Good And Free Recording Software

If you're a serious musician, podcaster, or budding audio engineer, you care about the quality of your recordings–or you should. And that's why the audio recording programs you use matter.

1. Cakewalk Recording software, free download
2. Good And Free Recording Software Windows 10
3. Free Screen Recorder Software
4. Good And Free Recording Software For Beginners

Screen recording software, though, is a delightful exception — there are heaps of free tools out there. To help you find the best free screen recorder, we have created a shortlist of the best free screen recorders in 2020 that are free.

However, I'd like to add that it's not the software that makes the music. It's your skills as an audio engineer.

To illustrate, I'd like to tell you a story of an interesting email thread a while back. This guy was looking for a home studio, and he was asking around for where to go.

1. Looking for a free video capture/recording software to use? Well, your hunt ends here, check out Free Cam, a simple yet free video capture software designed for Windows 10/8/7 64 Bit & 32 Bit. The screen recorder has an attractive interface & comes with a built-in audio/video editor.
2. Ardour is yet another free DAW/audio recording and editing software that is both aimed at the seasoned producer as well as beginners. It's a fully featured DAW, and the whole point behind Ardour is to be the go-to choice for engineers who are on a budget and can't afford to purchase a premium one.
3. Here are 37 best free screen recorder software for Windows. These software let you create good quality recording of your desktop. All these screen recorder software are completely free and can be downloaded to Windows PC. These free software offer various features, like: create video recordings of your desktop, these recordings can be used for various purposes like demos, tutorials, etc.
4. MixPad is another free music-mixing program that makes it easy to access your recording and mixing equipment. With MixPad, create unlimited audio, music, and vocal tracks, and record single or multiple tracks at the same time. MixPad includes free sound effects and a music library with hundreds of clips at your disposal.

An acquaintance of mine chimed in with his answer, with some details about studios and such but there was one comment that infuriated me:

'You might want to have someone who's recording onto protools. (sic)'

Ugh…

Now, I know that not all musicians are engineers so I should let that slide. And this person is a great musician, but he's a little off in what makes up a great studio.

The thing that bothers me is that software companies are so good at brainwashing the public into believing that their software is crucial to the makings of a good record.

It REALLY isn't.

It doesn't matter whether you use Pro-Tools, Nuendo, Cubase, Sonar Producer, Logic Pro, Digital Performer, GarageBand, Live, or any of the other software that's for sale out there.

It's the least important thing in the grand scheme of:

'hey I want to know how to record my songs or have someone do it for me….what should I buy first?'

The software isn't going to tell you what sounds good. It's not a robot that knows how to engineer a great guitar sound. It can't tell you if you're overcompressing your drums or flooding your vocals with reverb. This is something that the engineer needs to know. This is the skill of the engineer, regardless of what software he's using.

Pro-Tools is not going to make your music sound any better.

Ask yourself:

If you install [insert preferred software here] onto your computer, is it going to make the acoustics in your room any better?

Free file transfer software. No.

Is it going to make the sound of your pre-amps any better?

No.

Will it walk out of the computer, look at your monitors and say, 'Gee, maybe you should space those monitors a little further apart for better imaging.'

No, it's not some mega nerdy Cylon engineer.

It'll just do what you tell it to do. And if you feed it garbage it will give you trash.

Skills Make Sounds – Not Software

So think more about what skills you need to record a great sound than the software that 'they' tell you that you desperately need to get.

Yes, you need software. But any software is great if you, or the engineer you hire, is excellent at using it. I use Logic. Do I recommend Logic to everybody. Not really.

My philosophy is that any software that you're comfortable using is the best software for your situation. The skills and knowledge of engineering are infinitely more important than any audio recording software that's out there.

Now that we've got that rant out of the way let's talk about what software solutions you have available, both free and paid.

A quick search on Amazon will show you a lot of different options that will give you decision anxiety, so we've compiled a list for you to reduce your hyperventilating so that you can go back to what you set out to do before, make music.

71 Free Shortcuts to Easy Separation and Balance in Your Mixes

If you've been struggling to hear all the instruments in a mix, my EQ cheatsheet will help you out.

• Learn to clean up your low-end, reduce bleed in your drums and eliminate annoying resonant frequencies from your recordings.
• Get rid of muddiness in your low-mids, tame the harshness in your mix, and get rid of your boxy sounding drums.
• Learn where to add presence to your vocals, brilliance to your acoustic guitars, thickness to your keyboards or weight to your bass. These tips are broken down by instrument and help you fix your frequency problems with simple solutions that you can use right away.

Cakewalk Recording software, free download

Top 5 Free Audio Recording Programs

Most run-of-the-mill, audio recording apps that come pre-installed on your computer just won't cut it (with the possible exception of GarageBand for Macs, a reasonably high-quality recorder for simple projects), and you also may not be willing or able to spend an arm and a leg for professional grade software.

