I am new to audio editing software and am actually looking for some software to help my dance teacher. I took a read through http://audacityteam.org/about/features but did not find the features I need - - more likely I did not understand totally what I am reading.
With audacity 2.0.5 can I:
Slow down or speed up a song?
Trim a song at the beginning and/or end?
“cut out” sections of a song and “glue” pieces together
Record the audio on my computer? (eg for instance if I want to play a DVD and record a particular sound)
Which formats can I convert between (eg can I convert between wav and mp3, etc)?
Yes, but maybe not the way you want. Audacity doesn’t do anything in real time. You can’t advance a slider and have the song speed up while you’re listening to it. You can select the song while it’s stopped and Effect > Change Speed or either of the other Change tools.
But you have to stop between speed changes. It’s not continuous.
The other questions are basic editing except the last one. Audacity is pretty good with opening up many different sound formats but it can open up and save a lot more by installing the FFMpeg additional software. Audacity will open up and play an MP3, but won’t make a new one without also installing the Lame software.
On some Windows computers there is either a “Stereo Mix” or “What U Hear” option that you can use.
If your computer does not have either of those options, then (Windows Vista and later) you can use “WASAPI”.
See here in the manual for details: Audacity Manual
The other items look straightforward. See the “Getting Started” section of the manual as a good place to start: Audacity Manual
I would recommend using the latest version of Audacity from the official download page: Audacity ® | Downloads
Audacity is updated quite frequently, and you can be notified by e-mail of updates by registering at the bottom of the Audacity home page: http://audacityteam.org/