Audacity: to download or not?

I am looking to record music on a piece of free software, and export to CDs so I can make a sample tape, and also I would like to have something to record a backing track for my guitar solo competition. I am interested in making podcasts too, and this looks like a good program for it. Would you recommend Audacity? I've used it before at school for podcasts, and I have heard excellent things about it. I am 95% sure, but is there any free audio editing software that you would reccomend over audacity? I am using windows vista home premium by the way.

Comments

[geodez]

I concur, It would be audacious not to!

[TheChemiker]

Yes, my music and drama teacher uses and loves it.  Right now, we are making a music video with it.

[acidbass]

yes I use it a my mixing studio and love it

[ReCreate]

Audacity is free and Open source.(and open source is better because amore wide range of developers are helping in the project)
Other than that, its great, you can do anything with it.

[wearingpink]

Yes! Its sweet. Its pretty straightforward, and I think its awesome that you can change tempo and pitch seperately with it. I'm very glad I randomly got it.

[razzlekunai]

Download it. It is free, after all. If you don't like it, then uninstall. If you do, then keepit.

[Storm950]

Audacity is good yes, I've used it before just to trim songs and stuff. Youtube can help you out with it too. It isn't exactly professional software but it is more than capable of doing very nice things. Quite a small app too I seem to remember.

[orksecurity]

Audacity has a good reputation as a tool that will do all the basics. Since you know it, and since it's hard to beat the price, I'd say stick with it until you find a reason to do otherwise. I'm running Sonar, which is a pro-level tool, plus a few additional plug-ins. It's massive overkill for my needs, but it wasn't all that expensive to upgrade from Home Studio (which is the cheap subset of the same package). Of course they've since gotten me for two not-so-cheap refreshes to the latest and greatest version, but... One tip if you do go to a purchased product: Check the upgrade prices first. It's sometimes cheaper to buy a basic version such as Home Studio and then upgrade than to buy the higher-powered version directly. Some companies also offer a (lesser) discount if you're migrating from a competing tool, which can be another path to check when looking for the cheapest way to get from here to there.

[Kiteman]

Since you have already heard good stuff about it, know how to use it, it makes sense to stick with it rather than learn the ins and outs of a new piece of software.

[The Jamalam]

Good point. But, I'm just asking whether or not it is good for actual music.

[Kiteman]

I'd be inclined to say "yes".

[Willard2.0]

I would highly recommend Audacity as it is easy to use. For a free program it has a lot of features. However if you want to export as .mp3 you will need to download the codec - Minor detail. Just download from the audacity cite and you should be fine. I use it on Vista with no problems.

[frollard]

via a forum I visit: (a friend is setting up a high-end podcast)

http://www.digitalboneyard.com/forum3/ubbthreads.php/topics/167859/anyone_use_nuendo_protools_or_#Post167859

Lots of suggestions for software for recording in there.