A solid audio editor might not seem to belong at the top of\r\nyour must-have list. It is, however, a tool that can go a long way toward\r\nhelping you with your business. How? With an audio editor, you can add audio to\r\nyour business website, create and edit a podcast to help promote your service\r\nor product, record and submit audio for radio ads, and more. But what software\r\ntitles are available from the open source community? Believe it or not, some of\r\nthe finest audio editors available are open source and offer power and options\r\nyou might expect only in costly, proprietary software.
Let’s take a look at five open source audio editors and see\r\nif there’s one that will fit your bill.
Note: This gallery is also available as an article.
Hundreds of plugins are available for this amazing piece of\r\nsoftware. The best way to experience Ardour is by downloading and installing Ubuntu Studio\r\nor installing on OS X.
You can use Traverso\r\nfor a small scale recording session on a netbook or scale up to recording a\r\nfull-blown orchestra. One outstanding feature that’s built into Traverso is the\r\nability to burn your recording straight to CD from within the UI itself. Once\r\nyou’re finished with a project, just burn it and you’re done. Traverso is\r\navailable only for Linux.
Qtractor lets you drag, move, drop, cut, copy, paste,\r\npaste-repeat, delete, split, and merge. It offers unlimited undo/redo, has a\r\nbuilt-in patch bay, and much more. Qtractor is a great solution for anyone who\r\nwants the power of Jack but not the massive complexity (or flexibility and\r\nfeature set) of Ardour. Qtractor is available only for Linux.
Linux Multimedia Studio is geared toward songwriters, offering a beat\r\neditor and an FX mixer. LMMS includes an incredible array of effects and an\r\nimpressive number of instruments. With LMMS you can compose entire songs\r\nwithout plugging in a single instrument. Just drag and drop an instrument plug-in\r\nto the song editor and you’re good to go.
LMMS does have a fairly steep learning curve, so be prepared\r\nto spend some time getting up to speed with the interface and tools. The name\r\nLinux Multimedia Studio a bit misleading, as it is actually available for both\r\nLinux and Windows.
Jack Wallen is an award-winning writer for TechRepublic, The New Stack, and Linux New Media. He's covered a variety of topics for over twenty years and is an avid promoter of open source. For more news about Jack Wallen, visit his website jackwallen.com.
