Best DAW For Audio Editing

[Starise]

In your opinion, which DAW is the best for audio editing?  Cakewalk does pretty well for me for most of the things I do when it comes to audio editing. Sometimes I need to go close in on the waveform to see close detail. Do you see one DAW shining in that capability? 

I have heard that Pro Tools is the one to use for that. I have been tempted to download the free version of it to see how the audio editing in it works. I have Sound Forge  but wondered if there was something better.

[StudioNSFW]

Goldwave...if I am just editing a waveform.

Try a demo and see if it meets your needs. Price is right...

Using Pro-Tools for an editor is like using a snowmobile to pull your boat. There maybe a corner case where it makes sense....but....

 

[Starise]

StudioNSFW  Thanks for the information on Goldwave.  Very reasonably priced and it looks like it has a lot of functions similar to Sound Forge. 

One of my main needs was alignment between different tracks or to check for phase relationships at the wavform level. Do you know if I could pull in Goldwave as a 3rd party in Cakewalk and edit multiple tracks without leaving the DAW?

[craigb]

I always used Sound Forge, but that was 20 years ago! ?

[Starise]

Believe it or not Craig SF is still alive and kicking under a new German owner. The most recent high end version of it looks pretty good but much more expensive than  Goldwave. The name alone makes me want to try it.

If I'm not using loops which I seldom do, them I'm often dragging pairs of mono tracks around which were tracked at the same time on the same instrument using different mics in close proximity. I prefer this to tracking in stereo because it gives me more control over the spread and feel. The problem is it's really easy to be off by a few ticks between tracks if I move them. It can be done in most DAWS if you expand the graphic representations of the wave forms. Some better than others. You can hit the play button and your area of interest goes away really fast which means you are constantly toggling back and forth to edit. "If" instead you have a separate program or window that can be expanded while still keeping the existing project as is that would be great. I haven't had much luck with linking 3rd party programs . Many DAWs have the option to link an audio editing program. My original question was more tied to an all in one kind of thing that works similar. There might not be such a thing. 

Edited May 12, 2020 by Starise

[Bapu]

Starise,

Best tool yet, IMO, for aligning multiple tracks is Revoice Pro. It's expen$ive but you get what you pay for. I've aligned up to 12 vocal tracks using one as the guide/master and they were near 99% perfect. After that I just did some (right in the DAW) slicing, nudging and time stretching where the tool missed it a couple of times. 

Typically it's not Revoice Pro's fault if the tracks transients are off by 1/8 or more as it can't be sure if you needed it moved earlier or later.

 

[StudioNSFW]

4 hours ago, Starise said:

StudioNSFW  Thanks for the information on Goldwave.  Very reasonably priced and it looks like it has a lot of functions similar to Sound Forge. 

One of my main needs was alignment between different tracks or to check for phase relationships at the wavform level. Do you know if I could pull in Goldwave as a 3rd party in Cakewalk and edit multiple tracks without leaving the DAW?

Sort of doubt it (never tried) but you can have many waveforms open at once in Goldwave, and edit any one, subset  or all of them at once.

 

Now you have ME wondering if I can call Goldwave from Cakewalk.. 

[Starship Krupa]

On 5/12/2020 at 11:44 AM, Starise said:

SF is still alive and kicking under a new German owner.

It's funny, I have had this odd prejudice about MAGIX, thinking of them as some kind of bargain basement toymaker. I don't know why exactly. Maybe because of Music Maker? I had this idea that once MAGIX bought a platform that it was all over. They seemed too quick to snap up castoff software lines that overlapped with their existing products, so how could they do justice to all of them?

Then I picked up this huge Humble Bundle last year that took me from Sony Vegas Pro 10 to MAGIX Vegas Pro 15 and threw in a bunch of other MAGIX 'wares including Sound Forge. Vegas Pro went from being this glitchy, crashy, touchy thing to being quick and slick on the same hardware, and Sound Forge instantly became my go-to wave editor. Plenty of the other stuff that came in the bundle was powerful and useful as well, and rock solid. Some consumer-ish things like a vinyl and cassette transcribing program, but I dug into it and it turned out to have some iZotope RX-level restoration tools under the hood. They make quality products, my prejudice was wrong.

As for GoldWave, I was turned on to it almost 10 years ago by a housemate who had purchased a lifetime license when he was in high school and holy mother of Windows for Workgroups 3.11, as long as you can deal with the look and feel it's supposed to be a powerhouse, especially in matters of audio forensics. It hurt my eyes and I kept thinking I needed to run it in compatibility mode. Not long after that NASA used it to pull the missing "a" out of Neil Armstrong's "That's one small step for <unintelligible> man, one giant leap for mankind" speech, which showed my silly butt not to judge a program's capabilities by the UI. Still, though. 1991 called and says you can keep its UI standards.

