sounds on your computer, you can decide to record desktop and microphone sound separately or simultaneously with very just one click.
- Using Aiseesoft Screen Recorder, you won't go through complex preset and head-to-understand professional phrases. Once installed, you can easily decide the audio source and start an audio recording with easy steps.
- Besides audio recording, the program allows users to record the screen and create a decent video.
You can click the buttons below to download the program for free and have a go with it.
How to record computer audio and microphone sound with Aiseesoft Screen Recorder
To use Aiseesoft Screen Recorder to record your computer audio or microphone audio is very easy, follow the 3 steps below.
Step 1 Launch Aiseesoft Screen Recorder on your computer Tv para pc online.
Step 2 Choose Audio Recorder
On the interface, choose Audio Recorder. And then you need to decide the audio source for the output file on the Audio Recorder window.
- To record your computer sound, turn on System Sound.
- Turn on the Microphone option when you want to record the external sound.
- Set both options on if you need to.
Step 3 Start recording
Finish deciding the audio source, click REC or press Ctrl + Shift + S on your keyboard to initiate an audio recording. Aiseesoft Screen Recorder will record the sound from the target audio source.
To end the process, press Ctrl + Shift + S or click Stop from a floating panel.
The program will open a window for you to preview and trim the audio file. You can click Save to export it to a custom folder.
Now, you know how to use audacity to record computer audio or microphone audio. You can now start your own Audacity recording and create a decent audio file.
Audacity is great for sure, but it cannot record both sounds. Switch to Aiseesoft Screen Recorder when you plan to record both sounds then.
More about Audacity Audio Recording:
