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Audacity

A multi-track audio editor and recorder.

Audacity is a multi-track audio editor that can record from multiple inputs, edit waveforms with sample-accurate precision, apply effects (compression, equalisation, noise reduction, reverb, echo, time-stretch, pitch-shift), and export to dozens of formats. It is widely used for podcasting, music production, field recording editing, audiobook production, and lecture recording.

The project began in 1999 at Carnegie Mellon University as a research project by Dominic Mazzoni and Roger Dannenberg, and has been continuously developed since. Muse Group (the company behind MuseScore and several other music applications) acquired Audacity in 2021. There was significant community concern around proposed telemetry and CLA changes; the project has since clarified its data-handling policies, and a community fork (Tenacity) exists for users who prefer to avoid Muse Group's stewardship.

Audacity is GPL-2.0+ and runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It remains the dominant free audio editor by a wide margin — Ardour is the alternative for users who need full DAW capabilities, while Audacity covers the majority of "edit and export an audio file" workflows. The 3.x release line introduced a new project-file format and substantially improved clip management.

Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install audacity
Fedora/RHEL:   sudo dnf install audacity
Arch:          sudo pacman -S audacity
macOS:         brew install --cask audacity