[2022] Top 8 Streaming Audio Recorder for Free on Mac/PC

You can find many streaming platforms on the internet, but only a very few of them support you to download streaming audio directly, and the rest require you to become their paid subscriber to take further action. In this case, you'll have to find other ways to capture streaming audio, and recording streaming audio is one of those. I'm sure you're using some streaming audio recorders, but if you care much about the quality of your recordings, choosing a suitable high-powered streaming audio recorder could matter. Are you just looking for such a low-budget streaming audio recording tool? Fortunately, out of the many streaming audio recording software available on the Internet, we are happy to see that most of them are free.

To help you quickly pick up the best free streaming audio recorder, we compiled a list of the top 8 most popular free audio recording programs that can record streaming music, radios, in-game sound, audio files, and any other sound play on Mac and Windows with high quality.

More Professional Streaming Audio Recorder for Low Budget - TunesKit

Before we get started, let's look at one powerful and cost-effective streaming audio recording software. Of course, no free software is without its drawbacks. So do the free streaming audio recorders. They are not as advanced as other paid software in functionality. In case you are searching for such paid recording products at a reasonable price, we highly recommend this best sound recorder to you. The renowned program is called TunesKit Audio Capture.

It's available for both Mac and Windows platforms. It costs $19.95 but with more powerful features, including multi-track lossless recording on any kind of streaming audio services, like Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, etc., automatically fulfilling ID3 tags, editing output quality, splitting or merging recorded tracks, etc. You can download the free trial versions below to test it out by yourself. For complete tutorial, visit this user guide.

Now, let's see other 8 best streaming audio recorder for free.

Top 1. Audacity (Mac & Windows)

As a well-known open-source free streaming audio recorder, Audacity is capable of recording and editing anything you throw at it, including audio through a microphone and sound card all in a few clicks thanks to the clean interface. It also allows users to adjust pitch, bass, and treble, or normalize noise and add effects like reverb and phasing to the recordings.

In addition, it supports multi-track capturing to save a lot of time for you. And unlike most other free audio recorders which are free for a limited time or free with locked features, Audacity is a real free of charge audio recording application offered in the full free version. Overall, Audacity offers one of the most robust packages available among free recording programs.

Pros:

• Totally free and extremely easy to use;
• Support recording any sound on computer;
• Edit recorded audio's quality with many effects;
• Support multi-track recording.

Cons:

• Require plugins to accomplish optimal functionality;
• Can't export audio recordings to MP3;
• Effect editing is destructive to original audio track.

Top 2. Apowersoft Free Online Streaming Audio Recorder (Web-based)

Differing from Audacity or other free streaming audio recording software, Apowersoft Online Audio Recorder is a free online recording solution that needs no plug-in on Windows or Mac. It allows you to record any sound from the system sound card and microphone in high quality within 3 steps only. It fully supports capturing streaming music, radio stations, music in games, voice chats, etc. playing via devices like Windows Media Player, QuickTime, iTunes, Tablets, Chromebook, Android smartphones, iPhone, Windows Phone, and more. Besides, it offers additional recording functions like converting audio records to MP3, WMA, AAC, FLAC, WAV, M4A, OGG, adding ID3 tags, sharing recorded audios online, and playing recordings in real-time, etc.

Pros:

• Free and no need to install setup file on computer;
• Support any sound sources;
• Save recordings in multiple popular formats;
• Support extensional functions for recording.

Cons:

• Can't edit output audio quality;
• Multi-track recording not supported.

Top 3. Ardour (Mac & Windows)

Ardour DAW is one of the best streaming audio recorder for Mac and Windows with professional music recording features and no cost. Developed by Paul Davis, Ardour is aiming at providing a powerful recorder for studios that are on low budgets. Featuring highly versatile multi-track audio recording, Ardour can record and edit audios non-destructively or destructively. Its use of Jack, an underlying sound server, makes it compatible with a number of outside applications as well. With the release of the third edition, Ardour is supposed to import video for film scoring purposes and record and edit MIDI without a hassle. However, unlike most other free DAWs, Ardour comes with a confusing graphical user interface which is inaccessible for beginners. It's more like a professional tool developed for musicians or audio engineers.

