Best Mac Audio Editors for Professionals & Beginners

Whether you want to become a musician, work as an audio professional, host awesome DJ parties or love tinkering with music as a hobby, you need a feature-rich, user-friendly audio editor. For Mac users, the options are aplenty. However, they all come in different forms and flavors. You must consider several factors like price, availability of features, specific capabilities, performance, plugin ecosystem, and others before choosing an audio editing software. If you don't want to go through all the hassle of researching audio editing software for Mac, this guide will help you make a quick decision.

Part 1: Top 10 Mac Audio Editors for Beginners and Professionals

1. GarageBand

Any discussion on audio editors for Mac must begin with GarageBand, the native audio editor for the Apple ecosystem. It's already available on your Mac and generally fulfills the audio-editing needs of most beginners and hobbyists. It has all the basic audio editing features and offers a remarkably intuitive interface. The best part? It's free and syncs your projects to iCloud.

Suitable For: Beginners & Hobbyists

Price: Free

Pros

Free
Easy to use
Supports music creation without instruments

Cons

High emphasis on music only
Lacks advanced features

2. Audacity

Audacity is a free, open-source, and absolute beast of an audio editor. It offers an extraordinary variety of powerful features, making it the default audio editor for audio enthusiasts. Sure, it's not the most advanced tool, but it is highly intuitive and easy to use, even for beginners. Most importantly, its impressive plugin ecosystem lets users upgrade it with additional functionalities.

Suitable For: Beginners & Hobbyists

Price: Free

Pros

Vast variety of file formats supported
Highly intuitive and easy to use
Lightweight and powerful
Plenty of tools to help beginners get familiar with audio editing
Multi-track editor

Cons

Its complicated UI may feel overwhelming to some users
Lacks advanced features

3. Adobe Audition

With Adobe Audition, we've firmly entered into the domain of premium tools for professionals. Adobe Audition offers a rich variety of advanced features that have made it a favorite among audio engineers, audio professionals, and podcasters. Its many features, like ducking music, remix, dereverb and denoise tools, strip silence, 10,000+ sound effects, and so on, are every audio professional's delight.

Suitable For: Experts & Podcasters

Price: $22.99/month

Pros

Customize UI with frequently used options
One of the most comprehensive audio-editing tools
Up to 128 Audio tracks
Extensive advanced tools
Superb audio cleanup results

Cons

Expensive subscription model
No dedicated music features
Complicated

4. Logic Pro X

Logic Pro X is Apple's offer to audio professionals and music producers. Unlike GarageBand, Logic Pro X is designed for professionals and offers an impressive features suite. To complement its large database of sounds, Logic Pro X has a powerful library of instruments and effects. Its advanced editing environment is quite complicated and requires some familiarization, even for expert audio editors.

Suitable For: Musicians and composers & Producers

Price: $199.99

Pros

Plenty of advanced features
Music-specific features
Massive library of sounds, effects, and instruments
Professional-quality output

Cons

Expensive

5. WavePad Audio Editor

WavePad Audio Editor is a powerful tool for audio professionals who do not need the most advanced audio editing tools. The full-featured audio editor offers several advanced features without burning a hole in users' pockets. It performs all the basic editing functions and many advanced tasks like noise reduction, echo, amplification, audio bookmarking, text-to-speech, etc.

Suitable For: Beginners & Home studios

Price: Freeware, $34.99 for the full version

Pros

Free to use for non-commercial purposes
Batch processes 1,000s of files
Supports all major audio formats
Occupies the sweet spot between basic and most prolific audio editors

Cons

A clunky multi-window UI
Can edit only one track at a time

6. Ocenaudio

Ocenaudio is a lightweight, free audio editor for Mac. You will find all the basic audio editing tools on Ocenaudio, complemented by bulk-editing capabilities. Although Ocenaudio does not offer multi-track support, it handles large projects well, which is quite rare. Additionally, Ocenaudio makes it really easy for beginners to get the hang of audio editing with its modern, intuitive UI. Support VST instruments, plenty of effects, and a fully-featured spectrogram make it a great choice for budget-conscious users.

Suitable For: Beginners & Home studios

Price: Free

Pros

Free to use for non-commercial purposes
Batch processes 1,000s of files
Supports all major audio formats
Occupies the sweet spot between basic and most prolific audio editors

Cons

A clunky multi-window UI
Can edit only one track at a time

7. PreSonus Studio One

PreSonus Studio One is one of the best audio mixers for beginners and professionals alike. It's one of the few free tools to offer advanced audio editing features. With PreSonus, users can do everything-record, edit, compose, and more. PreSonus is designed for high productivity with an extensive library of built-in instruments, effects, and nifty features.

Suitable For: Beginners & Music producers

Price: Freeware

Pros

Intuitive
Powerful MIDI/audio workflow
Drag and drop functionality
End-to-end audio editing - from recording to enhancing

Cons

Premium version lacks advanced features
No notation editor

8. Avid Pro Tools

Avid Pro Tools is an industry standard for professional and aspiring music artists, composers, and producers. Avid Pro Tools is a full-fledged DAW and is built for productivity. Producers use Avid Pro Tools to assemble entire albums - record, correct mistakes, mix albums, and more. Avid Pro Tools works seamlessly with studio equipment, and its excellent plugin ecosystem gives users all the additional functionalities they need.

