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Noam

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Looking for recommendations for a simple and reliable editing software, that will enable me to do no more than to drop track marks, do fade out, splitting and reduce volume of sections of the WAV form (applause). I tried to use CD architect, but haven’t been able to get much help from the help menu. Is there any program that comes with a real instruction manual for dummies, or a program that is simple and intuitive? - Noam

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It really is good software. It is my weapon of choice when editing. I have done multi track soundtracks for school/church plays on it with very good success. Your multi tracking capabilities will depend on your CPU/RAM but my humble Athlon 1800+ w/ 512 MB RAM is able to handle up to 16 tracks of wav audio without a hitch.

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It really is good software. It is my weapon of choice when editing. I have done multi track soundtracks for school/church plays on it with very good success. Your multi tracking capabilities will depend on your CPU/RAM but my humble Athlon 1800+ w/ 512 MB RAM is able to handle up to 16 tracks of wav audio without a hitch.

All I can say to that is "sweet"! :)

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Audacity - free basic editing software with good documentation (i think).

Thanks. I am trying to read the manual online and I don't get anywhere. All these manuals are for people more advanced in this than me. I can work a dumb program like SonicStage, but here I click on tabs and funny things happen - Noam

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Another entry in the free category is Kristal Audio Engine [also in the download section here if I'm not mistaken]. Its interface is somewhat friendlier than Audacity, I've found, though when comparing functionality between the two I find that they're pretty close to par with each other.

I've heard of this one before and installed it once to check it out. Looks to be a pretty decent Multi-Track recorder...

Personally I use GoldWave for editing/mixing sounds, does Kristal Audio have a fair amount of editing possiblilities?

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I use Audacity most of the time, although I also have Wavepad, Goldwave, Magix Audio and Adobe Audition installed. No judgment involved: It's really a matter of what you get used to.

Here's a 20-second Audacity manual:

Just Open your file, stick the cursor on the boundary between the two tracks and click it, hold down Shift and use the arrow keys to select whatever chunk of the waveform you want to play with. You'll see it shaded. Clicking the green Play button will play from the cursor. (Edit also lets you Select: Beginning to Cursor or Cursor to End for a fade-in or fade-out.) Then click Effects to fade, etc. Or click Edit to cut, export the selection as a separate track, etc.

The big quirk with Audacity is that its Save command just saves to its own .aup format instead of a format you can use elsewhere. So instead of Save, which would be intuitive, you have to Export to .wav, Export to .mp3, etc. Not a biggie. When you're done, instead of Save (though you can do that too), just export the finished file to .wav or .mp3.

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At risk of getting off topic - (because I'm getting beyond "simple", but it's currently a free beta and some say it will only be about $20 when finished), is "Reaper". Nothing much in the looks department, but the rate of development is spectacular - new features added daily - has vst support, automation, auto crossfades, and many other features that quite costly audio programs can lack. Once complete I'd predict it will shake the audio editing software market to its core.

The guy who is writing it apparently wrote Winamp.

http://www.cockos.com/reaper/index.php is the site - but a warning - although I have had no trouble with it here, I have heard reports from colleagues that it totally crashes their PCs. So don't try it unless you've saved all other programs' data.

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I use Audacity most of the time, although I also have Wavepad, Goldwave, Magix Audio and Adobe Audition installed. No judgment involved: It's really a matter of what you get used to.

Here's a 20-second Audacity manual:

Just Open your file, stick the cursor on the boundary between the two tracks and click it, hold down Shift and use the arrow keys to select whatever chunk of the waveform you want to play with. You'll see it shaded. Clicking the green Play button will play from the cursor. (Edit also lets you Select: Beginning to Cursor or Cursor to End for a fade-in or fade-out.) Then click Effects to fade, etc. Or click Edit to cut, export the selection as a separate track, etc.

The big quirk with Audacity is that its Save command just saves to its own .aup format instead of a format you can use elsewhere. So instead of Save, which would be intuitive, you have to Export to .wav, Export to .mp3, etc. Not a biggie. When you're done, instead of Save (though you can do that too), just export the finished file to .wav or .mp3.

Thanks, that looks pretty useful.

Why do some people who use the Audacity prefer to do the tracking with CD Wave? Is it because Audacity handles shorter files better and tracking with CD Wave is fast? - Noam

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I am not sure I understand the question. I use wav because it is lossless and there is no conversion when transferring to CD audio. Sometimes I "bounce" tracks around and there is no audio quality loss when working with wav and bouncing tracks. Wav is also pretty much universally supported by most audio editors.

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Sometimes I "bounce" tracks around and there is no audio quality loss when working with wav and bouncing tracks.

Even this isn't necessarily true.

Any mixing [overlapping audio in different tracks], crossfades, fades, volume changes, EQ - any signal processing at all, in other words, induces some error in the signal [hence the final stage after processing usually being dither].

I suppose it depends on what you mean by loss, too, though computational/rounding errors cause some distortion and lower overall SNR, which I'd consider a form of loss, though certainly not the same as lossy compression artifacting.

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Even this isn't necessarily true.

Any mixing [overlapping audio in different tracks], crossfades, fades, volume changes, EQ - any signal processing at all, in other words, induces some error in the signal [hence the final stage after processing usually being dither].

I suppose it depends on what you mean by loss, too, though computational/rounding errors cause some distortion and lower overall SNR, which I'd consider a form of loss, though certainly not the same as lossy compression artifacting.

True, but I seriously doubt anyone is going to hear the difference in real world situations, even people with "golden ears". :rolleyes:

I guess I should have been clear. I was thinking as opposed to bouncing tracks the old fashioned way, on a multitrack tape recorder. The sound quality loss is almost nothing on the computer, unless you are doing something really wrong. :D

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