Advertisement Over the past decade, the world has shifted away from music downloads to music streams. The switch-over makes a lot of sense. I love my Spotify and Pandora and wouldn’t have it any other way. But there are good reasons to keep downloading music, chief of all being that you can’t own the music that you stream. Bandwidth concerns are another, which is why a lot of users still download YouTube videos as MP3s.

One bonus of downloaded music is that you can edit the files, such as cutting out extraneous bits (annoying intros or outros) or mixing a bunch of tracks into a personal mega-mix. If you’re interested in that, here are the best free tools for the job. Mp3DirectCut (Windows) Supported Formats: AAC, MP3. Mp3DirectCut is a nifty little audio editor that’s lightweight and barebones: you can’t do much with it, but it’s very good at what it can do. Basic operations include cutting, copying, pasting, and recording audio.

What sets this app apart from most is the fact that it directly manipulates audio files without having to decompress them first. Not only does this result in a faster workflow, but it also preserves the original audio quality because it doesn’t need to be re-compressed. Other notable features include ID3 tag editing, pause detection, batch file processing, auto-division of tracks by time value, and automatic filename and tag creation when splitting tracks. Download — (Free) 2. Mp3Splt (Windows, Mac, Linux).

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Supported Formats: FLAC, MP3, OGG. Pmd editor for mac. First things first, make sure you download Mp3Splt-GTK rather than simply Mp3Splt (which is a command line tool that’s more bother to learn than simply using the GTK version’s graphical interface). Like mp3DirectCut, Mp3Splt can work on an audio file without having to decompress it first, resulting in a fast workflow and no impact to audio quality. This app is much simple though: you just pick a start and end time, then export that selection as a separate audio file.

If you have an entire album as a single audio file, Mp3Splt can auto-split using CUE files that mark where each track begins and ends. Auto-split using pause detection is available as well. Exported files can have their ID3 tags edited. The Merger lets you take multiple audio files, rearrange them in whatever order you want, then export it as a single combined audio file. The Cutter lets you take a single audio file, select a start and end time, then export that selection as a separate audio file. You can download MP3 Toolkit for free, which will be marked as Unregistered.

There’s no indication of whether this version limits features or has a time limit. Download — (Free, $30) 4. Audacity (Windows, Mac, Linux) Supported Formats: Audacity is the go-to app if you’re looking for full control over the editing process. With it, you can split any bit of audio into as many pieces as you want, or you can merge as many audio files as you want in whatever order. What’s nice is that you’ll also have access to all of Audacity’s other features, including audio filters and effects that may come in handy for music files that are problematic in some way. Check out these Want to move beyond simple cut-and-crop jobs? Knowing just a few Audacity tips can make your audio-editing life a whole lot easier.