| Price: Free

Audio

Your PC's bundled audio player has plenty of limitations. For starters, it can't help you create your own music or turn you into a DJ, and it likely can't play a large variety of music formats. The following downloads will fill all of those gaps, and they can do more than a few other tricks, too.

Audacity

Tired of merely listening to music, and itching to create it as well? This free, open-source software is both a sound recorder and a sound editor, so you can record your music and then edit it. The editing tools are exceedingly sophisticated--in fact, they're probably more sophisticated than you need. You can add any of several dozen sound effects, use a powerful mixer, and more. The app handles MP3, .wav, AIFF, and Ogg Vorbis file formats; you can also use the software to convert files between formats.