Some artists dish out hundreds or even thousands of dollars to hire a sound engineer and recording studio to get professional-level audio. But what if we told you anyone who has access to a computer can create high-quality audio content from the comfort of their home without paying a dime?
While it is true that high-ticket packages can be worth the price, there are many free audio editing software that are surprisingly feature-packed. They also come with the bonus of being beginner-friendly and much easier to use.
However, not all free audio editors are created equal, and there's no shortage of options. That's why we've put together this quick guide to the best free audio editing software today.
AudioDirector is the overall best free audio editing software. Record music, audio, or sound effects, then mix, edit, restore, and produce in one high-quality package. AudioDirector is easy enough for a novice to edit audio but robust enough for more seasoned veterans. Detailed Review >
MyEdit is an online free audio editor that anyone can use to edit audio quickly. It includes a few necessary and powerful audio editing features like vocal, wind, and background noise removal, a voice changer, a trimmer, and a BPM finder. Detailed Review >
Acoustica from Acon Digital is a free audio editing software with exceptional restoration tools for dialogue. It allows you to split your audio mix up to 5 times and edit the stems independently. Detailed Review >
There are many different reasons you may need to edit audio, and not all the options on our list will suit your needs. Here are some things to look for when choosing the right free audio editing software for you.
Ease of Use
While all the free audio editors on our list are appropriate for beginners, some are simpler than others. Some are for beginners hoping to become professional audio editors or music producers. They are pared-down and no-cost versions of professional software that would be too complex for someone who just wants to clean up some dialogue. Others have quick and simple tools, so even first-time users can jump in and edit audio right away. In each of our reviews, we lay out exactly how easy (or not) each free audio editor is going to be for most beginners.
Tracks
It is important to know how many tracks you think you will need when you edit audio. The free audio editing software on our list ranges from a single track to unlimited tracks. If you edit audio for a single speaker, such as an audiobook or sermon, then one track will suffice. However, if you are editing a music recording with instruments, or a podcast with multiple guests, you will require more tracks.
Audio Restoration Tools
Unless you had access to a professional recording studio, chances are your audio will need some help. We highly recommend choosing a free audio editor with audio restoration tools, especially if you didn’t record in a sound-proof environment. These tools can eliminate wind, background voices, sirens, airplanes, and even bird sounds from your recordings. They can also clean up audio by removing plosives, hisses, hums, and more that can occur even in a professional setting.
Compatibility
We always recommend checking the System Requirements of any free audio editing software before attempting to use it. Our reviews will let you know if the program works on Windows, Mac, Linux, or online, but sometimes a specific version of your OS is required, and some of the online tools only work in certain browsers. Some free audio editing software require a large amount of computer space, or even additional hardware to work properly.
Compatibility: Windows
TechRadar Rating: 4/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 5/5
Price: Free
*Premium subscription available for $4.33/month
Key Features:
Who It’s For
AudioDirector is a multi-track audio recorder, editor, and mixer for Windows. It's a virtual Swiss army knife for audio production, making it our #1 pick for the best free audio editing software. With AudioDirector, you can restore poorly recorded tracks from noisy video shoots. This free audio editor has full integration with PowerDirector, PC Mag Editor’s Choice for the best video editing software of 2023. Using the 2 programs, you can sound design films and create industry-standard foley sound effects and voiceovers. It’s an excellent way for filmmakers, podcasters, and YouTubers to edit audio.
Why We Picked It
Even with little to no experience in audio editing, you won't have trouble recording, cutting, trimming, or applying special effects. You can import one video file and up to a hundred audio files to the editing timeline. Creating a final mix is a straightforward process, and you'll have all the needed formats to choose from when exporting your mastered tracks.
Bottom Line
AudioDirector also comes with a vocal balance and removal tool to extract vocals or instrumentals from any song. It's perfect for creating your own cover, parody, or karaoke tracks for your next house party. This free audio editing software has all the audio editing tools a professional needs for sound recording, editing, mixing, and restoring in a beginner-friendly package.
Download AudioDirector, our #1 pick for the best free audio editing software today.
Compatibility: Web Browser
Overall Rating: 4.5/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4.5/5
Price: Free
Key Features:
Who It’s For
MyEdit is a web-based audio editor that requires no installation and doesn’t leave a footprint on your computer. It is the best free audio editing software if you have small files that need quick edits, such as trimming clips or removing background noise. It offers one-click AI-powered tools and includes only the most necessary audio editing features, making it a great choice for first-time users.
Why We Picked It
When visiting the website, you will be greeted by a user-friendly interface allowing you to perform various sound editing tasks. These include a voice changer, BPM finder, audio trimming, and vocal removal. There are also restoration tools like wind removal and noise gate.
