Best Free (Freeware) Audio Editing Software from
Gizmo's Freeware Review
Audacity
Kristal Audio Engine - a powerful multi-track recorder, audio sequencer and mixer - ideal for anyone who wants to get started with recording, mixing and mastering digital audio. According to their website, "It is designed as a modular system. The main application provides a mixing console, while the audio sequencer, live audio input and so on are loaded as separate Plug-Ins." It supports an ASIO audio driver, which may be appealing to those who are concerned with latency during multi-track recording. It's based on a 32-bit floating-point audio engine that can handle sample rates of 44 to 192 kHz with word sizes of 16, 24 or 32 bits. It comes with a three-band parametric EQ and supports WAVE, AIFF, FLAC, and OGG Vorbis file formats. It can only handle a maximum of 16 audio tracks, though the web site mentions an upcoming version 2 that will handle more tracks and provide support for MIDI, virtual instruments, and a wider range of VST plugins. Like all media-editing programs, Kristal requires a modern fast PC. Don't even think about using it with a sub-1Ghz machine.
Wavosaur - filesize of 491K and is the only product in this review that requires no installation, which makes it extremely portable. What surprised me about it was that, for such a small program, Wavosaur packs a lot of advanced features, including resample, bit-depth convert (8,16,24,32 bits), pitch shift, vocal removal, DC offset removal, auto-trim, silence remover, interpolate, auto detect region, crossfade loop, and export of multiple .wav files from regions. It also supports ASIO drivers and VST plug-ins, has many analysis tools and is skinnable.