However, you're in luck. There are some great free tools that actually don't suck and can produce the kind of quality recording that will make anybody who listens to your works of art — or wit if you're a podcaster — it up and take note of what you have to offer.

Here are some of the very best, completely free recording tools that will help bring your sounds to life.

1. Audacity

Available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux

Audacity is the go-to open-source audio recording application, and as long as your goals aren't overly ambitious, it puts an enormous amount of power in your hands. It can record just about anything you throw at it, whether it's from a microphone, through the line-in jack, or live streaming audio (if supported by your sound card), all in a lightweight and clean interface. Many recording enthusiasts, especially podcasters, appreciate Audacity's uncomplicated user experience and ease of use.

Audacity supports recording in sample rates from 44.1 to an excessive 192 kHz, which sets the stage for studio-caliber and even ultrasonic recordings if you have the hardware to handle it. Also included is support for 32-bit floating point, providing ample headroom for your recorded signal.

It comes with effects such as an equalizer with helpful presets, pitch, speed and tempo controls, delay, reverb, compressor, fade in/out, and a noise remover. You can expand this palette thanks to Audacity's generous support of VST, LADSPA, Nyquist and Audio Unit plugins.

Audacity's strength is its simplicity. While you can make it do multi-track recording if you're so inclined, it will never gain centerpiece status in a true recording studio. However, it is beginner-friendly, easy to use for quick edits you need to make on the fly (whether that means filtering out unwanted noise, boosting vocals or other frequencies through equalization, or just cutting and pasting), and extremely well-suited for hobbyist and podcast recording applications.

2. Garageband

Available for Mac OS only

Garageband comes free with any Mac computer and is pretty legit for most recording needs.

Although it can't do major processing like its big brother Logic, it's more than able to do any multi-track recording and minor mixing work.

Highly recommend for the bedroom recordist that's just starting out and needs a simple solution to lay down some demos.

3. Traverso

Available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux

Traverso, another fully featured DAW that's sure to meet common recording needs, is all about convenience.

This program eschews a traditional 'menu' structure in favor of innovative keyboard and mouse shortcuts, which brings a crisp immediacy to recording tasks. There's no doubt about it–there will be a bit of a learning curve–but the developers claim to have integrated input and execution so seamlessly that you practically learn how to do things as you go along. Furthermore, users have an array of options that make recording demo CDs a snap. You can create tables of contents and burn discs without ever leaving Traverso.

Other features that dovetail nicely with the 'stay out of the way' philosophy behind Traverso include non-destructive editing, or the ability to use plugins and make edits without changing the actual sample, and lockless real-time audio processing, which reduces latency and streamlines performance. Traverso's commitment to intuitive recording and mastering controls makes the program stand out among its similarly free counterparts.

4. Ardour DAW

Available for Mac OS and Linux

Ardour is yet another great free DAW: one that is taking aim at cream-of-the-crop professional software and is promising for real studios with low budgets.

It features non-destructive editing, 32-bit float, supports unlimited tracks, and has extremely flexible routing capabilities. With support for LADSPA, LV2, and VST plugins, you'll be able to make your favorite customizations without a hassle. Synchronization with video is supported, and full handling of MIDI recording, playback and editing are expected with the highly-anticipated release of the third edition of Ardour.

The thing that sets Ardour apart from the rest of the pack is what's under the hood. It runs on JACK, an underlying sound server that facilitates low-latency audio recording and communication among various programs. Although Ardour itself only runs on Mac OS and Linux at present, a Windows port has been conceptualized, and efforts towards building one are in full swing as of June 2012, and JACK is already a true cross-platform utility that runs on the aforementioned systems as well as Windows. JACK is excellent at handling MIDI so that Ardour will take full advantage of that upon the release of the third edition.

Ardour is complex and certainly not for newbies. Some have complained about the potentially confusing graphical user interface (GUI), which is quite inaccessible to someone who's never seen or seriously worked with a DAW before. But if you're an audio engineer of any level of experience and strapped for cash, you may find that Ardour fits the bill for your projects quite nicely.

5. Jokosher

Available for Windows and Linux

Jokosher is billed as the 'musician's DAW' and the Linux alternative to GarageBand, the standard, pre-installed, easy-to-use workstation for Macs. Here, you won't find advanced editing and mastering tools by the names that most engineers know: it's a program that speaks in a music maker's language.

While not as heavyweight as its counterparts, Jokosher takes a lot of the guesswork out of the recording process for people who are new to it. All of the basic, expected editing tools are at the user's disposal. Startup is fast, easy and straightforward. Tracks are called 'instruments,' and you can set them up based on the type of instrument you intend to record. If it's an acoustic guitar for example, simply select 'Acoustic Guitar,' and the track will be clearly labeled as such with a cute picture to boot, providing an excellent visual layout of instruments used in the mix.

