Top 10 Free Recording Software for Mac (Yosemite) and Windows PC We all love streaming music today, the convenience of our favorite audio files to listen to any time without needing to store the files ourselves has changed the way we view our media, but there are still times when having the file available offline can be beneficial. Hallmark Card Studio ® 2019 for Mac also helps you capture life's special moments with scrapbook pages, photo frames, stationery, personalized invitations, stickers and certificates. Also included are personal calendars for monthly and yearly use.
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The Rundown
- Best Overall:Adobe Premiere Pro at Amazon, 'The cross-platform, uber-popular timeline-based video editor that’s long set the standard for video editing software.'
- Runner-Up, Best Overall:Nero Platinum 2019 at Amazon, 'An essential multitasking tool that's perfect for beginners or aspiring filmmakers.'
- Best Value:Pinnacle Studio 21 Ultimate at Best Buy, “Offers a host of post effects that put this thing way out of its price class.”
- Best for Macs:Apple Final Cut Pro at Apple, 'Treads the line between a consumer product and one for professionals who need powerful editing tools.'
- Best for Windows:Movavi Video Editor 15 at Amazon, 'Built specifically with beginners in mind, offering special features that make it a breeze to create.'
- Best for YouTube:Corel VideoStudio Pro X10 at Amazon, 'With over 1,500 customizable effects, transitions, and titles, there’s something for everyone.'
- Best for Vloggers:Sony Movie Studio 13 at Amazon, 'Can directly upload to Facebook or other social media for fast sharing.'
- Best for Smartphones:Adobe Premiere Clip at iTunes, 'Perfect for creatives whose videos are bound for social media channels like YouTube and Instagram.'
- Best for Beginners:Corel VideoStudio at Amazon, 'Includes storyboard mode, which helps users draft the exact vision they have in mind.'
Our Top Picks
Best Overall: Adobe Premiere Pro
The granddaddy of video editing, Adobe Premiere Pro is the cross-platform, uber-popular timeline based video editor that’s long set the standard for video editing software. Capable of tackling nearly any type of video format, Adobe’s software is ready to produce video for any type of professional production, including film, television and the Web. Premiere Pro offers enough horsepower to handle 360-degree virtual reality video to 8K footage all in native format. It can even import and export footage from competitive software such as Final Cut Pro.
While most professional-grade software can handle multi-cam editing, Premiere Pro goes one step beyond, handling as many sources as necessary with as many angles as required. The inclusion of the bundled Lumetri Color Panel allows advanced color adjustments to be handled with ease. Additionally, Adobe’s integration with After Effects and Photoshop adds even more reason for professional grade editors to choose Premiere Pro.
Runner-Up, Best Overall: Nero Platinum 2019
Nero is a trusted name when it comes to diverse and easy-to-use multimedia suites, and Nero Platinum 2019 is no different. The latest version of its flagship product allows you to burn media, create your own, edit creations, organize your collection, stream the media you've already got, and much more. It's an essential multitasking tool that's perfect for beginners or aspiring filmmakers, with everything you need to author, burn, and store the best possible content you can make.
The latest version includes several new choices for movie design, disc menu, and vertical smartphone video designs in addition to the new Nero Start application, 1-Click Video Story, and DriveSpan app for making stored creations even simpler. Whether you need to edit that great new film you shot with friends or want to organize your files, Nero Platinum 2019 is an excellent choice.
Best Value: Pinnacle Studio 21 Ultimate
Corel’s Pinnacle Studio 21 Ultimate gives you everything you’ll get with the standard copy of Pinnacle Studio 21, plus a host of upgraded features. It does everything the lower version will do: giving you a seamless editing interface, the ability to work in full HD, as well as a great set of features for laying out a perfect story with video. But, it will also offer you a host of post effects that put this thing way out of its price class.
For starters, they’ve added in some crazy seamless morph transitions to help you blend together all the parts of your visual story. They’ve thrown in a pretty unique paintbrush filter effect that will work in tandem with already-shot video, letting you transform raw, live footage into living animations. Not only does Studio 21 Ultimate offer support for uploading 360-degree video but they’ve included a surprisingly intuitive set of trim, edit and control features for 360 video that will let you ensure your viewer gets the exact immersive experience you want.
