What Is Audio Editing Software?
Audio editing software allows users to edit and generate audio files. These tools are used by audio editors and engineers to mix or delete audio sections, edit and rearrange audio regions, and record and generate new audio components. Audio editing programs may also offer effects for manipulating the sound of audio files in a variety of ways. Audio editing software generally complies with a variety of file types including MP3s, WAVE, Windows Media, and MPEG-4.
Top Best Audio Editing Software of 2023
1. Adobe Audition
Key Features
✓ Audition is a comprehensive toolset that includes multitrack, waveform, and spectral display for creating, mixing, editing, and restoring audio content. This powerful audio workstation is designed to accelerate video production workflows and audio finishing — and deliver a polished mix with pristine sound.
✓ Along with tools for color, audio, and graphics, Premiere Pro works seamlessly with other apps and services, including After Effects, Adobe Audition, and Adobe Stock. Open a Motion Graphics template from After Effects or download one from Adobe Stock and customize it — all without leaving the app. And Premiere Pro integrates with hundreds of partner technologies.
✓ Build a following and follow other inspiring artists — and even find your next professional opportunity — on Behance, the world’s largest creative community.
✓ Easily and automatically rearrange any song to fit any duration with Remix in Audition.
✓ Get best practices for fixing audio, including how to use the spectral frequency display, Diagnostics panel, effects, and more.
✓ Learn the basic steps to record, mix, and export audio content for a podcast — or any other audio project.
2. Avid Pro Tools
Key Features
✓ Get everything you need to make beats, write songs, record vocals and instruments, and mix studio-quality music that’s ready to be heard across the world’s most popular streaming platforms. Pro Tools makes music creation fast and fluid, providing the GRAMMY® winning toolset and plugins the pros use to create your favorite songs and albums.
✓ Pro Tools is now available in three new options. Start making music with Pro Tools Artist. Create professional-level music productions with the advanced tools of Pro Tools Studio. And get the advanced tools and workflows for high-end music production with Pro Tools Flex.
✓ Spark ideas with a massive collection of plugins, loops, and samples—everything you need to start making music. No matter what type of music you create, you’ll find tons of incredible sounds to explore and tweak.
✓ Build up songs quickly and create more realistic-sounding tracks with easy-to-use MIDI tools. Add loops that auto-conform to your session tempo. And freely create and experiment without stopping playback.
✓ Have thousands of instrument sounds at your fingertips with GrooveCell, SynthCell, Boom, Mini Grand, Xpand, and more included. Even connect your favorite electronic instruments and music apps through Ableton Link.
✓ Share ideas and work on projects with anyone, anywhere, with Cloud Collaboration. And take your music to any producer or studio around the world, as the Pro Tools session format is the industry’s universal language.
3. PreSonus Studio One
Key Features
✓ Record, produce, compose, mix, master, and perform—all from a single, intuitive application. Only Studio One® 5 provides integrated tools that take you from initial inspiration to mastered production, from full-length album to setlist on stage. The standard for end-to-end production, Studio One is the DAW that does it all.
✓ Studio One pioneered the often-imitated drag-and-drop workflow that continues to be a guiding principle in our design philosophy. Audioloops, virtual instruments, plug-in effects, and even presets can all be dragged into your session from Studio One’s innovative Browser. Copy FX Chains from one channel to another simply by dragging-and-dropping. Convert MIDI to audio or audio to MIDI using drag-and-drop.
✓ Upload and download files to and from your PreSonus Sphere Workspaces by drag-and-drop. Ease of use is at the heart of Studio One, so your mind stays focused on your inspiration.
✓ The only DAW with Harmonic Editing for both audio and MIDI, Studio One® 5 offers Chord Track, a songwriter’s dream come true. Create, audition, and change chord progressions and even have older parts follow a newer, better chord structure, thanks to the inspiration Harmonic Editing can provide.
4. Audacity
Key Features
✓ Free, open source, cross-platform audio software.
✓ Audacity is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and other operating systems.
✓ Audacity can record live audio through a microphone or mixer, or digitize recordings from other media.
✓ Import, edit, and combine sound files. Export your recordings in many different file formats, including multiple files at once.
✓ Supports 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit. Sample rates and formats are converted using high-quality resampling and dithering.
✓ Easy editing with Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete. Also unlimited sequential Undo (and Redo) in the session to go back any number of steps.
✓ Real-time preview of LADSPA, LV2, VST and Audio Unit (macOS) effects. Plug-in Manager handles plug-in installation and addition/removal of effects and generators from the menus.
5. Cubase
Key Features
✓ Do you want to start creating your own music, bring your production up to a professional level, or streamline your workflow for short deadlines? Whatever you need, Cubase helps you to reach your full creative potential.
✓ Create perfect rhythms and work on grooves and beats to create the type of audio you want.
✓ You can easily Mix Console, lock the Piano editor, or anything else under the arrange window.
✓ From Hollywood blockbuster composers and Billboard Hot 100 producers right through to keen beginners, the world of music production trusts the comprehensive feature set, straightforward tools and unrivaled sound of our acclaimed music production software.