Jokosher supports LADSPA plugins only, and as of June 2012 it's still in its early development stages. But for musicians and podcasters who want to record simple products and get a first taste of manipulating tracks in a DAW, this simple program is hard to beat.

Alternative to Pro-Tools That Won't Break the Bank

Most of the big pro studios are using Avid Pro Tools to make all the records going to the radio these days, but it's slowly losing its status as an industry standard due to the quality of its competitors. There are plenty of lower-cost DAWs and a wealth of free and inexpensive plug-ins that bring professional studio sound right to your computer.

Even though Pro Tools is the premier name in the industry, there is really no special voodoo under the hood. It is simply a graphical user interface that lets you move some bits (and thus sounds) around inside your computer. There is no difference in the way Pro Tools sounds and the way any of its competitors sound, period.

So you can comfortably make a foray into saving money by purchasing one of the many alternatives to Pro Tools –none of which will cause even your fans to hear a difference.

1. Steinberg Cubase

There is the perennially popular Steinberg Cubase, which is perhaps the granddaddy of them all so to speak. The German-engineered application is perhaps the Mercedes-Benz of DAWs, offering pioneering technology and reliable performance.

And if you need a guide to Cubase, my buddy Chris Selim over at Mixdown Online has just the training you need. (affiliate link)

2. Logic Pro X

Apple has two DAWs in its stable: Garageband, a veritable staple discussed before, and Logic Pro. In both cases, the quality of these programs is very high and both will work with a wide assortment of audio hardware.

3. Cockos Reaper

Perhaps the best-kept secret in the world of DAWs is Reaper. Reaper is a heads-on contender for any other DAW on the list, including Pro Tools. The best part is that Reaper is not only among the best, it is also one of the least expensive, coming in at only $60 for the discounted license. All the features are there: real-time recording and editing, unlimited track count, VST and DX plug-in support, and more.

4. Studio One

Presonus's Studio One is a great option as well. It contains everything you need to produce music and seems very intuitive and easy to use.

In fact, it's probably the only DAW that might make me switch from Logic. A lot of my producer and engineer friends use it, and they swear by it, citing its ease of use, sound quality, and simplicity with production.

There is nothing wrong with using Pro Tools, of course. But if you can't afford to shell out the big dollars for the industry's biggest name, you still get the great results with the above applications.

Audio Recording Programs for Any Situation

All of the above are solid apps with unique feature sets and strengths, dedicated fan bases, and active support and development teams. The free DAWs don't have the advanced functionality of much more expensive, industry-standard solutions, but depending on your needs I'm sure you'll find something that works for you.

Try them out and decide which combination of user experience and specific features works best for you.

Happy recording!

Parts of this post were contributed by Daniel Kimbrel and Jessica Josh. If you would like to submit a guest post, check out the guidelines here.

Daniel is a movie buff and freelance writer. He contributes to a number of music sites online. Jessica Josh is an Australian freelance writer and blogger. Since 2007 she has been writing about weddings, fashion, and music.

Image by: Shawn Econo

Windows 10 Screen Recorders

5 professional screen recorders for Windows 10

• ApowerREC

The first tool you can use to record your Windows 10 screen is ApowerREC. ApowerREC is a screen recorder application that can capture live streaming videos, video calls and other activities on your desktop even if they are being processed real-time. With its support, you can create tutorials and record videos you like on Windows.

This tool is capable of recording webcam alone in case your need arises, and it can also create a picture in picture effect by recording your screen and webcam at the same time. Meanwhile you are doing the recording, you can add annotations to your video for explanation, such as arrows, highlights, texts, as well as other interesting features. Besides, you can simply edit the recording by cropping it or adding a watermark to it. Once you finish the recording, you can upload it to YouTube to share with your subscribers or upload it to ShowMore cloud storage for saving computer space.

PROS

• It has a user friendly interface.
• It has an advanced screen recording feature readily available for selected situations.
• It can record screen automatically when you are away from your computer.
• It supports the uploading of recorded videos on YouTube, ShowMore, Google Drive, DropBox, FTP etc.

CONS

• It occupies higher CPU compared to other recorders.

• Camtasia Studio

Another candidate for becoming the best Windows 10 screen recorder is Camtasia Studio. This program has been created and published by TechSmith. This fact allows it to have you edit video after recording the screen of your computer in a natural way, including combining, trimming, splitting and adjusting the speed of video clips. Also, you are allowed to add animations, titles, transitions, highlights, images, audio files and effects, voice narration, and many more. Besides, recorded videos can be used for marketing, advertising, business presentation, and educational purposes according to the need and interest of the buyer.

