Audacity...awesomeness.

When I first started going to college I set out to be a Radio Personality, that dream has since changed. I bring up the career of Radio broadcasting because audacity has opened my eyes to that career once again. What Audacity is, is awesome. This program, which is a free download online, allows you to record yourself, make extremely easy edits and to add music without any difficulty while using it. We were introduced to this program in my Comm 350 class this week, and I am very excited to use it. I downloaded it on my personal computer today, from this website:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
It was super easy and pretty self explanatory. I started using it right away to work on the assignments for class. I think that this program is super helpful and can be super useful when it comes to putting your voice out there and having your ideas heard.

Like I said before, this program also allows you to add sound effects or music to compliment your recording. In terms of using music, I have been taught that you should stick to using free music. This is due to copyright issues and you don't want to use someone elses music if you don't have permission. One of my previous instructors put entire fear in me when it came to using others music for my own projects. There are way to many rules when it comes to using other peoples stuff, so stick to the free cites. We were shown a couple of great websites in class (I'll link to them below) but there are many other ones out there to be discovered and used. Another quick thing about music that I have gathered from my classes is, if you want to use copywritten music just don't use more than 30 seconds of it. So just sample it or make it quick, try to refrain from using the entire song.

Free Music Links:
http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/index.html
http://www.freemusicbeds.com/

I found these cites to be really useful, and they literally have hundreds of different sound effects that you can use and easily upload to Audacity.
In my previous post's I have mentioned other programs that we have used in my Comm 350 class, photoshop being one of them. Out of the programs I have used so far I find that Audacity is the easiest to use so far. I would explain it, but it really is self explanitory when you begin using it. It's a simple press to record and you can easily edit your recordings by simpling selecting an area, adding to it or deleting it, it all depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
Music is easily added and edited by using the different tools in the top left corner.

With that being said, I am throughouly amused and impressed with Audacity. It is easy to use and has inspired me to look more into podcasts and start listening to them. I have never really listened to them, but after seeing how easily they can be created, I am sure that people have put a lot of good and interesting information out there.