15 Best Audio Editing Software of 2024 (Free and Pro Options)

Choosing the right audio editing software is crucial if you want to produce high-quality audio recordings. From simple sound effects to complex audio editing, the best audio editing software can help you meet your goals. In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the 15 best audio editing software, along with my top 5 choices, so that you can pick the best one for you.

Adobe Audition

Adobe Audition, part of Adobe Creative Cloud (CC), is a suitable tool for broadcasters who want to edit, mix, and restore audio.

Avid Pro Tools

Pro Tools is one of the best professional audio editing software for large studios looking to integrate hardware with powerful software.

PreSonus Studio One

Studio One is an excellent, super-responsive, and agile audio editing tool for recording voice and laying down stunning beats.

Audacity

Audacity is one of the best open-source and cross-platform audio editing tools for multi-track editing and recording.

Cubase

Steinberg Cubase is a powerful audio editing software for users who want to create, mix, and produce music.

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Want to jump straight to the best audio editing software right now? My favourite is Adobe Audition.

Professional audio production has come a long way in the last decade. What used to take expensive digital audio workstations (DAWs) and recording studios can now be completed with just a laptop and microphone.

And oftentimes, audio quality is more important than video quality. Sometimes a shaky or less-than-perfect video clip can be improved by professional audio. However, poor audio is much more noticeable and hard to improve with a well-shot video.

However, when looking for the best tool, there are so many audio editing software options to choose from – it can get overwhelming.

I remember editing a video together and being unable to fix a poorly recorded audio track. I scoured the internet for hours trying to find a tool that could easily get rid of background hums and p-pops.

After researching tools late into the night, I finally found one that I was looking for.

This guide covers the best audio editing software for musicians, video editors, podcasters, and everything in-between.

Let’s get started.

What is the Best Audio Editing Software?

Here are my top picks for the best audio editing software.

1. Adobe Audition.

Best audio software for video editors ($20.99 per month).

Adam’s Take

Whether you want to create a podcast, add sound effects to a video, or clean up some audio recordings, Adobe Audition has features to help you get the job done. Being part of CC, it also integrates well with other Adobe tools like After Effects and Premiere Pro.

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Adobe Audition, part of Adobe Creative Cloud (CC), is a suitable tool for broadcasters who want to edit, mix, and restore audio. You can use Adobe Audition for both single and multi-track editing. It also lets you import files in the timeline through a simple drag and drop feature, which is a bonus for beginners. Its visual interface is modern and straightforward which helps you focus on optimizing your audio tracks.

It also brings professional depth to the sounds effects you create.

Adobe Audition provides different types of textures for sound effects, such as:

• Animated tones with over 250 cartoon sound effects
• Add arcade and modern gaming sound effects like beeps and boops
• Over 450 gun and firearm sound effects
• Add comical sound effects, such as whistles, honks, and pops

What’s more, Adobe Audition enables you to easily perform noise reduction. You just need to create a ‘noise print’ at a particular point in the audio, and it will replicate the background in the entire clip. You can also get rid of an unwanted echo with just a click of a button. It’s also one of the audio editing tools to let you include the recordings of multiple resources in a single track.

Key Features:

• Free Sound Effects – Use Adobe’s hundreds of royalty-free sound effects to add professional depth and creativity in your audio.
• Adobe Sensei – The remix function edits your music based on your requirements automatically.
• Essential Sound Panel – You can use its sound editing tools to adjust your voice recording and remove any unwanted sound from the clip.

Pros:

• Dynamically control the sound of dialogue or music using its autodocking tool.
• Use Spectral Frequency Display to remove hisses, beeps, and background. You can also visually edit soundwaves with this feature.
• Directly add your final audio files to video editing tools like Adobe Premiere Pro.
• Capture sound from multiple mics and easily mix or manipulate voices from different speakers.
• It offers editing in both Multitrack or Waveform.
• Supports external equipment, including mixers or audio interfaces, for enhanced results.

Pricing:

• Free: It offers a free trial version for seven days.
• Business Class: It costs around $20.99 per month per user.

It provides discounts to students and teachers. The companies that require multiple licenses also get special discounts.

2. Avid Pro Tools.

Best for post-production professionals ($29.99 per month).

Adam’s Take

For large studios with big budgets, Pro Tools is the industry standard. The software integrates with a wide range of hardware from different manufacturers, making it the most versatile option for professionals. I advise you to check it out if you’re after one of the best tools in the game.

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Pro Tools is one of the best professional audio editing software for large studios looking to integrate their hardware with powerful software. Moreover, Pro Tools offers a powerful workflow, letting you record for up to 4 mics simultaneously. Its Audio Engine offers a 64-bit architecture, capable of dynamically allocating host processing resources, and low-latency input buffer.

It also allows you to search through instruments, tracks, and more through a type-ahead search. Plus, you can now select multiple items on the menu at a time. One of its most amazing features is its capability to record the sound retroactively. This means that you don’t have to remember to press the record button whenever you start jamming in the studio. Pro Tools also offers a good collection of virtual instruments.

The distribution of music also gets easier with Pro Tools. It gets your music on streaming sites like Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and more.

Here are some of the features that let you produce professional, movie-quality sound.

• Up to 768 voices/audio tracks to create bigger mixes
• The hardware system offers dedicated DSP and premium audio I/O
• Infinite routing flexibility
• Ability to find and collaborate with other professionals around the world

Key Features:

• UVI Falcon – It offers an extensive 2.6 GB collection of synthesizer and instrument samples with around 1,000 present clips.
• MIDI Editor – You can use its pop-up MIDI Editor to handle all the details of the project. You can also export all the sessions as Sibelius files (.sib).
• Mix Window – You can view all the audio tracks in the mixing board style. It provides the flexibility to automate any parameter at any point in the track.

