Good Audio Editors for the Mac?

[bigtyke66]

I already use Amadeus, Audacity, and Sound Studio for various "simple" tasks (equalizing, pitch adjustment, volume adjustment etc), but I was wondering if there are higher-end programs that could do better (eg. for noise reduction). I have demoed the Hyper-Engine modules and they sound pretty good. But before I spring out some serious cash, I was wondering what others thought. I understand that Adobe Audition probably won't make it the Mac, so is there anything else? Thanks.

[Karst]

http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/

Don't have it myself but a guy here in work has it and says it is great. Now he does mostly sound recording and mastering so I'm not sure what you're after in that sense.

Other programs that people in the profession use are Peak, which requires a lot of programming knowledge: http://www.bias-inc.com/products/peakMR/

There is always Logic, which also has a hefty pricetag (see the Apple site).

[willndmb]

i have garage band and can't even begin to make songs with it

[bigtyke66]

Originally Posted by willndmb

i have garage band and can't even begin to make songs with it

Garageband is not what I'm looking for. It is not designed for noise reduction or any of the more complex sound editing tasks. Take a look at HyperEngine (http://www.arboretum.com), and you will see the sort of program I'm talking about.

[ffooky]

I use a combo of the same three apps as you. Just in case you weren't already aware, Sound Studio is the only one that'll correct speeds without messing up anything else.

ummm, i may be way off base here and please excuse me if i am. but isn't ProTools supposed to be an excellent audio application on Macs?

[bigtyke66]

Originally Posted by h_vargas

ummm, i may be way off base here and please excuse me if i am. but isn't ProTools supposed to be an excellent audio application on Macs?

No, I think you are right on with this. ProTools is a real top drawer app, but is on the pricey side--I think it's around $1k.

I have a large collection of 60s and 70s AUD recordings and some of them benefit from careful noise reduction and EQ (for personal comsumption only, I should add--I prefer to trade the originals so that people can do with them what they want). The NR algorithms on Amadeus for example, aren't as sophisticated as some of the higher end ones, and can't deal with the noise as well as say RayGun Pro from Arboretum.

Another set of apps I am looking into are the ones from Bias (http://www.bias-inc.com). If anybody has used the Bias apps (eg. SoundSoap, SoundSoap Pro, Peak, Peak LE) I'd be interested to hear what they have to say about them. These are still expensive but not quite in the ProTools category.

Thanks for the comments.

[bigtyke66]

Originally Posted by ffooky

I use a combo of the same three apps as you. Just in case you weren't already aware, Sound Studio is the only one that'll correct speeds without messing up anything else.

Yes, I've found that too. My only complaint about SoundStudio is that it will sometimes add a few milliseconds of silence at the beginning of a file when you use some of the EQ filters. Apart from that, it's not a bad basic app.

[ffooky]

I use Audacity for spectral/frequency analysis,manual sample manipulation and cutting on sector boundaries, Sound Studio for speed adjustment and rough splitting and Amadeus to sniff out errors & clicks with the Sound Repair facility but I usually edit then edit them manually with Audacity.
I have Peak and Sound Soap but I've only recently got a machine that'll run them so I'll install tomorrow and report back how it compares.

[Five]

Originally Posted by ffooky

I use Audacity for spectral/frequency analysis,manual sample manipulation and cutting on sector boundaries, Sound Studio for speed adjustment and rough splitting and Amadeus to sniff out errors & clicks with the Sound Repair facility but I usually edit then edit them manually with Audacity.
I have Peak and Sound Soap but I've only recently got a machine that'll run them so I'll install tomorrow and report back how it compares.

hey ffooky can you tell us how to cut on sector boundaries using Audacity?

[ffooky]

I stumbled on it by accident because I'd always expected the timescale to change to sectors but it's the cursor reading at the very bottom. It's easiest to zoom in to sample level as then each sample is 4 bytes.

[Karst]

Peak is an interesting program but it has quite a steep learning curve - so a friend tells me who uses it regualry. I also caused a number of errors on his Mac when he started to create his own filters, etc. for it. But I believe the latest version is quite stable. Seems like a combination of Soundstudio, Audacity & Amadeus us the way to go until Adobe decides to do an Mac version of Auditio. Sign the petition here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/djtobes/petition.html

[Five]

thanks ffooky I've been wondering if Audacity could do this for a long time!