Advice on audio editing programs

[Munkay]

Howdy,

After a crash course in Flash animation and web design, I've reached the point where I need to really look into a decent audio editing program.

At the bare minimum I need to just cut wav files to a specific lengths, convert between formats (wav, mp3, aac), and do minimal recording/mixing.

My roomate is involved in two bands, one of which has become very serious in the last 6 months or so. It would be ideal to find a good program that could allow for some decent digital recordings. Right now they have the mic's laying around, but they often drive out 45 minutes just to record at a friends house.

They have a production contract with a professional studio, so I'm not in need of a perfect audio program. My roomate would like to be able to record basic tracks in house and cut the travel times to their friend's home, and only spend time traveling to the studio.

I am willing to take the time to learn the ropes and get to understand an intermediate level audio editing program. PC preferred, on either Linux or Windows.

Are there any audiophiles lurking in the lounge with advice?

Cheers,

Munk

[Scrape]

I do some audio editing, and I have some friends that are more heavily into the art.

One of my friends, who is a DJ, highly relies on a program called Acid Pro (2.0) by Sonic Foundry.

http://www.technoyard.com/software/acid-pro/page_1.html

There is also Sony's ACID Pro 4.0.

http://www.adorama.com/SOSWAP4.html

One of the popular programs I hear of is Audio Editor Pro, but I have not fiddled with it yet.

http://www.audioeditorpro.com

Perhaps a better audiophile will come along to aid you.

[Zyr]

Munkay, I'm in a somewhat similar situation: I haven't done any audio work in > four years, but I need to get back into it.

I had beta-tested both v. 1.0 and v. 2.0 of Cakewalk Guitar Studio. While I appreciated their versatility, I found that the complexity of the interface interfered greatly with the creative process.

For simple jobs, I was highly pleased with two apps that worked under the Be Operating System (BeOS): 3DMix / 3DSound, which came with the OS, and a freeware editor called BamBam. For me, it was easier to use scalpels honed for particular purposes, rather than a Swiss Army Knife which would undoubtedly do everything, once I learned how to use it.

Recently, I've been very favorably impressed by Apple's GarageBand. I have no hands-on experience with it, but I viewed a demo by Steve Jobs, and have seen it in action on my son-in-law's PowerBook. Here's the deal I've made with myself: After I write a CD's worth of new songs I like, I'll reward myself with a Mac mini (which comes with iLife '05, including GarageBand 2) to record them.

[LavCat]

After a crash course in Flash animation and web design, I've reached the point where I need to really look into a decent audio editing program.  [right][snapback]65586[/snapback][/right]

I have Sound Forge from Sonic Foundry and Cool Edit, which Adobe bought and renamed to their audio application. Another program that sounds interesting (sorry, that was really unintended) is DC Six, but I have never used it.

I became disenchanted with Sonic Foundry when they discontinued and stopped supporting CD Architect, one of my favorite programs that is now useless.

[whyBish]

Well, I made a VB audio editing program back in uni (could do FFTs and perform transforms on them etc.). Unfortunately, it seems I have lost the source code when I upgraded machines when D2 came out ... not that you would've wanted that anyway :P

[Walkiry]

I'll throw the usual open source alternative and point you towards Audacity:

http://audacity.souceforge.net

No idea how good or bad it is, since I'm no musician (I have wooden ears) and I just do simple stuff from time to time. But hey, open source and free, you may want to check it out ^_^

[Bob]

I find audacity is good for my purposes, but my purposes is usually just recording something longer than 10 seconds and then making it louder, or somesuch similar actions in which I really just use it as a glorified version of windows' sound recorder.

You can't really patch different track together (at least in the version I've got, 1.0.0) although you can do other nifty things like turning two mono tracks into a false stereo (this is nifty to me, who also finds sticky labels that come on A4 pages nifty).

You might find it useful for initially recording the audio tracks and initially processing them though.
You also need to go get the algorithm to save as mp3 yourself.

-Bob