[Brian Walton]

On 5/11/2020 at 10:05 PM, Starise said:

In your opinion, which DAW is the best for audio editing?  Cakewalk does pretty well for me for most of the things I do when it comes to audio editing. Sometimes I need to go close in on the waveform to see close detail. Do you see one DAW shining in that capability? 

I have heard that Pro Tools is the one to use for that. I have been tempted to download the free version of it to see how the audio editing in it works. I have Sound Forge  but wondered if there was something better.

No DAW is world class at this

Soundforge is the gold standard.

 

This isn't to say something isn't better, but if you have the Pro version (and since it was upgraded to 64 bit),  realistically it is highly unlikely you would need anything else.

 

Goldwave is fine, but looks horrific.

 

The annoying part of all of these is lack of real smooth integration in Cakewalk.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Brian Walton

[msmcleod]

I find Acon's Acoustica Basic edition v6 a good free alternative to SoundForge.

Unfortunately Acon has stopped doing the free version since v7, but you can still download the free v6 version here:

http://acondigital.com/software/AcousticaBasic6_0_19us.exe

As long as you've added it to the tools menu within Cakewalk (scook has a great tool for this), I find the integration fine:

[synkrotron]

On 5/12/2020 at 3:05 AM, Starise said:

I have Sound Forge  but wondered if there was something better.

Hiya @Starise 

Is there something bugging you about Sound Forge? Something you think it may be lacking?

Personally I have never used any DAW for going into the wave file, I have always used Sound Forge. I suppose that is because I got into that when there wasn't much else around some twenty or so years ago. So since then I have stuck with it and now have V12.

I believe it is now V14 but the big jump for me was V11 to V12 when it finally went 64 bit. Since then I haven't bothered keeping it up to date.

Even now, in the DAW that I use, I always go to Sound Forge even if it is just to trim and fade finished tracks.

 

cheers

andy

[Will.]

On 5/12/2020 at 4:05 AM, Starise said:

 have heard that Pro Tools is the one to use for that. 

I've been using pro tools 7 years, and I'm gona tell you now, when it comes to going "into" the wave form - cakewalk does it pretty much the same. It's just more "Old-skool" with it. That's why we need more Hiphop/EDM producers and engineers such as myself - using Cakewalk. I'm excited to say, that will change soon. 

I have posted a topic to request and introduce Cakewalk to "Visual clip gain" and it was picked up, which we're getting soon. Yeah! ? ??? 

 

Edited May 16, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[Will.]

8 hours ago, msmcleod said:

I find Acon's Acoustica Basic edition v6 a good free alternative to SoundForge.

Unfortunately Acon has stopped doing the free version since v7, but you can still download the free v6 version here:

http://acondigital.com/software/AcousticaBasic6_0_19us.exe

As long as you've added it to the tools menu within Cakewalk (scook has a great tool for this), I find the integration fine:

Why don't you use Shift+Alt and drag the waveform within Cakewalk?  I cant make a Gif as usual. I'm upgrading my system plus, updating my BIOS and Windows. 

Edited May 14, 2020 by Will_Kaydo

[ensconced]

3 hours ago, Will_Kaydo said:

Why don't you use Shift+Alt and drag the waveform within Cakewalk?  I cant make a Gif as usual. I'm upgrading my system plus, updating my BIOS and Windows. 

I'd say it's more than likely he is just using a simple example just to demonstrate, being a long time user and now on the dev team I would say he'd be aware of most things.

Edited May 14, 2020 by ensconced

[Will.]

36 minutes ago, ensconced said:

I'd say it's more than likely he is just using a simple example just to demonstrate, being a long time user and now on the dev team I would say he'd be aware of most things.

Lol. I know he is. We sometimes forget that small, but effective shortcuts the DAW provides, with all these new 3rd party plugins coming out. Example: I use the sonitus delay and phase plugins - like 90% in all my projects, because they're that good. I was just merely interacting in the conversation.  ☺ It's all good. ?No stress. 

[msmcleod]

Yes - the idea was to demonstrate using an external audio editor.... I obviously wouldn't use one for such a simple operation.

[Will.]

2 hours ago, msmcleod said:

Yes - the idea was to demonstrate using an external audio editor.... I obviously wouldn't use one for such a simple operation.

Does Bandlab own the shortcut app on Playstore and Apple store? Would be lovely if it can be updated. I've download it again two days ago, and it is still the same as 3years ago I think.  All you need to search is "Sonar shortcuts" on Apple or Play store. 