Bottom Line
All you have to do is upload your audio file, make your edits, and download your altered track. The one drawback to this free audio editor is its file size limit. You can only upload files smaller than 100MB and shorter than 10 minutes. However, if you need to make quick edits to short sound files, there isn’t a better option than MyEdit.
Give it a try now!
Image from acondigital.
Compatibility: Windows, Mac
TechRadar Rating: 4.5/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4.3/5
Price: 30-day free trial, then $59.90 for Standard, $199.90 for Premium, and $299.90 for Post Production Suite
Key Features:
Who It’s For
Acoustica from Acon Digital is a free audio editing software and post-production tool. Its Remix feature can split a mix into 5 stems, so you can edit them independently. It also uses machine learning tools to separate distracting sounds from dialogue. These tools include DeBuzz, DeRustle, DeWind, DeClick, DePlosive, and even DeBird, which removes bird sounds from your audio. If you are a podcaster or VO artist, these tools can work wonders for your recordings.
Why We Picked It
This free audio editor offers non-destructive, multitrack drag-and-drop audio editing, with an unlimited number of undo and redo levels. You can fade in/fade out with 5 different curves, and batch-process audio files. We found it had some helpful tools for CD creation, including a Cleaning Wizard that helps make the LP/Tape to CD transfer a smooth process, supports buffer underrun protection, and saves/loads CD projects for further editing.
Bottom Line
Acoustica is a great way for professionals or beginners to edit audio for music, VO, podcasts, films - you name it. However, it does not have a dedicated free version, only a free trial. And while the price for the Standard edition is affordable compared to other audio editing software of this standard, most of its fantastic audio restoration tools and spectral editing are saved for the Premium version.
Compatibility: Windows, Mac
TechRadar Rating: 4/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4.5/5
Price: Free
*Premium versions available for $80 for Standard Edition and $139 for Home Edition
Key Features:
Who It’s For
Based on our testing, WavePad is the best free audio editing software for audio effects. If you are a beginner who wants to try out different audio effects, you’ll love WavePad’s extensive toolbox, including amplify, normalize, equalize, envelope, echo, reverb, reverse, and more. All the effects are easy to use and quickly applied. WavePad also has a voice changer and text-to-speech options.
Why We Picked It
WavePad has many audio editing tools such as cut, copy, paste, delete, insert, silence, auto-trim, compression, and pitch shifting. We like the royalty-free sound effects, music library, and tool that allows you to create ringtones from your music files and recordings.
Bottom Line
Like AudioDirector, WavePad Audio Editing Software is packed with great features for a wide range of users. It is especially great for novices who have never used free audio editing software because it is so easy to use. However, WavePad has a few drawbacks such as prolonged rendering times and no mixer.
Compatibility: Mac
G2 Rating: 4.3/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4/5
Price: Free
Key Features:
Who It’s For
Apple’s GarageBand is an excellent free audio editing software for those who want to quickly create and share music. It has a large instrument sound library and more than 255 audio tracks so you can re-create the sounds of a full orchestra with no instruments. Easily organize multiple takes for easy editing.
Why We Picked It
We found that you can use the free Logic Remote app on your iPhone or iPad to control the free audio editor from across the room. GarageBand has simple tools to edit audio as well as some advanced features, such as Flex Time which allows you to drag out-of-time notes into place.
Bottom Line
GarageBand is a quick yet robust free audio editing software. It has tons of music options and third-party plug-in support. However, it lacks the quality sound you would get with more professional software. It’s also slightly harder to learn than our first four offerings.
Image from Software Advice.
Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux
Capterra Rating: 4.3/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4/5
Price: Free
Key Features:
Who It’s For
OcenAudio is a multitrack free audio editor with a wide range of features for content creators. You can edit the audio from videos or podcasts with speech enhancement and restoration tools. It also handles large files with ease, so an hour-long podcast would be no problem. We think it is one of the best free audio editing software for beginners because it is incredibly simple to use and has a clean interface.
Why We Picked It
A popular feature of OcenAudio is that it allows you to preview your sound effects in real time. When you edit audio, you can adjust the playback parameters from the timeline without modifying your original audio file. That allows you to quickly and easily try out different effects until you find the one that works best for your project.
Bottom Line
With the OcenAudio interface, you can import files from cloud servers or your local storage while using keyboard shortcuts to save time when you edit audio. This free audio editor lacks multitrack editing and other advanced features found in AudioDirector or Audacity. However, Audacity users will find it has a much cleaner and more appealing interface.
Compatibility: Web Browser
Cuspera Rating: 4.1/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4/5
Price: Free for up to 2 hours of audio processing per month
*Monthly plans available by the hour ($11/month for 9 hours, $24/month for 21 hours, and so on)
Key Features:
Who It’s For
Auphonic is free audio editing software for beginners or busy editors who need a fast solution. It comes loaded with AI tools so you can edit audio quickly, with no prior experience. Utilize auto speech recognition and transcription in over 80 languages, or use AI denoising algorithms to reduce background noise and eliminate hum. Auphonic is for speech only, and we recommend it for podcasts, sermons, audiobooks, and videos.
