Fanatic Heart

Audacity is a tremendously useful open-source, cross-platform sound sequencer and editor. For amateurs like me, who just need to make a few mashups for mix CDs or generate some sound effects for an experiment, it does everything Soundforge does, only free. It could use some interface tweaking, but overall it’s a nice, compact tool with just the right number of features. I’m just elated to find this — I’ve wasted a lot of time diddling around with crippleware versions of outrageously priced sound-editing suites that do far more than I’d ever want or need. Finding this is like waking up from a bad dream into a warm, comfy bed shaped like a gently curving parabolic envelope.