Here are some super helpful programs to help you with many of your media related projects.

VLC

No free software geek should be without this first program. VLC is a free media player that is so much more. It converts audio and video formats. It doesn’t slice and dice but it is an invaluable tool. Be sure to make VLC your default media player. It is so much fast than say Windows Media Player.

Audacity

Audacity is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. Audacity is free, open source software.

Although a very simplified Audacity is in a class of audio software called a DAW, or digital audio works station. The must notable of these being “ProTools” which has been used by professional studio engineers for over two decades. One of it’s many limitations is, I think you can only record two tracks at a time. I would not use Audacity to create my next hit but I guess one could.

Reaper

Like the for mentioned “ProTools” Reaper is a DAW. Unlike Audacity, and like ProTools, Reaper is very powerful. There are few big artist and major studios using Reaper because ProTools was there first but many small to medium studios are using it and it’s getting bigger all the time. I think I’ve heard that Daft Punk uses it. Get Lucky was #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, for a time in 2013 and 2014.

Reaper is not free but it is really cheap for this kind of program. You can download and try it for free for 60 days and it is only $60 for one individual license. This compared to ProTools $799 per year.

KdenLive

KdenLive is a intuitive and very powerful video editor. It is buy far the easiest editor I’ve used. Your not going to create a major motion picture with it, but it is the lightest and fastest way to get simple projects done. No other free program is close to this good.