PROS

• It has a 30-day free trial.

CONS How to make a poster on macbook air.

• It doesn't support scheduled automatic screen recording.
• It is more expensive compared to other tools.

• Flashback

An alternative desktop screen recorder is Flashback developed by Blueberry Software. It can capture all the area on your computer screen without any hesitation. While recording, you can also draw lines, shapes, figures, and add images and notes to it. What's more, videos can be converted into many other formats and can be shared on YouTube or Flashback Connect. This software allows users to try in 30 days for free.

PROS

• This tool supports to record multiple monitors.

CONS

• It only permits you to import FBR format.

• Fraps

Fraps is a video and screen capture tool for Windows 10 that has become the part of many Huawei owner's part. This software is known for gamers who record their gameplay since it can capture outstanding video game quality. Users can download the free version for use. However, it can only record a 30 seconds video and it leaves a watermark on the top of the video.

PROS

• It has a maximum resolution of 7680×4800.

CONS

• Take a large portion on your disk in a 2 minute recording video.

• MadCap Mimic

The next best screen recording software for Windows 10 is MadCap Mimic. This is a multimedia software that can record the screen activities on your computer. In addition to that, you can record your PC in three methods, including manual, automatic and full-motion recording. If you want to try it before purchasing, you can install it for a 30-day free trial.

PROS

• It provides some video and visual effects.

CONS

• It's too complicated to make configurations.

5 best free Windows 10 screen recorders

• Apowersoft Free Online Screen Recorder

In case you want to save money, then try Apowersoft Free Online Screen Recorder. This is a free web-based tool that can record your Windows 10 computer screen without any trouble. With the support of it, you can record your computer screen in few clicks. In addition to that, it supports several output formats like MP4, AVI, WMV, FLV, MPEG, GIF, VOB, and ASF, etc. Also, it lets you capture audio while you are recording your desktop screen. Users can use their webcam when they are video chatting with their family, friends and other colleagues.

PROS

• This tool is available online, free of charge.
• It has a user friendly interface.
• There is no length or size limits of the recording on the free version.

CONS

• Launching this tool needs stable internet connection.

2. OBS Studio

An alternative free screen recording software for windows 10 is OBS Studio. This tool can be characterized as a live screen recorder and live streaming program. Just like the tools mentioned above, this program can be used to record microphone and webcam directly while capturing desktop screen. Aside from that feature, you can also try some other relevant features such as audio mixer, themes, filters and many more.

Good And Free Recording Software Windows 10

PROS

• Live streaming is supported.
• Games can be recorded freely.

CONS

• The interface is complicated.
• It is difficult to set the configuration.

3. Ezvid

Ezvid is a screen recorder and video editor for your Windows 10 PC. This program has keyboard shortcuts in the aim of giving users the ability quickly record their screen. Moreover, there is a widget displayed on your screen that makes it also possible to easily stop the recording. However, there is no way to hide the widget on your computer while recording your computer screen.

PROS

• It has a built-in video editor.
• It allows users to add effects to sound while recording.

CONS

• The saving process takes a long time.

4. Screencast-O-Matic

Screencast-O-Matic is one of the best free screen recorder for Windows 10 and a great screen capturing program. It is an online tool that can be used by Youtubers, students, teachers, and businessman, and many other diverse groups of users. You can utilize the tool even without signing up or signing in to it that is a unique feature for your ease and rapid usage. You just need your computer browser in order to use this tool. Apart from that, it allows you to record both screen and webcam at the same time or record your webcam alone if you want.

PROS

• No need to register.
• Easy to be configured.

Free Screen Recorder Software

CONS

• The free version cannot record system sound.

Good And Free Recording Software For Beginners

5. Icecream Screen Recorder

Last but not least, the Icecream Screen Recorder also takes a place on the list. This program enables you to record or take screenshots of any part of your screen no matter what activities you are doing. In this way you can start recording while playing games, video chatting, live streaming, and other activities of your choice without hesitation. Besides, it enables you to draw shapes, lines and figures, add watermark and a lot more during the recording process.

PROS

• It supports to zoom in and zoom out while recording.

CONS

• It only allows you to record up to 10 minutes.

Conclusion

To sum up, both paid and free screen recorders are available for Windows 10 with a great diversity. All of these best Windows 10 screen recorders are effective and efficient for creating recordings. However, you need to always remember that there are some limitations for the free version of screen recorders when it comes to comparison with the paid tools. Meanwhile, if you are into practicality, you can choose ApowerREC for the advanced version and Apowersoft Free Online Screen Recorder for free use. These two both have advanced screen recording functions as well as some features that can help you with your other tasks.