What audio editing software are you using?

G

ggrantly

Veteran
Howdy Listers

For the last several years, I have used the Adobe CS software for most everything, and that includes Audition for audio. Adobe is shaking up their offerings and for a couple of reasons, it might be time to look at different software for a Mac workflow. If I make a change, I might consider going all FCPX, or possibly FCPX + something else for audio. I don't want anything high end, my needs are simple since I do very basic corporate work.

So what are you using and why. What would you recommend to replace Audition?

TIA
Grant
 
Reaper. (developed by the same guy who made Winamp!)

Easily a great choice (even if you ignore its price... which is even greater!!). Certainly an upgrade from using Audition.

In the long run, if you want to collaborate with others on higher end projects then it makes sense to learn the "industry standard" which is Pro Tools. But for you right now, this bit of info doesn't seem to be relevant at all.
 
Have I missed something? hat are Adobe doing? I'm a CC subscriber, and I've had no info. Is Audition on the way out?

I use Magic (ex-Sony) Soundforge for audio editing as my preference, but audition is fine.
 
paulears said:
Have I missed something? hat are Adobe doing? I'm a CC subscriber, and I've had no info. Is Audition on the way out?

I use Magic (ex-Sony) Soundforge for audio editing as my preference, but audition is fine.
Click to expand...

The Adobe changes have to do with Business Catalyst and my Creative Cloud subscription. I was getting a special promo which included hosting for 5 websites with my CC subscription, but that is ending. I subscribed during the Apple debacle when FCPX was introduced. The hosting option came close to paying for my subscription to CC, so at the time it was a no brainer. They are also killing off their basic web site app "Muse" which I used quite a bit. If it hadn't been for the hosting I received and the Muse app, I would have never subscribed to CC. Adobe has never been on my list of preferred software companies.

Sorry, didn't mean to get you worked up over changes that don't effect you.

Grant
 
While I do most of my work in SoundForge, I use Vegas Pro for sound-design and mixing, iZotope RX6 for noise-reduction, and a few odd functions in GoldWave that produce better results than their equivalents in other packages. If sound was my main thing I would probably switch to Pro Tools as my editor.
 
Editing: I've been using Sound Forge Pro since v3 .. Magix Software GmbH, who acquired SF from Sony about a year ago, will be releasing Sound Forge Pro 12 soon and will include iZotope Ozone elements and RX elements, the SCS NR-2 noise reductions suite, the Sequoia FX package as well as the other plug ins included in SF 11 Pro. An updated version of Wave Hammer as well.
For music recording (tracking): SloTools.
Post audio: Vegas Pro which integrates with Sound Forge .. Reaper is a good lower cost alternative if video editing is not needed. I used Auditon when it was 'Cool Edit Pro' but preferred Vegas, which BTW, started out as an audio only DAW.
 
I think some folks missed the "Mac workflow" part.

What I use is ProTools. But I have a pretty old system and as I understand it they have gone all rentware so unless I get some big buck gig I probably won't be using it into the distant future.

Reaper is OK but you will need to get a third party Windows only piece of software to be able to open OMF/AAF files, which is a problem for audio post. For corporate stuff? maybe you aren't using OMF's anyway so...

High on my maybe list is Resolve and the Fairlight section. I haven't played with it enough to know if it will work for the kind of track heavy shows I tend to work on.

There is/ was? a pretty cheap plugin for FCPX that let it work with OMF's. My biggest problem with FCPX is I have zero confidence Apple won't dump it or make another sweeping change the really hurts professional users. And while I like the Mac and the OS Apple has never been supportive of anything but the latest and greatest. It was one of the big issues with FCP. Even point versions were incompatible, you couldn't save to an older version and opening a project updated it so older versions couldn't open it anymore. As long as you are the one stop shop and you never have to play with others it works fine but the minute you have a team to deal with it gets complicated.

If you are switching pict and sound editing apps I would take a look at Resolve.
 
