If you’re a PC user Acid Xpress – the younger sibling of Sony’s Acid Music Studio and Acid Pro – has a user-friendly interface. The team at Apple have also built in some smart extras like a podcasting template, instrumental video lessons and easy access to other media on your computer, such as your iTunes library, photo collection and movies. It comes already installed on your Mac, it’s very intuitive and comes with lots of great ready-made loops. If you’re after a user-friendly interface that incorporates multiple functions, GarageBand (Mac only) has long been the ideal solution.

It works really well as a “companion” application and is an ideal free solution for podcasting in the classroom. Audacity doesn’t include video, loops or MIDI features but it has some specific effects not found in some of the other programs. The latest beta version (1.3.9 at the time of writing) even includes a vocal “remover”. It’s great for chopping up existing recordings, changing the key of a song, speeding up/slowing down tracks and creating fade ins/outs. Edit a song for dance class/performanceĪudacity is one of the most popular free cross-platform audio editing programs.

Record student performances for instant feedback and student reflection.Record student performances for archiving purposes.

These audio recording/editing programs can include a combination of features such as looping, sequencing, recording and editing and there are hundreds of uses for the classroom. In this post we’ll take a look at some of the free audio recording and editing programs. There are plenty of free and low-cost resources available and the only thing you need in order to access them is an internet connection. You may already know that incorporating technology into your music classroom doesn’t need to be a costly exercise.

The best free audio editor