Suitable For: Studios & Artists & Sound engineers

Price: $29.99/month

Pros

Professional toolkit
Top-notch music production experience
High-quality sound production
Robust editing tools

Cons

Highly resource-intensive, especially on older Macs
Relatively expensive

9. Reaper

Reaper is a budget-friendly professional audio editor for Mac. It is lightweight but incredibly powerful. It supports all bit rates and sample rates, and thousands of plugins for easy features upgrade. Reaper boasts of a variety of advanced features that are usually found in more expensive tools. However, its greatest strength is the frequent updates and upgrades they offer.

Suitable For: Intermediate and professional users

Price: $60

Pros

Frequent feature updates and improvements
One-time fee
Great plugin ecosystem
Outstanding advanced features
Highly customizable

Cons

Complicated UI

10. Fission

Fission is a lightweight audio editor with efficiency and productivity at its core. Fission offers basic editing tools and a robust bulk-editing experience, unlike full-fledged audio editors. When you need to churn out a lot of audio content, Fission is the best choice for Mac users. Fission can create and edit audio files losslessly. It's fast and easy to use.

Suitable For: Beginners & Enthusiasts

Price: $35

Pros

Beginner-friendly
Lossless editing
Fast and efficient, even on older Macs
Supports a wide variety of file formats
Great for bulk editing

Cons

Lacks advanced features

Part 2: Best Audio Editing Software Comparison Chart

Audio Editor	Price	Pros	Cons	Suitable For	Best For
GarageBand	Free	Free, easy to use, great for basic music creation without instruments	High emphasis on music only, lacks advanced features	Beginners, hobbyists	Basic music production, recording
Audacity	Free	Highly intuitive, supports many formats, multi-track editor	Clunky UI, lacks advanced features	Beginners, hobbyists	Basic audio editing, multi-track editing
Adobe Audition	$22.99/month (Subscription)	Comprehensive toolset, excellent audio cleanup, 128 audio tracks	Expensive, no music-specific features, complicated UI	Experts, Podcasters	Audio restoration, editing, podcasting
Logic Pro X	$199.99 (One-time purchase)	Extensive sound library, professional features, powerful instruments, and effects	Expensive, steep learning curve	Musicians, composers, producers	Professional music production and editing
WavePad Audio Editor	Freemium ($34.99 for full version)	Supports multiple formats, batch processing, easy to use	Clunky multi-window UI, can edit only one track at a time	Beginners, home studios	Basic editing, noise reduction, audio processing
Ocenaudio	Free,	Easy to use, VST support, bulk editing, modern UI	Lacks multi-track support, less advanced than DAWs	Beginners, home studios	Simple audio editing and effects
PreSonus Studio One	Freemium ($19.99)	Intuitive interface, great for MIDI/audio, drag-and-drop functionality	Lacks advanced features in premium version, no notation editor	Beginners, music producers	Recording, editing, composition
Avid Pro Tools	$29.99/month (Subscription)	Industry-standard, robust editing tools, excellent sound quality	Expensive, resource-intensive, steep learning curve	Studios, artists, sound engineers	Professional audio production and mixing
Reaper	$60 (One-time purchase)	Budget-friendly, highly customizable, great plugin ecosystem	Steep learning curve, complicated UI	Intermediate/professional users	Advanced audio editing, customization
Fission	$35 (One-time purchase)	Lossless editing, fast, beginner-friendly, supports multiple file formats	Lacks advanced features, simple interface	Beginners, enthusiasts	Bulk audio editing, simple tasks

Bonus: Best Converter and Lightweight Audio Editor for Mac

With its drag-and-drop interface and intuitive features, HitPaw Univd for Mac (HitPaw Video Converter for Mac) provides a quick, seamless, and efficient audio editing experience. It stands out as a comprehensive media editing tool, giving users complete control over the audio editing process on your Mac devices.

FAQs about Mac Audio Editors

Q1. How do I remove background noise in audio on a Mac?

A1. All major audio editing tools for Mac offer background noise removal tools. On GarageBand, you have Noise Gate under Smart Controls, while you can find Noise Reduction under Effect in Audacity.

Q2. Can I automate audio edits like volume changes in a Mac editor?

A2. Yes, prominent audio editing tools let users automate audio edits. With GarageBand, the Envelope Tool under Effect does the trick, for instance.

Q3. Can I use a Mac audio editor to add sound effects to my recordings?

A3. Yes, you can. You may not find a great many features to add sound effects to recordings on lower-end tools. You research your audio editing tool to ensure it does what it advertises.

Conclusion

Choosing the best audio editing software for Mac should be based on your specific needs, whether you're a beginner, a hobbyist, or a professional audio engineer. You can select the right software that matches your requirements and expertise by considering factors such as ease of use, features, pricing, and compatibility. HitPaw Univd stands out with its intuitive interface and quick, seamless editing features for those seeking a user-friendly and efficient tool. Try it today.

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