GoldWave

GoldWave is a small, yet powerful software designed specifically to aid people in processing their audio files, applying a long list of effects and playing them back to be sure that the end result is what you wanted it to be.

Quick setup, yet cluttered environment

The installation takes place in quick steps, yet the user interface can appear overwhelming for some people, as it consists of multiple buttons, a comprehensive menu bar and a pane in which to view the waveform of the uploaded item. As a result, beginners might have a hard time in navigating it, yet the extensive Help contents provided might come in handy.

Preview visuals and some of the built-in effects

A “Control” window is enclosed in this utility, which allows you to view real-time visuals and sound device controls. You can display sound during playback or while it is being recorded. It is important to keep in mind that you can open as many sound files as you like, yet you can edit them one at a time.
The effect menu offers quick access to commands like censor (replace the selection with silence, a tone, noise, the clipboard), Doppler (dynamically change pitch), dynamics (distort, compress or limit output levels), echo, compressor/expander, filter (e.g. auto offset removal, equalizer, noise or silence reduction, smoother), and flanger.

Some other options you can use to enhance audio tracks

In addition to that, you can use interpolate (to smooth out waveforms between start and finish markers), invert, mechanize, reverb, time warp, voice over, resample, and others.
In the Tool menu, you can select Cue Points to mark and describe specific positions within audio tracks, Effect Chain Editor (to create and edit chain effects), Expression Evaluator, File Merger (for audio files only), or Speech Converter (converts text to speech, and spoken audio to text).

A last assessment

This utility uses a low amount of system memory, and it did not crash or jam during our tests. The Help file is well-drawn, the response time is good, yet the interface could benefit from a lift up.
All in all, GoldWave is a great audio editor, bundled with both basic and advanced audio effects and it is definitely worth your time.