Audacity is a free, easy-to-use and multilingual audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. Audacity is free software, developed by a group of volunteers and distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL)
You can use Audacity to:
- Record live audio.
- Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
- Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
- Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
- Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
- Audacity has a list of effects and additional features
Audacity has a good help page and supportive forum that includes tutorials, tips and its own wiki. The tutorials offer step-by-step help with common tasks in Audacity, such as making ringtones, removing vocals, creating podcasts and transferring tapes and records to computer (Audacity, 2012).