Audacity

For those of you who do anything with any musical/audio editing inclination, go and download this open source program: audacity.sourceforge.net

I create computer ‘electronic’ music, and I use it to mix all my tracks and add effects.  It works superbly and the user has an extraordinary amount of control.

One of the best effects on it, is changing tempo, without altering the pitch of the notes.  This is important for me because I play a lot of Eastern European folk music.  There’s not a lot of sheet music and I mostly learn tunes by ear from recordings.  For particularly difficult or technical pieces, I can slow down sections and catch exactly how the notes are played (I’ve been doing this all morning because my exam was canceled due to snow).

It also lets you record sounds directly off of your computer’s sound card… which means you can rip the soundtracks off of music videos from Youtube, or similar such things (of course, I expect everyone to obey all copyright laws).

You can download a small extra plugin that allows you to convert your audacity files into mp3s, .wav files come standard.

So even if you’re not a composer or musician, it’s handy to have, and it’s completely free.  So what are you waiting for?

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