TechRadar Verdict
Free Audio Editor is a well designed little tool that's particularly well suited for simple cutting and editing of songs, or converting file formats.
Pros
- +
Simple, clear interface
- +
Wide choice of export formats
Cons
- -
Can't edit stereo tracks individually
- -
No filters other than volume
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There are so many free programs for manipulating sound files, it's unsurprising that several are named 'Free Audio Editor'. The one we're looking at here is by DVDVideoSoft, not FAEMedia (whose software comes bundled with some rather annoying extra programs that are hard to avoid).
Where to download: https://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dvd/Free-Audio-Editor.htm
Type: Audio editor
Developer: DVDVideoSoft
Operating system: Windows
Version: 1.1
Free Audio Editor is an excellent tool for making simple edits to audio files, like clipping out unwanted breaks from podcasts, adding metadata to songs, and converting between different formats.
There are no advanced effects here – in fact, the only filter is a volume control – so you'll need a more advanced tool like Audacity if you want to get technical with noise reduction and fades.
User experience
When you install Free Audio Editor, you’ll see that it appears to come with another tool called Free Studio. This is essentially a hub that makes it easy to access any other DVDVideoSoft applications you have installed. If you’re only interested in the sound editor, you can simply delete the shortcut.
The software is extremely easy to use – just open an audio file (either via the File menu, or by dragging and dropping it from your desktop) and it will appear in Free Audio Editor as a pair of waveforms – one for each stereo channel. Unfortunately you can’t isolate one channel to edit at a time, or turn a stereo track to mono.
To edit the audio, scrub through the waveform with your mouse, and use the scissor icon to select a section (click once to mark the start point, then again to mark the end). You can then isolate this part, delete it, or invert it. Free Audio Editor also lets you add tags, which you can use to divide the file into sections with a couple of clicks, and you can add metadata and cover art if you’re editing a music track.
Free Audio Editor is nowhere near as advanced as tools like Audacity, but for quick trimming and volume adjustment, it’s ideal.
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