Finally, rounding out their set of flagship additions, they give you the ability to include a motion-tracked image-blurring filter over the top of any element on the screen, meaning you can protect the identity of someone’s face, their license plate or anything else you’d prefer not to be in your final product.
Best for Macs: Apple Final Cut Pro
Apple’s Final Cut Pro X software falls into what we call the “prosumer” category because it treads the line between a product for consumers who want to up their video-editing game and one for professionals who need powerful editing tools. It lacks a traditional timeline-track interface, which is enough to scare some users off, but the software is intuitive and powerful nonetheless.
It has great organizational tools like libraries, ratings, tagging, auto analysis for faces and scenes, and automatic color coding for track-specific clips, useful keyboard short-cuts, and drag-and-drop media importing give Adobe’s Premiere Elements a run for its money. Unfortunately, you can't directly open projects from Final Cut Pro 7 or earlier, but there are many third-party plug-ins that will help you out there.
Best for Windows: Movavi Video Editor 15
The latest version of Movavi Video Editor is built specifically with beginners in mind, offering special features that make it a breeze to create. Its drag-and-drop interface is especially useful, as it allows you to trim, cut, and otherwise tinker with your clips to piece them together in a way that makes it easy to debut your very own masterpiece. It also includes a wide variety of transitions, titles, and special effects to jazz up your final version, with picture-in-picture support, callouts to annotate certain sections, stickers to place on your clips, and more.
Have older, subpar quality videos you wish you could clean up a bit? Use Magic Enhance. Need some extra footage? You can use Movavi Video Editor to record new clips from within the application as well. With all these tools in mind, Movavi offers powerful ways to package and share your footage, whether you're an old auteur or fledgling director.
Best for YouTube: Corel VideoStudio Pro X10
When it comes to video editing for YouTube, almost every app does it well, but Corel VideoStudio Pro X10 does it better. With nearly every feature and tool that you need at your disposal (including transitions, effects, titles, templates and more), Pro X10 brings with it an outstanding fleet of tools.
Support for 360-degree VR, 4K, Ultra HD and 3D media help round out the export opportunities available with Pro X10 and, while they may not all be supported by YouTube now, it’s good to know you have the capability for when they are. The user interface isn’t for beginners, but within a short amount of time, you’ll be a master at capturing, editing and sharing.
Added features such as time remapping for including slow motion, high-speed effects or freeze action are complemented by easily grouping or ungrouping clips on a timeline to edit in bulk or one at a time. With over 1,500 customizable effects, transitions and titles, there’s something for everyone. Even as the video itself is the focus, custom fitting your project with a soundtrack is handled well with custom-fit audio allowing your movies to both look and sound good.
Best for Vloggers: Sony Movie Studio 13
Sony Movie Studio 13 was made with the digital filmmaker in mind – once you’ve edited your video to your satisfaction, you can directly upload it to Facebook or other social media for fast sharing. Create video in beautiful 4K (ultra HD) XAVCS, or AVCHD to give your vlogs a high-production, professional feel.
Movie Studio 13 Platinum is touch-enabled, too, so you can create and edit movies even faster using your PC’s touchscreen. With large, easy-to-use buttons, fewer menus and the popular Simple Edit Mode, Sony Movie Studio 13 makes video editing fast and easy, so you can keep up with the Internet’s viral pace. The software also comes with ACID Music Studio 10 and Sound Forge Audio Studio 10 to take your online media up a notch.
Best for Smartphones: Adobe Premiere Clip
Premiere Clip is your iOS/Android connection to Adobe’s most powerful editing programs: Premiere Pro and Premiere Elements. It’s part of the Creative Cloud ecosystem, which means you’ll need an Adobe ID to access it, but both the app and an account are free for all.
Premiere Clip is perfect for creatives whose videos are bound for social media channels like YouTube and Instagram. You can easily import video clips from places like your phone, Lightroom, Creative Cloud, and Dropbox, and then use the app’s Freeform editor to trim or split clips, adjust exposure and highlights, add audio and more. And, of course, you can add filters, which is a given in today’s social media sphere.
Best for Beginners: Corel VideoStudio
Corel’s Windows-only VideoStudio offers an equally robust set of features comparative to Adobe or CyberLink’s product line. Right off the bat, it’s easy to see why VideoStudio is a great option: It offers support for 4K, 360-degree VR, multi-cam editing, as well as a large library of royalty-free music. Beginners will quickly learn to appreciate features such as 'checkmarks,' which can either let you know which clips you’ve already used or can apply effects to all the clips currently in your timeline at once. Additionally, voice detection helps you match subtitles to speech in your video clips.
