Audition used to be Cool Edit Pro. I really loved the UI of that program back in the day. I don't know what it's like these days, but back then (either the late 90s or the early 2000s, I can't quite remember) it was great as a wave file editor and a multi-track mixer.

Ninja'd - was about to write the same but hit refresh beforehand. Syntrillium's Cool Edit Pro did have a multi-track recording and arrangement view, it was no longer a purely sample-based editor (Cool Edit 2000 and earlier did not have this feature, IIRC).

I also don't know how it has changed when it got taken over.

Actually pretty similar. Incremental changes build up over time but getting comfortable would take minutes, not hours.

Audacity then. It was open source until they got sold.

Audacity is audio Notepad. That it runs everywhere is a plus; on the other hand, it's super clunky, it doesn't act like any other DAW, and its editing behaviors are well behind the curve.

I use Logic Pro for most things and have a dedicated, old Mac to run it, but Reaper is quite good and like $60 if one's on Windows or Linux (and isn't nearly as inscrutable as Ardour). Ableton Live is another stand-by and it runs on a Mac.

But in 2022 it's hard to recommend Audacity for much of anything, even aside from their drama problems.

It's still open source.