Ever have the need to record and edit a little audio?  Perhaps you’re working on an audio book recording, music recording, or audio splicing project that requires a little more power than Sound Recorder but doesn’t warrant purchasing expensive software.

Audacity is the free alternative, and for being free, has a lot of great uses.  The program allows you to record and edit multiple tracks.  Play your record backward just for kicks, or really get into the editing by adding echoes, changing of pitch, tempo, and much more.

I recently purchased and read a great book but I wanted to have the book on mp3.  The only problem is that audio books tend to be fairly expensive, and I already spent money on the book.  We’ll with audacity, I’m making a recording of myself reading the book.  I can stop recording at any time, and then pickup where I left off and continue recording.  Reading the book again out-loud is fun because I enjoy the book.

The recording is just for myself, but like many people, I find it very weird to listen to a recording of my own voice.  With Audacity I can change the pitch of my voice without speeding up or slowing down the audio.

To do this simply highlight the audio segment you wish to change, select Effect from the top menu, and then select Change Pitch.

By doing this, I can listen to the recording I made as if it were read by the guy that does the announcements on movie trailers (well pretty close anyway).

The interface is pretty easy to use.  A big record button and stop button make it easy to use.  For the price, it’s a pretty good little value.