Why We Picked It
This free audio editor uses an intelligent leveler to automatically balance levels for different speakers, and adjust the volume of background music. It processes multiple tracks at once, including recordings from different microphones, phone calls, or video chats. Auphonic includes a Global Loudness Normalizer and True Peak Limiter so you can pass admission criteria for your favorite platforms.
Bottom Line
Auphonic’s automated features will appeal to beginners, but experienced users may want to edit audio with more control. These users may prefer an AI-powered free audio editor like AudioDirector that also features manual controls for additional tweaking. We also found that although Auphonic works wonders with loudness control and balance, its AI tools did little to enhance low-quality audio, and in many cases only made it worse.
Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux
PCMag Rating: 4/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 3.5/5
Price: Free
Key Features:
Who It’s For
During our testing, we found Audacity to be one of the best free audio editing software for big audio projects. The program is extremely lightweight, so it can handle long audio recordings such as an audiobook or hours-long podcast without crashing (and if it does crash, the automatic crash recovery tool is there to save your bacon). We recommend it for advanced users on a budget who want a powerful free tool for professional projects.
Why We Picked It
This free audio editing software includes unlimited audio tracks, restoration tools, batch processing, spectral/spectrogram views, and audio effects like reverb and distortion. You can also edit audio with basic tools such as cut, copy, paste, and delete.
Bottom Line
In the past, we’ve reviewed Audacity as beginner-friendly, but lacking advanced tools. We’ve also admonished it for its destructive editing and lack of real-time effects processing. Much has changed in the last few updates. Not only does it offer nondestructive editing and real-time processing, but it has also streamlined its once-cluttered UI. This free audio editing software is looking more and more like a professional DAW every day, but there is a catch. We would no longer refer to it as “beginner-friendly.” Yes, it’s a good tool for beginners hoping to learn audio editing, simply because of its free price point. But those beginners should be prepared to spend some time learning how to use it.
Image from Ashampoo Music Studio.
TechRadar Rating: 3.5/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4/5
Price: Free
*Premium version available for $40
Key Features:
Who It’s For
Ashampoo Music Studio is a comprehensive program for managing and editing your audio files. It is the best free audio editing software for making CDs. With Ashampoo, you can design CD labels, rip and burn discs, and create mixtapes or playlists.
Why We Picked It
Unlike the other free audio editing software in this guide, you can also use Ashampoo Music Studio to play and organize audio files. You can edit file metadata tags and extract audio tracks from a video file using this free audio editor.
Bottom Line
Audio producers will mainly use the Modify and Record features, but the other features can also be helpful. If you are a hobbyist or your audio editing needs are relatively straightforward, Ashampoo Music Studio is a viable choice. But for professional-sounding results, something more comprehensive such as our top choice for best free audio editing software, AudioDirector, may be necessary.
Image from Chrome Web Store.
Compatibility: Web Browser
G2 Rating: 4.3/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 3/5
Price: Free
Key Features:
Who It’s For
If you are making and producing music on a budget, Audiotool could be the free audio editor for you! It is our pick for the best free audio editing software for artist collaboration. This is because Audiotool was built to connect artists and allow collaboration in real-time. Invite other producers to your online studio and work simultaneously on projects. There’s a built-in publishing platform so you can release your work and get instant feedback. If you need inspiration, you can listen to over 1 million songs on Audiotool for free and even reach out to the artists to use their samples in your projects. This free audio editing software also offers video and audio text chat to help whenever you need it.
Why We Picked It
This online free audio editing software is a good tool for mixing and sampling music tracks. There are more than 200K presets for synthesizers and effects, a library of user-created samples, and tons of virtual instruments. There are also editing tools to chop, route, split, and merge different tracks.
Bottom Line
Audiotool is a fantastic social platform for artist collaboration and creativity. If you are a beginner and want to get into music production, it can be a helpful tool. However, it has a confusing interface and will take time to learn. It is also very resource intensive and crashes quite easily.
Compatibility: Windows, Mac
TechRadar Rating: 4/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 3/5
Price: Free
*Premium subscriptions available for $99/year for Artist, $299/year for Studio, and $599/year for Ultimate
Key Features:
Who It’s For
Avid Pro Tools is often considered the industry standard for music production. Future music producers now have the opportunity to learn Pro Tools on a pared-back and completely free version of the software. Not only do we recommend it for beginners who want to learn professional software, but also for professionals looking for a free audio editor. In fact, if your Pro Tools subscription lapses, it will default to Pro Tools Intro so you can continue using familiar tools for no charge.
Why We Picked It
You can edit audio in countless ways with precision and endless flexibility with this free audio editing software. Fix, enhance, tweak, and mix audio and MIDI files with the same GRAMMY-winning tools used by pros.