Pros:

• Match up with local broadcast guidelines using multiple metering standards like peak and average to VU, K, and PPM.
• It allows you to write your music even while the track is in recording or input. You can then do various music editing adjustements.
• Pro Tools also supports Avid Nitris DX, Avid Mojo DX, and a variety of Blackmagic Design video interfaces.
• It also supports AJA to monitor QuickTime video and DNxHD.
• Work with up to 10 users on the same project using the cloud-based collaboration functionality.
• Easily import sessions created on other audio editing tools.
• The multiple AIR effects come in handy during the mixing session.

Pricing:

Pro Tools offers two pricing plans:

• Pro Tools Yearly, Paid Upfront: $299
• Pro Tools Yearly Subscription, Paid Monthly: $31.99
• Pro Tools Monthly Subscription, Paid Monthly: $39.99

3. PreSonus Studio One.

Suitable for professionals looking for a serious DAW for creating, editing, mixing, and mastering audio ($449).

Adam’s Take

If you’re a fan of beats that snap and pop with lots of character, you’ll love what Studio One can do. Studio One comes with a great collection of effects and plugins to get you started, so I recommend you to check it out if you’re looking for a top-quality audio editor.

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Studio One is an excellent audio editing tool for recording voice and laying down stunning beats. It’s super-responsive and agile. For instance, its drag-and-drop interface lets you set up instruments instantly with complete pictorial representation.

The drag-and-drop interface lets you achieve plenty of other essential functions easily, such as:

• Drag audio loops, virtual instruments, and presets into your session easily
• Simply copy FX chains from one channel to another
• Convert MIDI to audio or vice versa
• Remove glitches by dragging a plugin to your effects chain

Other than this, it has all the editing functions one would expect in an efficient digital audio workstation (DAW). You can add fades, trim or split clips, and adjust the gain of a clip straight from the ‘Edit’ interface.

Plus, it automatically suggests dates and names to your new projects to help you always stay organized. You can also set keyboard shortcuts to mirror Pro Tools or any other DAW for easy migration to Studio One.

Key Features:

• Master Mastering – It’s one of the only DAW that lets you link songs with finished projects. You can also jump back to any particular moment to make the tweaks.
• Drag and Drop – Its drag and drop workflow helps you easily add virtual instruments, plugins, and loops into the audio clip.
• Arranger Track – Edit moving sections of your songs with harmonic editing.
• Analog Mixing – Its State Space-modeled analog input drive adds the right amount of warmth and grit in the song.

Pros:

• It also offers a drum editor and an acoustic kit.
• It comes loaded with 64-bit floating-point WAV recording and export.
• Edit multiple tracks simultaneously using the advanced group function.
• Constantly change pitch and delays by creating echoes.
• Efficiently manage arrangements and chord shuffles with its Arranger Track.
• Feed external audio through its dedicated Aux Channel.

Pricing:

Studio one costs $399.95 for a one-time purchase. You can also upgrade for more advanced features.

There are also the Studio One Artist, selling for $99.95, and the PreSonus Sphere, with a monthly subscription of $14.95 or an annual one for $164.95.

4. Audacity.

Open-source audio editing software for multi-track editing (Free Audio Editor).

Adam’s Take

Renowned for being a free yet powerful tool, Audacity comes packed with features such as support for a wide range of file formats, support for multiple audio effects, and more. With Audacity, you can easily record and edit audio files on your computer and even add effects to them.

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Audacity is one of the best open-source and cross-platform audio editing tools for multi-track editing and recording. It offers a user-friendly interface and supports macOS, Windows, GNU/Linux, and many other operating systems. Plus, you can record live audio through a microphone/ mixer, and digitize audio recordings from other media.

Audacity also superior quality sound with 16-bit, 24-bit, and 32-bit support. Other than this, it converts formats and sample rates through high-quality dithering and resampling. It also supports LADSPA, Nyquist, LV2, VST, and Audio Unit effect plugins. If none of these plugins align with your requirements, you can write your own plugins too.

Here’s a list of some of the most prominent features that make it one of the best free audio editing software:

• Import & export music files in different formats, such as AIFF, MP3, and more
• Import & export multiple files at once
• Amazing sound quality
• Support for plugins like ADSPA, LV2, Nyquist, VST and Audio Unit effect
• Cut, copy, paste, and delete functions for easy editing
• Spectrogram view mode

Key Features:

• Accessibility – It offers a massive number of keyboard shortcuts. You can even manipulate tracks and selections through the keyboard.
• Analysis – You can use its Spectrogram mode for visualization and selection of frequencies. The Plot Spectrum Window provides a detailed analysis of frequencies.
• Special Effects – Monitor your audio through the real-time preview of LV2, VST, LADSPA, and Audio Unit (macOS) effects.

Pros:

• Its plugin manager handles all sorts of plugin installations efficiently.
• Go back or forward by any number of steps with an unlimited number of sequential Undo and Redo to go back or forward by any number of steps.
• Export multiple audio files simultaneously in different formats.
• Its ‘Level Meter’ monitors volume levels in real-time or before and after the recording.
• Use the Draw tool to play with sample points.

Pricing:

• Free: It’s an open-source tool available for free.

5. Cubase.

Suitable for both a professional composer or a music production beginner ($329.99).

Adam’s Take

I advise you to check out Cubase for its various features and capabilities. Cubase offers its users a wide range of editing options. You can use Steinberg Cubase to create, record, mix, and produce music, so it’s worth checking out if you’re serious about audio editing.