6. Sound Forge Audio Studio
Key Features
✓ SOUND FORGE Audio Studio provides comprehensive tools and features for editing audio digitally. Record podcasts in professional quality, edit your recordings with a full range of professional effects. Digitize old vinyl and modify audio files using restoration and mastering tools for clean, professional sound.
✓ Professional recording made easy: Record vocals, sounds, and podcasts in excellent quality at up to 32-bit/384 kHz with this fast, uncomplicated, and reliable audio editor.
✓ Cut, move and edit audio files easily and in a matter of clicks. Achieve perfect results for the project you’re editing in no time at all with professional effects and 64-bit power on up to 6 channels.
✓ Convert old vinyls and tapes to digital audio files and clean up the recordings using professional restoration tools. Export your songs for streaming and CD release using high-quality mastering effects.
✓ Edit audio material even better and produce better quality results during equalization using the new modernEQ. You have the complete freedom to amplify, cut and shape sounds and frequency ranges while using the wide range of filter options in each EQ band.
✓ Enhance your sound with lifelike space and a deep, thick atmosphere using modernReverb. Adjust the presets to suit your preference or create a modern reverb effect for a more vibrant sound. Enjoy a simple, straightforward interface and professional quality sound.
7. Ocenaudio
Key Features
✓ Ocenaudio is a cross-platform, easy to use, fast and functional audio editor. It is the ideal software for people who need to edit and analyze audio files without complications. ocenaudio also has powerful features that will please more advanced users.
✓ This software is based on Ocen Framework, a powerful library developed to simplify and standardize the development of audio manipulation and analysis applications across multiple platforms.
✓ Ocenaudio is available for all major operating systems: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. This means you can always rely on ocenaudio on any computer.
✓ No matter how many files are open, ocenaudio always remains responsive. Time-consuming tasks (such as opening and saving audio files, or applying effects) run in background, allowing you to work on other files.
✓ Ocenaudio development focuses primarily on usability, providing the user with a cohesive and intuitive audio editing and analysis tool.
8. Ashampoo Music Studio
Key Features
✓ Ashampoo Music Studio 9 is our flagship music editing software for your songs and audio files! Eight powerful modules cover practically everything audiophiles need from their PCs. Whether you want to edit, burn or cut your audios, Music Studio 9 gets the job done quickly and efficiently.
✓ Convert between various popular formats, create mixtapes for parties or playlists that will work with any audio device! Bring total order to your music collection, print covers, rip audio discs and enjoy the many other features in Music Studio 9!
✓ As can be expected, the latest edition of Music Studio plays well with the latest edition of Windows, i.e. Windows 11. But that’s not all: We’ve also included 5 new elegant user interface designs that seamlessly fit in the new Windows look.
✓ Keyboard shortcuts are the fastest way to edit your files. Instead of mousing around, why not hit a single key to navigate and perform various actions, like copying audio data? You can undo your actions, move selection markers and do so much more just by hitting a few keys.
✓ Now you can split your MP3s and other audio files into multiple parts with incredible ease. Use playback and pause to place your cut marks or click anywhere you like to cut and split with millisecond precision. It’s fast, it’s precise and it’s super intuitive.
✓ Live recordings or radio footage usually include a little more than just the songs we want, whether it’s a jingle or segway at the beginning, or some commentary afterwards. The new cutting tool gets rid of the surplus bits in a heartbeat. Simply place a few markers and let Music Studio go to work.
9. Reaper
Key Features
✓ REAPER’s full, flexible feature set and renowned stability have found a home wherever digital audio is used: commercial and home studios, broadcast, location recording, education, science and research, sound design, game development, and more.
✓ A new REAPER 6 license includes unlimited free updates through REAPER version 7.99. Frequency varies, but updates are typically released every few weeks.
✓ From mission-critical professional environments to students’ laptops, there is a single version of REAPER, fully featured with no artificial limitations. You can evaluate REAPER in full for 60 days. A REAPER license is affordably priced and DRM-free.
10. Acoustica
Key Features
✓ Created by musicians, for musicians, Mixcraft is unrivaled in the industry for its ease-of-use and raw power. Record and mix your tracks to perfection, in record time, with Mixcraft’s incredibly intuitive interface, lightning-fast sound engine, reality-defying pitch-shifting and time-stretching technology, and nearly-universal support for third-party plug-ins, audio interfaces, and hardware controllers.
✓ Record an unlimited number of audio and virtual instrument tracks, edit, crop, and crossfade sounds effortlessly, add tons of effects and automation, and mix and master your project to WAV, MP3, and other formats.
✓ Mixcraft’s Performance Panel offers incredible features for live performance and loop-based composition, rivaling the best DAWs on the market. Trigger audio and MIDI loops with a Launchpad, MIDI controller, or even your typing keyboard. Record directly to slots, and make real-time edits to sounds mid-performance.
✓ Compose and edit performances with Mixcraft’s powerful piano roll editor, notation editor, and step editor views. Create tempo-synced MIDI automation with Mixcraft’s powerful new automation tools, and use the new Step Recording feature to create perfect MIDI patterns.
✓ Mixcraft’s suite of effects and instruments is unrivaled, featuring a massive library of sampled instruments, powerful samplers, authentic emulations of classic synthesizers, electric pianos, rock organs, and a massive suite of ToneBoosters reverbs, compressors, filters, equalizers, and other effects.