[Starise]

On 5/13/2020 at 10:49 PM, Starship Krupa said:

It's funny, I have had this odd prejudice about MAGIX, thinking of them as some kind of bargain basement toymaker.

I guess I had similar thinking even though I own SoundForge, Vegas and Acid Pro. I don't think my version of  SF is the pro version though. I had prior accumulated the Izotope versions of  RX. Those are not the "pro" versions either although a few times they saved my hide in removing pops and clicks from  recorded tracks in Vegas. I'll admit to a few probably unfounded biases. That old Windows looking UI. All of those programs seem to have retained it. On one level I understand that these are windows programs and as such they have windows graphics DNA. That "look" to me though says "old" and "outdated". Granted I'm not a windows programs writer. I think people like that don't give it much thought. They are instead more interested in what the program can do. One thing I think highlights this even more is all of the sleek looking web pages and DAWs out there. Then when I go back to the SF stuff it feels like 1992 or something.  I am SO glad Cakewalk moved into the Aero look back in the X days. Magix programs have improved in function and overall stability. I like that they are keeping with the times in that regard, but it's time for them to be looking at updating the look of those programs IMHO. I still like the general way that program works, I just wish I could call it up in Cakewalk, edit audio, close the program and have an edit reside in Cakewalk. Even if it was a destructive edit. Otherwise I have to open two programs, edit audio, reinsert said audio back into Cakewalk.

On 5/14/2020 at 7:11 AM, msmcleod said:

I find Acon's Acoustica Basic edition v6 a good free alternative to SoundForge.

This looks like a very nice solution. Thanks. I'll look into it as an option. 

 

On 5/13/2020 at 11:02 PM, Brian Walton said:

The annoying part of all of these is lack of real smooth integration in Cakewalk.

 

18 hours ago, Will_Kaydo said:

As long as you've added it to the tools menu within Cakewalk (scook has a great tool for this), I find the integration fine:

Scook is a very computer savvy smart dude who is an ace helper here on the CW forum. Scook we thank you! Please take into consideration this as a later addition to Cakewalk. Slide Mr. Scook some re numeration for his trouble or at the least make it worth his while. I would LOVE to see this feature since A. Most DAWS are not able to do the kinds of editing we sometimes need to do and B. Not everyone is capable of adding the scook program or knows how to do it. I know the DAW is free. I know it's probably asking a lot. I don't think the feature would be unused. 

 

On 5/14/2020 at 7:42 AM, synkrotron said:

Is there something bugging you about Sound Forge? Something you think it may be lacking?

Nothing is seriously bugging me about the Sound Forge other than the dated GUI and the fact that we can't bring it into Cakewalk the way msmcleod demonstrates it with Acoustica Basic.

Yes I could find and download scook's program, but to be fair this isn't the answer most of the user base would want to hear. No one likes work arounds and this is a work around.  

[scook]

Almost anything may be added to the tools area of the CbB Utility menu.

The instructions have not changed in years - http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowledge-Base/2007013099/Adding-third-party-audio-editing-software-to-SONARs-Utilities-menu

All I did was write a GUI using these instructions and a few comments from Noel in a thread about adding iZotope RX to SONAR.

For me, it is a lot easier to point users to the ToolsEditor on my Google page than explain what went wrong when they tried following the knowledge base article.

 

Last year, SoundForge 12 Pro and bunch of other MAGIX software were available in a bundle for $25

I expect to get my next version of SF Pro the same way.

[Starise]

33 minutes ago, scook said:

All I did was write a GUI using these instructions and a few comments from Noel in a thread about adding iZotope RX to SONAR.

This is the thing. You have been doing this for so long you could probably do it in your sleep. I don't know the first thing about it. I am operationally computer savvy. Not much past that on the programming end of things in this capacity at least. What is easy for you is probably not something a lot of people can do or they don't have the time to look into it. I am only recently getting more into deeper audio editing solutions. Most of the time a stereo track that's off on one side by a few milliseconds won't be noticed so I haven't bothered. It's only since I've been trying to tighten things up more that I have found a need for it.

The overall perception of say 12 stereo tracks that are all off by a few milliseconds can add up to a less than solid feel in the final mix.

I can try the older solution offered. And thanks for that Google link to try.At first glance at it makes me nervous because it goes into the registry. I much prefer your solution to that. Best case would be having it somehow integrated into the tools menu as something that we simply point to the program. Maybe it is presently that easy. I'll give this a try before I say much more. I realize we have a lot of career computer programmers here. It's easy to say, just do this and that for you guys. Consider that all most people ever work with is the GUI.