I make sample libraries, among other things, which involves a lot of zipping around large files, zooming/highlighting, making edits on L/R channels of stereo files (cutting/pasting, mixes, fades, normalization), then splitting them and outputting as individual files (sometimes many thousands). What I didn't test is software intended for mixing/mastering or audio repair. There are understandably strong preferences about fav audio editors, and the tests I did were only focused on a few key features/usability things, so these are not a final verdict on any of the apps, just my takeaways. I don't know if this list will be useful to anyone but I figure it's better to have it posted here than buried in the comments on another thread. See my addendum after this post.Ī couple days ago I asked the hive for "waveform editor" recs and boy did I get some. I've tried everything, and I always come back to SS.**UPDATE** I've used TwistedWave for a few weeks and the results are interesting (mostly good, some bad). If you're willing to pay for it, SoundStudio cannot be beat for audiobooks. But between the two for this purpose, I'd stick with Audacity. As Kayray says, it has an ugly, clunky interface, plus it is very crash-prone. I have it installed, but don't use it except as a trouble-shooting tool for others. I love GB for what it can do, which is like no other software, but I wouldn't rely on it as my only DAW. I've made a mess of things with recordings done in SS3 and then imported into GB for FX. If you only plan to do short stories it might be OK, but again the editing will be a hassle. But I wouldn't use it to record and edit an audiobook chapter. Make no mistake - I love GB and use it whenever I want to use effects or need a multi-track editor. Garageband will work, but it is very cumbersome to do the editing for long recordings. So here's my question to other Mac people: Are there any significant advantages to GB that would make it worth my time learning it rather then continuing to record with Audacity? If so, what?Īs a long-time Mac user and audio recorder, I would suggest this: If you want to stick with free software, go with Audacity for recording audiobooks, unless you're willing to part with $79 for SoundStudio. But I'm already familiar with Audacity, and the switch to Mac doesn't change that program much. I, of course, have Garage Band it's included. Zaklog the Great wrote:I'm a relatively new Mac user. You can download a demo that's fully functional for 30 days at. Then export that cleaned file to Twisted Wave and settle in to do whatever editing is needed. Use "noise removal" in Audacity, to clean out any background noise (computer hum, for example).ģ. (Doesn't matter which, but it saves a step if you start with Audacity.)Ģ. Record initially in Twisted Wave or Audacity. I've tried the more expensive programs, including SoundSoap, which is supposedly a dedicated noise remover, and I've found that nothing - nothing - compares with the ease and success of what Audacity does for noise removal. The "noise gate" in Garageband is a crude tool. Twisted Wave has no built-in noise-cleaning. One final comment, however: Audacity - the 1.3.7 Beta version - has absolutely (well, at least in my experience) the best noise-cleaning function to be found. The whole interface also feels (to me) fresher and more "professional," but that may just be me. For example, if you realize you've made a distracting mouth noise - a saliva click - right in the middle of a word, you can usually find it and surgically remove it in a flash with Twisted Wave, without leaving any audible artifact behind. This allows for easy editing at a high degree of precision. (Actually, I found it often annoyingly jumps in the wrong direction.) Twisted Wave lets you set this as an automatic preference, which can be quickly turned off if you had some reason to really want to do without it. Audacity allows you to press "Z" each time you select something to make the cursor jump to the nearest zero crossing. When you're selecting bits to cut or paste, you want the ends of the selection to be precisely at a point where the wave crosses the "zero" line otherwise you will often get a "click." You can try to do that visually in Garageband, but you have to be zoomed way in to have any hope of getting it right. OK, I know that may sound like an obscure, geeky technical point, but let me explain. And it has a setting to automatically seek "zero-crossings" when editing, whereas Audacity requires you to tell it each time you want to find a zero-crossing. Scrolling back and forth, zooming in and out. (Great for recording music and assembling multiple tracks in a song however, for a solo voice recording, there's no need for multiple tracks.)Īudacity is easier to edit, but easier still is Twisted Wave. I began with Garageband, but quickly found it too clumsy for editing a voice file.
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