Oh, the Audacity! Free? There must be a catch…

Oh, the Audacity! How dare you be such a capable audio recording software program and still cost nothing! You’re free! There must be a catch…

Nope.

There are dozens of DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software programs out there on the market today. All of them are worth every penny. Audacity has the same value and functionality of most of the programs out there, and it’s absolutely free.  When it’s time to choose an audio program for recording voice over it’s a no brainer. I recommend this program to every one of my students because it’s free, it’s easy to use, and it works for everything they will need to record and send out auditions.  Audacity has the same core functions as all the others like record, edit, EQ, compress, export as mp3 etc., plus a lot more that you may or may not use in your regular VO recordings.

So, what does all this mean?

As voice actors our lives consist of interpreting the scripts we receive, recording the performance and sending out the edited recording with all intentions of winning that audition. Yes, I simplified this but for a reason: The key component to the above statement is RECORD, EDIT, & EXPORT. Our focus should be on our performance, not worrying about being an engineer while doing it. It’s important that we quickly master the skills of recording, editing out unwanted audio, skillfully add/adjust the equalization if needed (low cut filter, High pass filter etc.), and send off a quality recorded performance. Audacity allows us to do this with ease. Look at it this way… using Audacity for recording your VO is like me using MS Word to write this article; simple intuitive functions like cut, copy, paste, delete, save.

I recently had a new VO student who was struggling with the recording program they were using as some of these DAWS can be overwhelming to install and operate. We downloaded Audacity together during her coaching session, and I showed her how easy it was to record, edit, and export audio. It took a total of about 10 minutes from download to export. That’s a win in my book!

My recommendation is to not only download and use Audacity as your DAW software but take the time to get really good at by joining me for my Audacity class. If it isn’t currently offered, please sign up for the waitlist at the bottom of the Edge Studio Class Schedule.  I will go over all of its functionality in detail from initial recording all the way through making your final recordings sound really awesome. Really 😉

Hope to meet you then!