There are many sites offering YouTube downloaders, video downloaders, audio editing software and much more for a price. Searching the Internet for good free alternatives can take time, so listed here are some programmes for free that should help. If you know of any good freeware, please contact the site.
Audacity
Audacity is free software, developed by a group of volunteers and distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Free software gives you the freedom to use a program, study how it works, improve it and share it with others. For more information.
Programmes like Audacity are also called open source software, because their source code is available for anyone to study or use. There are thousands of other free and open source programmes, including the Firefox web browser, the LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice office suites and entire Linux-based operating systems such as Ubuntu.
They welcome donations to support Audacity development. Anyone can contribute to Audacity by helping with documentation, translations, user support and by testing their latest code.
Recording
Audacity can record live audio through a microphone or mixer, or digitize recordings from other media.
Export / Import
Import, edit, and combine sound files. Export your recordings in many different file formats, including multiple files at once.
Sound Quality
Supports 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit. Sample rates and formats are converted using high-quality resampling and dithering.
Plug-ins
Support for LADSPA, LV2, Nyquist, VST and Audio Unit effect plug-ins. Effects can be easily modified in a text editor – or you can even write your own plug-in.
Editing
Easy editing with Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete. Also unlimited sequential Undo (and Redo) in the session to go back any number of steps.
Effects
Real-time preview of LADSPA, LV2, VST and Audio Unit (macOS) effects. Plug-in Manager handles plug-in installation and addition/removal of effects and generators from the menus.
Accessibility
Tracks and selections can be fully manipulated using the keyboard. Large range of keyboard shortcuts.
Analysis
Spectrogram view mode for visualizing and selecting frequencies. Plot Spectrum window for detailed frequency analysis.
Available for: Windows, Mac, Linux
Website: www.audacityteam.org
FairStars CD Ripper
FairStars CD Ripper is a free powerful software for ripping audio CD tracks to WMA, MP3, OGG, VQF, FLAC, APE and WAV formats files on-the-fly. Free CDDB is supported (Querying & Submiting). It supports normalisation when ripping, and also support ID3 tag. FairStars CD Ripper also supports playback with its built-in player.
Main features
Rips CD to WMA, MP3, OGG, VQF, FLAC, APE and WAV on-the-fly.
Supports automatic volume adjustment (normalisation) during ripping.
Supports multiple CD/DVD drivers.
ID3 tag support.
Support automatic saving ID3 Tags when converting, and also support ID3 tags display and edit.
Query and submit CD disc information from/to the freedb (the Internet Compact Disc Database).
Audio Playback control function Support.
Easy-to-use user-friendly interface (skin support).
Available for: Windows
Website: www.fairstars.com
Youtube Downloader HD
Youtube Downloader HD is the fastest free video downloader. Download and convert videos into avi video format or into mp4 (compatible with iPad, iPhone).
You can download High Quality videos, High Definition and Full HD videos from YouTube. Youtube Downloader HD is a Freeware.
Features:
Easy to use: just copy video URL from your web browser and paste to Youtube Downloader HD.
No need to use scripts or browser plug-ins.
Convert downloaded video to various formats.
Download Youtube High Definition and FullHD videos (available on certain videos)
Unicode support: Youtube Downloader HD can save movies whose names have non-standard characters (like Chinese, Japanese, Cyrillic, etc.)
Support for big video files
Youtube Downloader HD for Windows is a completely FREE Software. It contains absolutely NO ADWARE, NO SPYWARE, NO REGISTRATION, NO POPUPS, NO MALWARE or other unwanted software.
Youtube Downloader HD is intended for use as a personal archiving tool only. Please respect the rights of the copyright holders of any material you get.
Available for: Windows, Mac, Linux
Website: www.youtubedownloaderhd.com