The Business catalyist thing made me smile yesterday - I did get the emails, but in my ignorance, I had believed it was a 'test' web facility - I've been using it as a try out web address I give to clients where they can have a play and approve the content, or other changes, once happy, I've just been hosting it on my usual servers. It never once crossed my mind it was meant as a 24/7 hosting facility. I the drop down box - I publish to the usual ftp site, or business catalyst. Just me being stupid I guess.
 
What about Ardour? https://ardour.org/ Not educational facility friendly, they have no concept of volume licensing. Reaper for education is CHEAP, I think they quoted me like $30 each which is pretty easy to overcome.

Will the Fairlight module be a good all around production DAW? I'm looking for alternatives as we get into windows 10 at work, and our old CS6 is officially not supported. CC for us would break our ever shrinking budget because I'd need to rent 60 licenses each year.

The next budget clamp down may see our Media Composer support plan go out as well, so we might be using Resolve for video too.
 
paulears said:
The Business catalyist thing made me smile yesterday - I did get the emails, but in my ignorance, I had believed it was a 'test' web facility - I've been using it as a try out web address I give to clients where they can have a play and approve the content, or other changes, once happy, I've just been hosting it on my usual servers. It never once crossed my mind it was meant as a 24/7 hosting facility. I the drop down box - I publish to the usual ftp site, or business catalyst. Just me being stupid I guess.
Click to expand...

Paulears, BC is going away....gone, not that I liked it much but it worked out. Just like Adobe software, I found BC to be one of the most confusing interfaces ever. I used the hosting bonus both ways, as a test location, but I would host my own site as well as others for a time, which I charged for, then moved them onto a regular hosting plan.

Grant
 
Ardour looks interesting but has the same lack of import/ export options as Reaper so IF you need to work with others you will need third party software ($200) and run it under Windows or an emulator.

Fairlight was a top film post DAW player at one point, but it was $$$$ and used dedicated hardware. It was used a bunch by Foley editors and FX editors.

When looking for a DAW there are a number of things to think about.

The first and biggest is probably how you work. If you need to work with others and or plan to work professionally on "big" films then you should be using something that is used by others and has good compatibility with other platforms. For film post in the US the leader of the pack is ProTools, though it has probably shrunk it's lead in the last decade.

If you are a one stop shop and you don't need to deal with others then you can chose anything you like.

Another consideration is plugins and third party software. There are a ton of film specific post tools for ProTools. Quite a few of them are also available in plugins that other DAWs can use. If there is a killer something that you really need then you need to get a DAW it will work with. Most of the specialized plugins and tools are kind of in the nose bleed range price wise so if your not going to drop $2K for something it's silly to go out of your way to get a DAW it will work on.

One of the biggest issues for sound is when all you do is sound, you really want a way to get the edited audio tracks into your session. Just sucking tracks off the video doesn't cut it and getting a bunch of bounced tracks is only slightly better. If this is not an everyday thing for you then AATranslator (and an emulator if your on a Mac) is probably a great choice. It will translate to and from many formats so you can probably work with whatever you get sent. If you do this a lot it's kind of a PITA to have to translate in a third party app each time. Plus there are things that won't translate so you will have to work around the limitations.

Learning any new program is a bit of a pain (to a whole lot of pain) so for me if/ when I switch I want it to be to something with legs.
 
Noiz2 said:
I think some folks missed the "Mac workflow" part.

There is/ was? a pretty cheap plugin for FCPX that let it work with OMF's. My biggest problem with FCPX is I have zero confidence Apple won't dump it or make another sweeping change the really hurts professional users. And while I like the Mac and the OS Apple has never been supportive of anything but the latest and greatest. It was one of the big issues with FCP. Even point versions were incompatible, you couldn't save to an older version and opening a project updated it so older versions couldn't open it anymore. As long as you are the one stop shop and you never have to play with others it works fine but the minute you have a team to deal with it gets complicated.
Click to expand...

^ Truth

For my needs, ProTools would just be stupid.

