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Audacity. Professional work may require Pro-Tools or something, but for anyone working outside of an industry situation Audacity will take care of whatever you need.
Be sure to look into the plug-ins pkgs, and specifically loading the Lame encoder for Mp3s.
For simple editing tasks, Audacity works brilliantly right from the start.
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Alright! I installed Audacity and the required Plug-In. Important as in most cases I will be saving as an MP3 file. Is there anything in preferences I should change? It appears Audacity saves files to its default app folder. Is there anyway to change where to save your files? Like to the desk top?
Assuming you have installed the Lame encoder:
After you are done editing, go to File-> Export.
You'll see a standard save box. Pick your destination folder and name the file.
At the bottom of the box is a drop-down menu that probably says PCM, WAV or some such. Drop that down and you will see bunch more options. Mp3 should be there (if not, double-check where you put the Lame encoder). Next to that line is a button that says 'Options'. Click on it and it will give you format parameter options. Set it how you like.
After that, click save and there will be another pop-up box that lets you edit the tag info before the export/save. Fill it out or not (Mp3 Tag is a great program to fix all that later). Click 'OK' and a dialog box will show you the export progress.
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Posted: |
Jun 22, 2012 - 11:00 AM
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By: |
solium
(Member)
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Solium, how is the Audacity working out for you? Have you been able to devote any time getting to know it?
Good or bad, I'm looking forward to your comments.
Thanks for asking. Let me say upfront everyone likes different programs and feel more at ease with certain interfaces. I appreciate members steering me towards Audacity but I found it almost unusable.
I realized right away Audacity had a much different interface than WavePad and could do more complex things. I don't know this for a fact but Audacity probably looks and performs like higher end audio editing programs. So maybe I am not experienced enough to get it.
However after playing around with AC and reading portions of the manual I found it unintuitive. Keyboard short cuts aside, (I did not memorize any of them) AC makes you go through 1,2, 3 or more extra steps to do the same thing I can do in one step in WavePad.
The most glaring issue- there are no "right click" options in AC. In WavePad I can select music in the time line with my mouse, right click and choose many options like "cut". With AC you got, Edit/Remove Audio/Cut. One step in Wavepad, three in AC.
I could not figure out how to Cross-Fade in AC. AC has "cross-fade in" and "cross-fade out". But I did not understand how to use them. Or if it even accomplishes what I wanted to do.
In WavePad you simply select portions of two regions you want to cross-fade go into "effects" choose "cross-fade" and choose the perimeters you want. Very simple
Scrolling through the timeline is a pain in AC, as you get a little elongated nob on the bottom right corner. Yes you can use the Zoom tools but its easier in WavePad.
There were some buggy issues in AC. When I created a new file and pasted two sections of audio into it and tried to apply an effect, all the effect options were greyed out and unusable. Some playback buttons also would randomly become greyed out.
I had no trouble figuring out how to use WavePad with absolutely no audio editing skills under my belt at the time. I thought I should be able to apply what I knew to AC but couldn't.
So looks like I am going to purchase a WavePad upgrade. I can do simple edits in seconds, complex edits in minutes. Its an extremely fast and easy program to use.
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Posted: |
Jun 23, 2012 - 9:47 AM
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By: |
Metryq
(Member)
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Since Bias has ceased operations, they're really not up for consideration.
Audacity makes me cringe. I love FOSS applications as much as the next person, but Audacity has always been very crashy in my experience—even when installed on a completely new machine, which eliminates any possible conflicts with other software.
I've been using HairerSoft's Amadeus software for years and find it the ideal tool for basic audio editing, format conversion, and even multi-track mixing. http://hairersoft.com/ I've tried many other consumer grade audio apps and far too many seem unstable. Amadeus has never crashed on me.
All Macs should have the iLife suite installed, which includes GarageBand. The app is designed for MIDI/USB instrument control and mixing, but it can be used to edit audio. Soundtrack was part of the Final Cut Studio package and may not be sold anymore. (At least, I could not find it in the Mac App Store.) If you want industrial strength editing and mixing, check out Apple's Logic Pro in the Mac App Store.
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Posted: |
Jun 23, 2012 - 1:57 PM
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By: |
Octoberman
(Member)
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Since Bias has ceased operations, they're really not up for consideration.
Audacity makes me cringe. I love FOSS applications as much as the next person, but Audacity has always been very crashy in my experience—even when installed on a completely new machine, which eliminates any possible conflicts with other software.
I've been using HairerSoft's Amadeus software for years and find it the ideal tool for basic audio editing, format conversion, and even multi-track mixing. http://hairersoft.com/ I've tried many other consumer grade audio apps and far too many seem unstable. Amadeus has never crashed on me.
All Macs should have the iLife suite installed, which includes GarageBand. The app is designed for MIDI/USB instrument control and mixing, but it can be used to edit audio. Soundtrack was part of the Final Cut Studio package and may not be sold anymore. (At least, I could not find it in the Mac App Store.) If you want industrial strength editing and mixing, check out Apple's Logic Pro in the Mac App Store.
Audacity has never crashed on me. And unless all the programs you are describing are free, there's really no basis for a comparison.
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Posted: |
Jun 23, 2012 - 2:20 PM
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By: |
Metryq
(Member)
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And unless all the programs you are describing are free, there's really no basis for a comparison.
The thread topic is "Audio Editing Software for Mac," therefore I have grounds for making the comparison. Sorry if I offended you over a favorite piece of software. I use (and $upport) many FOSS projects.
As for recommending Amadeus over Audacity, I worked in a communication school where the professors recommended Audacity to the students who wished to work on their own computers. I heard unending complaints about Audacity crashing and taking lots of work with it—from both Mac and Windows users. And this was through several revisions. Through that whole time, Amadeus, Soundtrack and Logic Pro were all completely reliable. So I would have to conclude that the Audacity problems were not related to the OSes.
If Audacity doesn't crash on you, great. I mention it to people, too, with the caveat that I found it unstable. In the meantime, Amadeus is relatively inexpensive (especially when one's time and effort are even more valuable), and it does not need plugins to encode to common formats, like MP3.
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Posted: |
Jun 23, 2012 - 2:53 PM
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By: |
Octoberman
(Member)
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The thread topic is "Audio Editing Software for Mac," therefore I have grounds for making the comparison. Sorry if I offended you over a favorite piece of software. I use (and $upport) many FOSS projects.
As for recommending Amadeus over Audacity, I worked in a communication school where the professors recommended Audacity to the students who wished to work on their own computers. I heard unending complaints about Audacity crashing and taking lots of work with it—from both Mac and Windows users. And this was through several revisions. Through that whole time, Amadeus, Soundtrack and Logic Pro were all completely reliable. So I would have to conclude that the Audacity problems were not related to the OSes.
If Audacity doesn't crash on you, great. I mention it to people, too, with the caveat that I found it unstable. In the meantime, Amadeus is relatively inexpensive (especially when one's time and effort are even more valuable), and it does not need plugins to encode to common formats, like MP3.
I am well aware of what the thread topic is. Audacity was originally mentioned as an alternative that didn't cost anything. The OP's other choice was to purchase something else. That was pretty much the end of it.
You, my friend, were the one who mentioned Audacity in a pejorative sense ("Sorry if I offended you over a favorite piece of software.") purely because I mentioned it favorably. Me liking the program does not translate into it being a favorite program, and for you to remark that it is, simply because I like it, is pretty childish.
I maintain the position that to compare a free program to a paid program is a little silly.
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Steinberg Wavelab Essentials isn't free, but it if you want more functionality it is reasonably priced and based on a pretty powerful professional version.
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