Brian Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 In the next few weeks I'm going to reformat my PC and start again. I currently have dozens of audio editing programs along with loads of utility programs. What I'd like, if it exists, is one piece of audio editing software to do the lot. All I need it to do is basic audio editing for theatre and similar applications. The criteria...PC Windows basedNative handling of MP3s both read and writeBuilt in effectsCD rippingBasic multitrack (say 4 stereo tracks) playbackStereo recordingSimple clean uncluttered screenCapable of working on mid-range laptopEasy to use and remember what does what when you revisit the software after 3 months having not used it. ...within reason cost is not a consideration. I'd rather pay a bit more for one package to do the lot than spend my life switching packages. I'm not that interested in anything that needs loads of plugins. What would people recommend based on what they use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 When you say "native handling of MP3" do you just mean the ability to read and write them...or do you want to be able to process them without conversion to an uncompressed format? I ask this because I don't know any worthwhile software that actually works in MP3....but, of course, any programme that converts for working has the problem of concatenation of compression artefacts. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallMike Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 I think Adobe Audition is your solution! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Jules Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 My preferred editing software is Sound Forge. I've been using it since the mid 90's and it's never once let me down. It won't multi-track though - it's one major draw back - for that you need to run either Acid, or Vegas which also has a pretty decent crack at video. Both work seamlessly with Sound Forge. It's a truly professional product - will read anything, and comes with a decent selection of effects/plugs which should take care of most requirements. There are of course a number of decent alternatives, and one of the most popular (which will multi-track) is Adobe Audition which I personally find a bit clunky, but comes very highly recommended and is becoming an industry standard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted February 12, 2009 Author Share Posted February 12, 2009 When you say "native handling of MP3" do you just mean the ability to read and write them...or do you want to be able to process them without conversion to an uncompressed format?The latter. I'd normally want to work 16bit/48k so the ability to easily read and save MP3s with the software looking after the conversion is what I'm after. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamessmith2k Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 When you say "native handling of MP3" do you just mean the ability to read and write them...or do you want to be able to process them without conversion to an uncompressed format?The latter. I'd normally want to work 16bit/48k so the ability to easily read and save MP3s with the software looking after the conversion is what I'm after. A great piece of software I use is Audacity and best off all its free. Easy to use and great functionality and lots of free add ons available too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 Er, please correct me if I'm wrong but I think that Audacity is like Audition in that it will convert an MP3 file to an uncompressed format (effectively WAVE) for processing and then re-compress (with added artefacts each time) if you save to MP3 again. I seriously do not know any "professional" software that can actually process MP3 in the native compressed format. I know of a few very basic pieces of software that can do things like adjust levels and trim ins and outs on MP3 but they fail some of the other ticks on the shopping list. Except for the MP3 part which we've discussed, I'd also recommend Audition. In fact I'd get specific and say that, if you can find an old but legit copy of Audition 1.5 that would be perfect for you. It does everything on your list (including opening and saving MP3....it just converts internally to work on them) but has a much simpler interface to use than the newer versions. I don't recommend V2.0 for reasons of stability. The newest version (now 3.1) works fine in my experience but wants a fairly high spec PC to perform it's best...and added functionality means it's not so intuitive to use. No, I'm not offering to sell you my copy...I keep it to run on my old laptop which isn't up to the modern Auditions! Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sound Juice Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 Another thumbs up for Audition, runs great on my laptop. 1.5 (as mentioned) has far less fiddly buttons and menus, although does lack in keyboard shortcuts to get to a few vital things, but hay it's adobe... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkPAman Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 1.5 ...... does lack in keyboard shortcuts to get to a few vital things,.... Though IIRC you can create and edit shortcuts for just about any function. +1 for Audition from me too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sound Juice Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 1.5 ...... does lack in keyboard shortcuts to get to a few vital things,.... Though IIRC you can create and edit shortcuts for just about any function. Not heard about this, anywhere useful I can look? EDIT: options > Keyboard ShortcutsI'm clearly blind at times... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mervaka Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 Er, please correct me if I'm wrong but I think that Audacity is like Audition in that it will convert an MP3 file to an uncompressed format (effectively WAVE) for processing and then re-compress (with added artefacts each time) if you save to MP3 again. I seriously do not know any "professional" software that can actually process MP3 in the native compressed format. I know of a few very basic pieces of software that can do things like adjust levels and trim ins and outs on MP3 but they fail some of the other ticks on the shopping list. Except for the MP3 part which we've discussed, I'd also recommend Audition. In fact I'd get specific and say that, if you can find an old but legit copy of Audition 1.5 that would be perfect for you. It does everything on your list (including opening and saving MP3....it just converts internally to work on them) but has a much simpler interface to use than the newer versions. I don't recommend V2.0 for reasons of stability. The newest version (now 3.1) works fine in my experience but wants a fairly high spec PC to perform it's best...and added functionality means it's not so intuitive to use. No, I'm not offering to sell you my copy...I keep it to run on my old laptop which isn't up to the modern Auditions! Bob but wouldn't that be akin to expecting photoshop to be up to drawing vector graphics? at the end of the day, it would rather rasterize the image. audition is the same in that it's a wave editor. any sort of "mp3" editor would probably be bolted on, and not part of its core functionality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 I'm going against the grain and going to suggest GoldWave. It doesn't natively edit MP3s, but converts to and from, and doesn't do multi track playback. It ticks all other items you list. The CD ripper optionally uses the freedb service to label your track titles, and in addition to the inbuilt effects, GoldWave can use any DirectX effects you have or care to download many of which are free. It also has some nice keyboard shortcuts based on the arrow keys which can make editing very fast and they're easy enough to almost remember; it takes me just a few seconds experimenting to get the right shift key combinations refreshed in the brain after several months non-use. GoldWave is non-free but not expensive, and extraordinary value. Its been around for years and it remains under continuous development. I must have been using it for close on a decade. Highly recommended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_cooper Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 The only 'native' mp3 editors I've come across such as Fission, were limited to very simple edits, like cutting pasting, and maybe volume changes. I've never seen one that could do any effects. I personally always seem to end up back at Audacity, despite having several others available, such as Audition, Sound Forge, and the likes of Pro Tools and Logic. I'm using it more and more these days to create multi-track Wav files for use in Q-Lab. Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gareth Owen Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 Audition if you want to pay, Audacity if you don't. I have Audition 3.0 but it dosen't add much that your likley to want. We use 1.5 on our show computers and it covers all the bases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted February 13, 2009 Share Posted February 13, 2009 but wouldn't that be akin to expecting photoshop to be up to drawing vector graphics? at the end of the day, it would rather rasterize the image. audition is the same in that it's a wave editor. any sort of "mp3" editor would probably be bolted on, and not part of its core functionality. Yup...though perhaps a better analogy is expecting Avid or Premier to edit MPEG-2 files off a DVD. It can be done...sort of...but the compressions format with a longish "group of pictures" and lots of predictive frames makes it awkward and not the best quality. On the original topic, I don't know if this means anything but it might be worth noting that Audition is the wave editor of choice for the BBC and they've licensed thousands of "seats" for journalists and producers to use at their local radio stations. That must say something about the ease of use side of it! Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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