Download Squad

Audacity is good, useful, and perfect for many things. It is free, open-source and has plenty of features to cover the basics. Many Mac-ites like ProTools, or another equally powerful package for audio editing and production. Adobe's new Soundbooth beta is decent, and has some potential, though it doesn't look free and most likely won't be. It is more like Audacity in that it offers very simple to use tools for the "creative professional." ProTools users may like it too for its quick and dirty style. It is available in beta form for both Mac and Windows and does just what you would expect, edit audio, cleanup noise or clicks in your track, and goes further than audacity by offering several presets to apply effects to your tracks with merely a click. Adobe definitely made this app act a bit like Photoshop, giving it a history panel to see, review and delete changes that have been made to your audio file on the surgery table. Not a bad first effort, though it has some performance issues to work out, and the installer isn't quite completed. The beta expires on 2/28/2007, just so you know.