Purchasing the full version of VideoStudio Ultimate X10 adds a whole extra set of options that beginners will quickly love, including multi-monitor support, easier title creation, and even stop-motion animation. Corel supports almost every output format imaginable, so it's ideal for sharing socially or for hosting online for the world to see. Another highlight for beginners is the inclusion of storyboard mode, which will help draft the exact vision they have in mind for a finished product without wasting hours and days on edits that may never see the light of day.
Movavi Video Editor
What to Look for in Video Editing Software
Platform - If you’re looking for a new video editing software package, you’ll want to look into whether if it is available for your platform before continuing to dig into it any further. If you have a Windows PC or a Mac, check the software manufacturer's website to see if a version is available for your device.
Experience - Are you brand new to video editing or a seasoned professional? Some video editing software packages can feel extremely intimidating with an endless number of settings and dials. If you are new to the game, consider picking out a started solution from companies like Corel and Nero.
Price - Professional video editing software packages and cause hundreds if not thousands of dollars. If you are looking to edit videos of your family events, you most likely won’t need the features in the professional suites. If you’re keeping it simple, don’t spend over $100 on your software of choice.
Check out our top list for 2019 here.
There’s a plethora of Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) available out there ranging from the massively expensive, feature packed professional studio software to the free and simple that offer basic editing with four-tracks. But just because the top DAWs cost a pretty penny doesn’t mean that some of the free alternatives on the market don’t offer some valuable tools and some of the most efficient recording and editing software out there.
Here’s a list of the top 10 DAWs we know available for free.
MU.Lab
Our list starts with MuLab from MuTools, a little known but brilliant DAW that combines simplicity and efficiency to create a fantastic free package. MuLab provides an easy interface to record, create and edit multi-track music with excellent efficiency and enough hidden features in it’s ‘right click menus’ to make most free DAWs blush.
MuLab may seem bare of features, owing to its simple, user-friendly design but what it hides under the hood should be enough to satisfy those looking for more than a recording program. MuLab supports MIDI and audio recording and features its own reverb, EQ, sample player, drum set, synth and more.
MuLab is available for Windows and Mac OSX for free from: http://www.mutools.com/mulab-downloads.html
Tracktion 4
Tracktion 4 was offered as a free music making program for Behringer customers in 2013 but earlier this year was made free for everyone. Though there are newer versions Tracktion 4 is the only one available for free, however with its fast audio editing and mix workflow Tracktion 4 should keep most satisfied.
Tracktion 4 is compatible with VST plugins and surprisingly video files, which you can edit the audio file of in the DAW. The user interface can hold a little bit of a learning curve when you first start but once you adjust you’ll see Tracktion 4 has one of the most streamlined interfaces you’ve used.
Tracktion 4 is available for Mac, Windows and Linux (older versions may not work) for free after signing up with Tracktion here: https://www.tracktion.com/account/signup/index?step=3a&type=free
Audacity
What would a top list of free DAWs be without Audacity. For the uninitiated Audacity is a free, open source DAW that takes audio recording to its basics. It has seen massive popularity despite its lack of features and basic design. With Audacity you can create multi-track recordings and edit them with effects for removing noise, stretching time, correcting pitch etc.
However Audacity has some drawbacks such as its destructive editing, so effects applied are permanent, as well as it’s software being too basic for proper music recording hence its popularity with speech recording. Despite all this Audacity remains one of the most popular and easiest to use DAWs ever created.
Audacity is available for free on Windows, Mac, Linux and other OS’s from here: http://audacityteam.org/
PreSonus Studio One 3 Prime
You may have heard of the PreSonus Studio One DAW but did you know that PreSonus had released a free version? PreSonus Studio One Prime is the stripped down, free little brother to the professional DAWs but what it loses in features isn’t lost in overall design and functionality. Studio One Prime is intended as a trial for experienced users but also as a fully working DAW for beginners.
