Audacity is a free, open source software for recording and editing sound.

Recording
Audacity can record live audio through a microphone or mixer, or digitize recordings from cassette tapes, vinyl records, or minidiscs. With some sound cards, it can also capture streaming audio.

Some Features:

• Record from microphone, line input, or other sources.
• Dub over existing tracks to create multi-track recordings.
• Import sound files, edit them, and combine them with other files or new recordings. Export your recordings in several common file formats.
• Import and export WAV, AIFF, AU, and Ogg Vorbis files.
• Import MPEG audio (including MP2 and MP3 files) with libmad.
• Export MP3s with the optional LAME encoder library.
• Create WAV or AIFF files suitable for burning to CD.
• Easy editing with Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete.
• Use unlimited Undo (and Redo) to go back any number of steps.
• Very fast editing of large files.
• Edit and mix an unlimited number of tracks.
• Change the pitch without altering the tempo, or vice-versa.
• Remove static, hiss, hum, or other constant background noises.

For a full list of the features of Audacity, go to the website http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/features

The video on the next page demonstrates how to download and install Audacity, a paper-based version of this is also available.