Pros:

• Free and professional;
• Support multi-track recording;
• Edit recorded tracks non-destructively.

Cons:

• It's complex and difficult for newbie;
• No built-in effects or instruments.

Top 4. Aktiv MP3 Recorder (Windows)

If you are looking for a free streaming audio recorder windows 10 and other version that can convey CD, tape, DVD, live performance, TV, Internet radio, streaming music, video games and any other sound source into popular audio formats like MP3, WMA, OGG, VOX, AU, AIFF, then you can't miss Aktiv MP3 Recorder. As a full-featured audio recorder, the big difference between Aktiv and other free recording tools is that it comes with recording scheduler which provides you the ability to record streaming audio at certain times according to your requirements.

Pros:

• Free streaming audio recorder;
• Support most popular output formats;
• Provide schedule recording tasks.

Cons:

• Available for Windows only;
• Installer contains some extra software.

Top 5. Traverso DAW (Mac & Windows)

Traverso DAW is another cross-platform free multitrack audio recording and audio editing suite with support for CD mastering and non-linear processing. Traverso is different from other in UI as it offers a unique user interface using both the mouse and the keyboard together for precision and speed. In addition, Traverso includes non-destructive editing, and the ability to use plugins and make edits without changing the actually recorded sample. Also, it is offering full support for ALSA, Jack, and PortAudio, and lockless real-time audio processing.

Pros:

• Fullfeatured free recording app;
• Innovative keyboard and mouse shortcuts;
• Support non-destructive audio editing.

Cons:

• Take some time for users to get used to the shortcuts;
• Need plugins to edit audio non-destructively.

Top 6. Free Sound Recorder (Windows & Mac)

Free Sound Recorder is an easy-to-use free audio recorder for Windows and Mac. whether it is your computer's internal audio or streaming audio from any browser and software, it can easily record them and produce high-quality audio. It features an automatic gain control enabled function, recording without silence, and can export the audio recording to MP3, Ogg, WMA, and WAV.

Meanwhile, it includes a versatile audio editor capable of cutting, crop audio, adding sound effects, noise reduction, and also supports importing audio from video files, loading CDs, and converting YouTube audio to MP3 and WMA.

Pros:

• Totally for free on Windows;
• Support recording without silence and noise reduction;
• Comes with a functional audio editor.

Cons:

• The free version is only for Windows.

Top 7. Online Voice Recorder (Wed-based)

Online Screen Recorder is a completely free online audio recorder that can be used on your browser without installing a desktop application. It allows you to record audio no matter on the browser or desktop, and even your microphone. Then you can use its simply editing tool to cut or trim the audio and save it to MP3.

Pros:

• Free to use;
• No need for installing any launcher or software;
• Support recording microphone voice.

Cons:

• It can only export to MP3 format;
• The editing function is not powerful enough.

Top 8. Vocaroo (Web-based)

Vocaroo is the first choice if you are looking for a free and online tool that only records pure sounds on your computer. It enables you to embed to code, remove background noise and set automatically adjust volume. Plus, it offers you some options to disposal the recording, such as share it to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, What's app and email. Or you can copy the link and download it to MP3.

Pros:

• Free and easy-to-use;
• Capable of removing background noise;
• Support non-destructive audio editing.

Cons:

• Without audio editing tool;
• Can only save as MP3.

Conclusion & Suggestion

As you can see, all the above recording tools are free of charge to meet most of your recording needs with options of recording audio, adding effects, and cutting waveforms, as well as other basic recording tasks.

To conclude, if you are referring to an all-in-one application that combines easy operation and high performance, Audacity, Aktiv MP3 Recorder, and Free Sound Recorder could be the best audio recording software. But if you concern more about professionalism and quality, you are suggested to go for Ardour or Traverso DAW which is more professional-oriented. Or alternatively, Apowersoft Audio Recorder, Online Voice Recorder, and Vocaroo could be a great choice if you don't want to install any software on your computer. If you still have no idea which one to choose, simply try them out one by one and decide which works best for you.