Bottom Line
If you don’t need endless audio tracks or surround sound, then Avid Pro Tools Intro should more than cover your audio editing needs. However, as you’d expect from something so close to professional software, there is a learning curve and high system requirements. Anyone looking for a quick and easy free audio editor should look elsewhere. But those hoping to enter the business of music production or feature film sound editing should take the time to learn.
Compatibility: Web Browser
Cyberg Rating: 3/5
Beginner-Friendly Tools: 4/5
Price: Free
Key Features:
Who It’s For
AudioMass is an open-source, free audio editing software found online. We like it best as a waveform editor, because we could zoom in extremely close on our audio waveform, and had the option to view it horizontally or vertically. You can also apply effects to only a section of your waveform. AudioMass is a quick and free audio editor for beginners and short audio projects.
Why We Picked It
This free audio editing software has zero learning curve. We clicked on the site for the first time and began to edit audio in seconds. AudioMass has tempo and rhythm tools, audio effects like distortion, delay, reverse, and reverb, and basic tools such as compressing, trimming, cutting, and copying audio files.
Bottom Line
AudioMass is perfect for beginners to edit audio for short projects. However, it lacks music production tools and would not do for professionals or complex edits. Our #1 free audio editing software, AudioDirector, is a better choice since it offers similar ease of use, but greater functionality.
OS
Windows
-
Beginner-friendly
Yes
-
Audio Restoration Tools
AI restoration tools like wind removal, reduce noise, plosive removal, hiss and hum removal, distortion removal and contour dialogue
-
Multi-Track Editing
Yes
-
Regular Updates
Yes, monthly
-
Here’s a step-by-step guide for editing audio with AudioDirector, the #1 free audio editing software.
Download AudioDirector below and follow along:
Click here for more tutorials from the best free audio editing software available, AudioDirector.
If you are looking to edit audio files, you have plenty of software options. Expensive audio editing software generally offers high-end features that give you the freedom to edit your tracks to perfection—but so do some free programs.
While free audio editing software may not have as many complex bells and whistles, they often offer all the features you need to create podcasts and other professional content while being much easier to use.
If you're looking for the best value and functionality, we recommend AudioDirector. It's hands-down the best free audio editing software for anyone from first-time users to media producers on a budget.
Download AudioDirector today and start producing professional audio content with the best free audio editing software.
Audio editing software is also referred to as DAW or Digital Audio Workstation. This refers to software used for recording, editing, and producing audio, be it for music, podcasts, audiobooks, sound effects, or any other audio files.
While DAW can refer to a highly complex configuration of components, audio software is a single application found on a laptop or computer.
The top ten features you should look for in free audio editing software are
If you’re looking for free audio editing software that checks all of these boxes, we recommend AudioDirector.
AudioDirector is the best free audio editing software for music. It has 100 audio tracks (so you can record and edit a full orchestra if you need to), pitch refinement, a BPM finder, and powerful mixing tools. It can separate vocals from music and adjust the volume of each accordingly, or remove the vocals entirely to create karaoke tracks. There’s even a library of royalty-free music clips, with new music packs added regularly.
AudioDirector is the best free audio editing software to edit audio clips. It is incredibly easy to use, with AI-powered tools to repair and enhance audio. It includes speech enhancement, plus noise, reverb, distortion, and wind removal.
We also recommend MyEdit as a quick online option for short audio clips. MyEdit will let you trim audio, apply voice changer effects, remove background noise, and more.
Yes, all of Audacity’s tools are completely free to use.
AudioDirector is the best free alternative to Audacity. AudioDirector has a similar professional feature set but is much more beginner-friendly. It has a modern and pleasing interface, and AI tools for easier, one-click repairs. While Audacity offers restoration only through third-party plug-ins, AudioDirector has tons of native tools to restore and edit audio.
Audacity used to be a great alternative to professional DAWs for beginners, but this is no longer the case. The free audio editing software has a learning curve and is one of the hardest free audio editors on our list.
Some other disadvantages include limited format support and a huge reliance on 3rd-party plug-ins for many necessary features.
AudioDirector is our choice for the best free audio editor for Windows. There is no native audio editor for Windows.
Windows users edit audio with AudioDirector, the top free audio editing software on our list. Mac users tend to use the free audio editor GarageBand, and those needing a quick online option use MyEdit.
Import your audio files into AudioDirector, and follow our tutorial above. You can also visit the AudioDirector Tutorials Page to learn more about how to edit audio.
AudioDirector is the best free audio editing software for PC. It is easy to use and has AI-powered tools to restore and clean audio files with the click of a button. It also supports audio editing in videos, so you can mix soundtracks and create sound effects in the app.
AudioDirector is the best free audio editing software with powerful tools for recording, editing, mixing, and restoring audio.