Though some of the features it loses do hurt its usability, such as inability to import MP3 files, with Studio One Prime you get the interface and basic features of a professional DAW. To read more about it you can see our blog post: http://routenote.com/blog/presonus-release-free-daw-studio-one-3-prime/
Studio One 3 Prime is available for free on Windows and Mac from here: https://shop.presonus.com/products/studio-one-prods/Studio-One-3-Prime
Or check it out this great bundle of hardware that you can get with a fuller version of Studio One: https://amzn.to/2TPeXWL
Ardour
Ardour was designed to be an all-in-one program for recording, editing, mixing, and mastering audio and MIDI projects. Ardour aims to give you complete control and flexibility with recording allowing you to produce CDs, mix video soundtracks and more packed into a free package of multi-track recording software.
Ardour is packed with features for editing is compatible with a wide range of equipment and plugins. Ardour is highly versatile and in-depth for a free DAW but it does fall back on a complete lack of inbuilt effects and instruments as well as not being available for Windows. The free version also caps you at about 10 minutes on tracks but for a minimum price of $1 you can access all the features as well as some updates.
Ardour is available for free on Mac and Linux from here: http://ardour.org/download.html
Soundtrap
Soundtrap is a very interesting DAW and probably not the software you will use to record your album on, but it is definitely worth checking out. First of all Soundtrap is an in-browser DAW so you don’t have to install anything or even leave your web page to use it. Secondly Soundtrap has collaborative options for you to record and talk with people around the world (this is optional though and you can use Soundtrap as a generic DAW).
Soundtrap isn’t just incredibly easy to access it is also incredibly simple to use with a stripped back design that maintains the essential features. Soundtrap also features some uncomplicated built-in instruments in the shape of a keyboard and drum kit with a multitude of versions for each as well as a decent number of built-in effects. You can read more about Soundtrap in our blog post here: http://routenote.com/blog/soundtrap-the-free-in-browser-daw/
Soundtrap recommend using Google Chrome or Safari. You can use Soundtrap by making a free account on their website here: https://www.soundtrap.com/
Rosegarden
Rosegarden can be a little visually jarring but its users attest to its accessibility with an easy-to-learn interface that can be very attractive despite it’s slightly unusual design. One of Rosegarden’s strongest features is it’s music notation editing capabilities which are in-depth and provide detailed visual scoring and arranging.
Recording with Rosegarden can affect performance and you won’t be able to use plugins without some programming knowledge or a good tutorial but it is brilliant at interpreting and sequencing MIDI. Unfortunately Rosegarden is only available on Linux but there are talks of a Windows version coming.
Rosegarden is available for free on Linux from here: http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/getting/
Zynewave Podium Free
Podium Free is the freeware edition of Zynewave’s brilliant Podium DAW. Developed by one man Podium is a complete audio and MIDI recording program with multi-tracks (though only one input/output can be used at a time with the free version), VST support, bundled plugins and more.
The free version has certain performance limiting restrictions such as no multiprocessing, no 64-bit mixer engine option and more. Despite this though Podium Free still does what its made to and does it well with an intuitive design full of editing options.
Podium Free is available for free on Windows from here: http://zynewave.com/podium-free/
LMMS
LMMS may not feature audio recording capabilities but what that means for LMMS is that they’ve designed one of the best DAWs for MIDI recordings and arrangements. It features multiple instrument and effect plugins as well as supporting VST plugins.
Its multitude of easy to access synthesizers is one of the most appealing features of LMMS which ranges from its embedded ZynAddSubFx to Nintendo, Gameboy and game sound effect emulation.
LMMS is available for free on Windows, Mac and Linux from here: https://lmms.io/
Cockos REAPER
Best Studio Program For Windows 10
Reaper is a fully fleshed out, professional DAW that is quick, powerful and compatible with audio and MIDI, various plugins as well as featuring loads of studio-quality effects. So how is it free? Well REAPER is technically free with a free trial for 60 days after which you will still be able to use the software but will be prompted to pay for it regularly.
REAPER features a design familiar to anyone that has used a DAW before so its not complicated. It wouldn’t look amiss inside a studio with its multitude of sophisticated features but REAPER is great value even if you do purchase it for $60 (commercial license costs $225).
Download Visual Studio For Mac
REAPER is available for free on Windows and Mac OS X from here: http://www.reaper.fm/download.php
Visual Studio For Mac Review
Are there any free audio workstations you think we should have included? Let us know what they are in the comments below!