Why no cheap or free audio editors for Windows?

[IIRs]

apparently VST support is planned for Acoustica soon..

[scamme]

Cool edit 2000 still can be found here:
http://www.sonicspot.com/cooledit/cooledit.html

Actually, that link leads to adobe. Try this instead:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia ... -Pro.shtml

No, it leads to page with 2 links:
1.home page
2. direct link to coll edit 2000 download (http://files1.sonicspot.com/cooledit/ce2kmain.exe)

[deleted]

DELETED

[kovacs]

Try this instead:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia ... -Pro.shtml

That one leads to a site where you can buy the old Cool Edit Pro for $299. The price of the latest Audition is not much more than that

Yes...it gives you a trial. Sorry.

I guess it's hard to find the old non-$299 version these days.

[rockstar_not]

Goldwave is brilliant and does chains etc:

http://www.goldwave.com/

Exactly. This is a great audio editor - free - no VST, but does support DX - and has about a million file types that it can shuttle back and forth between.

-Scott

'Goldwave' - is NOT free. I think it's evaluational for some time and then it stops to output audio.

Scamme:

If this happens to you. Delete it; re-install; evaluate again. Besides, it's cheap if you want to pay for it. I only use it a couple times per year since I do most of my audio editing right inside my host, but it's a great program nonetheless.

And it's completely legal. I'm not so sure about the Cool Edit 2000 being legal.

-Scott

[rockstar_not]

FYI,

You can still find cool edit 96, which was a completely non-nag version of this program, still worth it's salt as an audio editor. Whether that version is legal or not, I don't know. I won't provide the link, but just to let you know it's available.

I used to use it as even back then it had a pretty nice time and pitch stretch algorithm as an off-line process.

But GoldWave is doing it for me now. And if you want to buy after the very generous trial, it costs only 55 CDN, or about $48 US.

For what it's worth - it was a dark day in DSP-land when Adobe bought Syntrillium.

-Scott

[Stupid American Pig]

Just curious, but why does every one master out side of their host- I cant think of a single thing some audio editor could do that I couldnt do in Sonar to the entire project before rendering. Im genuinely curious as to why- so please enlighten me.

[Jbravo]

Personally I concentrate on getting the mix right in the host, than render the file and often master it later. It's quicker and easier in an audio editor and there's no danger of screwing up the mix

[cold c]

Just curious, but why does every one master out side of their host-

I don't, I render to a file then re-import that to a new project (in SX3) and add any master effects etc there.

[kovacs]

Just curious, but why does every one master out side of their host

I don't. I don't actually master my tracks, I usually just render them, using mastering plugs at the end of the chain in the master output in Ableton Live.

[Stupid American Pig]

Ok Im not that crazy then. The big sequencers these days have the mastering/remixing tools built in, so I dont really see a need for sound forge or wavelab really.

[Jbravo]

what about normalising, chopping the ends off or doing graphical fades? can you see the waveform of what you're actually working on?

[BONES]

I don't understand why the situation is like this.

Maybe it is for exactly the reasons I said - because if you can do that stuff just as easily in your host it is not a priority for an audio editor, particulary given that I doubt Steinberg ever inteded for the VST standard to be applied to non-realtime environments.

No... and yes. The developer sold to Adobe, who renamed it Audition. They have also added a ton of features developing it far beyond its original sample editing features... it is now a 128-track multitrack audio recording, editing, mixing and mastering suite, complete with VST, DX and ReWire support.

You will find that Audition is actually based on Cool Edit Pro which was always multi-track.

You can still find cool edit 96, which was a completely non-nag version of this program, still worth it's salt as an audio editor.

In fact I didn't think that there was a whole lot added in CE2k over '96 so its still a pretty solid choice [except for lack of DX plugins but there is a plugin for CE2k that might also work in '96].

For what it's worth - it was a dark day in DSP-land when Adobe bought Syntrillium.

I am really surprised how well Adobe have treated Audition. It is slightly cheaper than CEPro was and they have not tried to skrew with the workflow. If I needed any of the extra stuff it has I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Just curious, but why does every one master out side of their host- I cant think of a single thing some audio editor could do that I couldnt do in Sonar to the entire project before rendering. Im genuinely curious as to why- so please enlighten me.

Maybe your host has better metering than mine but I really need the accuracy of an audio editor to make sure everything is properly normalised. Its also much quicker and easier to to work with for many tasks.

[ZooTooK]

Don't forget "Computer Muzys" that you get from the cover CD of every issue of Computer Magazine. It's a sequencer/VST host foremost but includes a decent wave editor, imho. You can do all the VST stacking you want! I'm missing a stereo view of the wave though...

[headquest]

A good audio editor lets you do things to an audio file which in a sequencer would be either:

A. Impossible. e.g.
* destrucitve editing
* Audition's frequency spectrum editing where you remove or add effects to certain specified frequencies only, etc)
* snapping to a zero-crossing when selecting or slicing, which is important but impossible in either of the big hosts I own

or B: Difficult, and/or expensive plugs required (i.e. Waves, etc) ...e.g.
* Noise reduction - getting rid of hum, crackle, lead noise, etc
* Audio restoration

Also its worth noting that the effects that come bundled in Audition and SoundForge (for example) are worth the price of the software alone!