Having been an Apple guy from the very beginning, Apple really broke my heart with the FCPX transition and the Mac-Pro design changes. I still have a Mac workflow and a Trashcan MacPro as well, but I am a not so proud user anymore. The luster has definitely faded. On a side note, one amazing feature of the Trashcan Mac-Pro is that it is near silent. So quiet that you can record VO next to it and not hear a thing. $400 for FCPX including Motion and Compressor is a relative bargain as long as they don't screw it up like last time. I don't have much confidence in Apple anymore; they seem a lot more interested in phones to say the least. But I still can't get to excited about a switch to a PC.

I'll definitely get a look at Resolve having heard it has become a significant player, but was unaware of its audio capability.

Grant
 
"I think some folks missed the "Mac workflow" part."
- And indeed I did. Vegas does not a have a Mac version, Sound Forge does.
It should be noted that Sound Forge is audio 'Editing' software and not a multi-track DAW, big difference.
 
Apple has this split personality. They pushed early to dominate creative uses and it is still strong there, BUT the consumer toys division brings in a LOT more money. I had a brief glance at how the sausage is made and those two forces I think are what created FCPX witch still tried to bill it self as a tool for pros but was also trying to be a step up for iMovie users.

I never understood the "no backward compatibility" policy but it goes way back. ProTools can save 8 or more versions back, even Resolve can open FCP7 sessions and with a little work I exported FCP6 sessions and brought them into Resolve. Being able to open old sessions is a pretty big deal for me since some projects come back or extend over a long period.

I feel power, stability etc. that Windows and Mac are pretty much on a par. You can argue one way or the other but it's a bit like arguing over if Imperial or Metric is more "accurate". It just depends on which things you compare. The OS's are just enough different that it drove me nuts switching back and forth and for practical reasons at the time I ended up on a Mac. One thing though is I personally find Mac's and the Mac OS more aesthetically pleasing. A bit more Grateful Dead and a little less "Engineer/ tech geek".

A couple of years back I looked hard at switching. A fair number of sound editors switched to Hackintoshes. The reason then was Mac did away with the PCI slots and Digi stopped supporting expansion boxes and stopped their old upgrade policy (huge discount to trade up hardware) so if you had an HD system you had $15K - $30K worth of hardware that you couldn't use on a Mac but could on a PC box. Install OSX on the right Intel PC and you get a Mac, sort of, that will use your perfectly fine orphaned hardware and save a TON of cash.

Technically you violate the EULA but in this case it is really doubtful it's enforceable.

I decided instead to basically make my PT system a time capsule. The only real drawback is a later, faster, machine would probably be able to push higher res video with a big track count. But other than occasionally having to transcode a video file (on the much faster iMac) it's fine. And the upside is the machine isn't doing anything else so it's life is probably going to last forever.

I'm not sure how significant a player Resolve is at this point. I suspect it will become more so for a couple of reasons. First Black Magic Designs seems to be listening to the users and is very focused on making a tool for professionals. And second they are one of the few players who haven't decided to go rentware. My original plan for the little video projects I do was to switch to Adobe. I actually put in a fair amount of time in After Effects and Premiere Pro. But not owning the tools is a huge issue for me.
 
Scott,

For a while, on my old MacPro tower, I had 4 different bootable OS (one was Windows 7) so I could use a bunch of legacy software. As much as it saved some money and preserved the past, it was really a total PITA. Apple makes changes at such a rapid pace that many software publishers just can't keep up or quit in frustration. That would be a motivation to go FCPX although Apple has had some buggy rollouts also. I wish Apple would just slow down a bit and keep things more compatable. I ditched a really nice 44" Canon plotter primarily because I couldn't get a software driver without paying really big; it was cheaper to just buy new and wait for the obsolescence cycle to repeat.
 
I have pro tools version 8:0:5 with DV toolkit on the macpro but tend to do most of my tracklaying for video in final cut 7 as it is really quick.

I use PT for music too but also have Logic X on my more modern macbook pro.
 
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