Best Audio Recording Software for Linux

Free, open source, cross-platform audio software. Audacity is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. Developed by a group of volunteers as open source. Audacity can record live audio through a microphone or mixer, or digitize recordings from other media. Import, edit, and combine sound files. Export your recordings in many different file formats, including multiple files at once. Supports 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit. Sample rates and formats are converted using high-quality resampling and dithering. Support for LADSPA, LV2, Nyquist, VST and Audio Unit effect plug-ins. Nyquist effects can be easily modified in a text editor – or you can even write your own plug-in. Easy editing with Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete. Also unlimited sequential Undo (and Redo) in the session to go back any number of steps. Real-time preview of LADSPA, LV2, VST and Audio Unit (macOS) effects. Plug-in Manager handles plug-in installation.

Rosegarden is a music composition and editing environment based around a MIDI sequencer that features a rich understanding of music notation and includes basic support for digital audio. Rosegarden is an easy-to-learn, attractive application that runs on Linux, ideal for composers, musicians, music students, and small studio or home recording environments. Rosegarden is currently an application for Linux only. Now that we have ported to Qt 4, and now that Qt is freely available for all platforms without a commercial license, there are fewer obstacles standing in the way of eventually becoming a cross-platform application. Rosegarden uses the Qt 4 libraries for various common controls, but you can run it under any window manager or graphical environment you like. The Open in Notation Editor option on the main view's Segments menu will open all the currently-selected segments together in a single editor.

Waveform is a rapidly evolving application specifically designed for the needs of modern music producers. Specializing in creative and inspirational workflows and avoiding features not explicitly needed to allow the app to remain surprisingly fun and intuitive. While other apps try to appeal to broad user groups, for example film score, live sound, performance – we are laser focused on music production. Waveform Pro introduces the Arranger Track, a remarkably simple yet powerful tool for manipulating regions of your arrangement. Simply create an arrange clip in the arranger track to control the entire region of your arrangement. The arranger track has contemporary features such as magnetic movement, commonly found in video editors, that automatically open and close regions of the arrangement based on your selections. Experimenting with your arrangement and song structure has never been easier.

Grab yourself a nice audio interface. Plug in a microphone or a keyboard. Add a track, press record, and you got it. Cut, move, stretch, copy, paste, delete, align, trim, crossfade, rename, snapshot, zoom, transpose, quantize, swing, drag, drop. Import audio or MIDI from your hard drive or the Freesound database. All with unlimited undo/redo. All in the same window. Mute, solo, fader, automate, EQ, dynamics, insert, send, pre-fader, post-fader, sync, monitor, isolate. Floating point fidelity, the most flexible mixer architecture in the industry, hundreds of plugins, and external control surfaces. Ardour's core user group, people who want to record, edit, mix and master audio and MIDI projects. When you need complete control over your tools, when the limitations of other designs get in the way, when you plan to spend hours or days working on a session, Ardour is there to make things work the way you want them to.

Renoise is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) with a refreshing twist. It lets you record, compose, edit, process and render production-quality audio using a tracker-based approach. In a tracker, the music runs from top to bottom in an easily understood grid known as a pattern. Several patterns arranged in a certain order make up a song. Step-editing in a pattern grid lends itself well to a fast and immediate workflow. On top of this, Renoise features a wide range of modern features: dozens of built-in audio processors, alongside support for all commonly used virtual instrument and effect plug-in formats. And the software can be extended too, with scripting, you can use all of your MIDI or OSC controller to control it in exactly the way you want. Whether you're an audio veteran or just starting out, Renoise is a fantastic addition to any bedroom or professional studio. Combine the best aspects of both trackers and sequencers!

Cecilia is an audio signal processing environment aimed at sound designers. Cecilia mangles sound in ways unheard of. Cecilia lets you create your own GUI using a simple syntax. Cecilia comes with many original built-in modules and presets for sound effects and synthesis. This version mainly fixes Windows 64-bit version that crashes when trying the open a MIDI device. Cecilia uses the pyo audio engine created for the Python programming language. Pyo allows a powerful integration of the audio engine to the graphical interface. Since it’s a standard python module, there is no need to use an API to communicate with the interface. In the MIDI tab, the user can choose a MIDI driver and a MIDI controller for input. The user can choose a sound file player (or audio sequencer), a sound file editor and a text editor to be used with Cecilia5. The Speaker tab offers different options related to the audio parameters of Cecilia5.