Introduction
This page is the introduction for the printed manual only.
For the time being, this page is copyright by Dominic Mazzoni and is not available under a Creative Commons License.
Why Audacity?
Audacity is one of the most popular and fastest growing digital audio editors in the world. Tens of millions of people have used it to record a podcast, create a demo CD of their garage band, transfer old vinyl records to CD, or just have fun with audio. But there are dozens of other software programs with similar capabilities...why should you choose Audacity?
The simplest reason? Because it's free.
Audacity is developed by a team of volunteers and released under an open-source license (more on this below). What that means for you is that you don't have to pay for Audacity - you can download it for free from the Internet with no limitations or restrictions. Since Audacity is totally free, no strings attached, what have you got to lose by giving it a try? At worst, a few hours of your time. But we suspect that you'll find Audacity to be an enormously useful and fun tool that will put you in control of digital audio files. Furthermore, even if you find Audacity too limited for your own advanced needs, there's nothing to stop you from using other software alongside Audacity - perhaps even expensive commercial software. As long as Audacity is free and has some unique capabilities, there's no reason it shouldn't be part of your toolbox.
Another reason to choose Audacity is because it is the only audio editing software that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux computers. Every other piece of software you will find only works on one, or maybe two of these platforms. Why should this matter to you? Most of us only have one type of computer; perhaps like the majority of people you have a typical PC running Microsoft Windows. Or maybe you have a Macintosh and you've used nothing but Macs for years. But what about your friends, do they all use the same operating system? If you work at a company, school or other organization, aren't there several people there using all sorts of different computers? Many people love Audacity because all of their friends and co-workers can use the same audio software, rather than search for different solutions for different computers and be unable to share tips and resources with one another. You can even share your Audacity project file with those on other operating systems, as long as it's complete with all its audio data, so doesn't depend on files only on your computer.
Also, Audacity has been translated into more than 30 languages and has large user communities in countries around the world. If you have business partners, friends or family in another part of the world, they can use Audacity too.
Finally, many people simply find Audacity the easiest to use. That's not to say that everything will be obvious or easy at first - editing audio is not usually as easy as editing an email. But Audacity was written with the average user in mind. We don't assume you've been in a recording studio and that you know what a "mixer bus" or an "edit decision list" is. Whenever possible, Audacity lets you do what you want to do without worrying about how it works internally. You may still have to learn some new terminology along the way where it really is necessary, but that's what this Manual is for.
Why free?
You may be wondering why Audacity is given away for free like this. First of all, it's certainly not the only such software program. If you've ever used Firefox, BitTorrent or OpenOffice, you've already used open-source software. And more than half of the websites on the Internet are powered by Apache, another open-source software program, and many of these run on Linux, an entirely open-source operating system. Sometimes open-source developers are paid by major corporations who benefit from the software; in other cases they survive on donations, a small amount of relevant advertising or on individual contributors doing paid consultancy. Audacity is a case of the latter.
Audacity's team of about a dozen developers around the world are thus volunteers for the most part, developing Audacity in their spare time because they love it. But we always need more help. Besides more programmers with C++ knowledge, we need ordinary users to help the project in many ways. There is always work to be done keeping documentation up-to-date, translating Audacity into new languages, and answering user queries on our Forum. If you would like to contribute, don't hesitate to email us (audacity-devel At lists Dot sourceforge Dot net).
Open-Source Software
Open-source software means that all of the source code - the blueprints that computer programmers use to develop a software program - is distributed free along with the software. Usually, source code is kept secret, meaning that the person or organization that created the software is the only one with the power to change it. By this means they control the software, charging whatever price they want, or worse, they can throw away the source code at any time and discontinue the software altogether. With open-source software, the source code is licensed to the world so that anyone can see how the program works, and even modify it if they so choose. In the case of Audacity, the source code is provided under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL allows you to do whatever you want with Audacity, including modify it and redistribute it, providing you offer it under the same license and make its source code available. For more details, see the full text of the License and our Frequently Asked Questions.
Why should you care that you can modify Audacity? You're probably not a programmer yourself. But the fact that anyone can download the Audacity source code and modify it means that Audacity is not likely to die. Even if the original developers move on to something else, it's always possible for another developer to come along and continue where they left off. In fact, it's almost certain to happen if enough people want Audacity to continue and are willing to chip in a little.
About This Manual
The Manual is divided into several sections. The first part contains some Tutorials which walk you through various common tasks and provide a really quick way to get started. The tutorials have the aim of getting you up and running as soon as possible. It's best to try to follow along with Audacity while you read these tutorials, but of course feel free to skip any tutorials that don't sound interesting or useful to you. Many people may find that after going through a couple of tutorials, they're ready to explore the rest of Audacity on their own, and use this Manual as a reference when they get stuck.
If you want to understand Audacity in greater detail, though, the "Using Audacity" section of the Manual is required reading. "Foundations" lets you start from the beginning, introducing you to the fundamentals of digital audio and then explaining the concepts you need in order to work with Audacity. We recommend you read "Foundations" through from beginning to end, since each concept builds on the previous one. Then there is a "Help with Advanced Issues" section. You should read those pages that apply to you, such as working with Audio CDs or customizing Audacity with additional plug-ins, when you need to.
The main part of the Manual is a complete Reference to Audacity, including an explanation of every button, tool, menu item, and dialog box in the whole program. This is the place to turn when you need to know exactly what something in the program does.
At the end of the Manual, you'll find our Frequently Asked Questions, a Glossary where you can look up the meaning of common audio terms with links to further reading, and our Credits and License pages.
