A survey about your Audio editing usage

[gremlinmoon]

The sheer audacity of a survey about Audacity is audacious.

[Tj Shredder]

This thread might be a good opportunity to actually discuss what could be made better in Audacity. Might serve better for enhancing it than a survey...
Questions about what is better in your tool of choice vs. Audacity could also help, or what do you miss/dislike in Audacity etc...
And I feel much more comfortable if I know the aim of a survey in the beginning. That might be against some sociological survey rule, but that rule could only work if you really can’t know what it is about. I never came across a survey which didn’t indirectly showed this, always leaves a feeling of being fooled. Not a good idea...

[Michael L]

Maybe the OP is considering the possibility of creating a new audio editor and wants to know how many professionals use a non free audio editor and actually did pay for it

This thread might be a good opportunity to actually discuss what could be made better in Audacity. Might serve better for enhancing it than a survey

I agree it would be better if the OP was upfront and told us what he wants to know and what he plans to do, rather than make us guess. I use Audacity but did not complete the survey for that reason.

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

Done! c:

[KBSoundSmith]

Done.

FWIW to the OP, I've used a number of audio editors and can remember a number of things I liked/disliked about each. I've always considered them an essential tool, even though I am primarily a musician and not an engineer. I started with Bias Peak in college, used Adobe Audition 3 at home, and have since transitioned to a mixture of Samplitude/SoundForge/Spectralayers. I have always found Audacity extremely unappealing to use -- but in fairness, I have not looked into the application for a number of years, perhaps it is better now.

[fmr]

What I don't get is audio editors that seem to have the ambition to become multitrack DAWs. Programmers should be aware that a multitrack DAW has to do much more than simply record and edit multitrack audio. It has to feature a complete mixer, with automation, plug-in host, virtual instruments, good MIDI editing, several editing windows (we cannot edit MIDI and automation the same way we edit audio), just to name a few.

And (speaking for myself) I am well served in that chapter already, and the last thing I want from an audio editor is multitrack editing. Support for surround, sure, but that's as far as multitrack should go.

OTOH, spectral editing, loop editing, powerful DSP functions built-in, like envelope extraction and imposition, for example (which I had already in Alchemy in the eighties, and I almost don't see in any audio editor nowadays) are some features I want to see in audio editors, and I hardly see those.

Don't pretend you are multitrack DAWs - you can't compete in that field. Concentrate on what audio editors were born for.

[npigrounet]

Thank you for all your answers. This might be the most developer-friendly forum ever, yes! Your answers are all very constructive. Sorry for not being more precise in the first post. This was my first time in kvr. I have to explain everything a bit.

Yes, the survey is a bit too wide and does not go into further details. It was only a first step to test waters. I might do a bigger survey someday. I did not post the survey only here, but also in other forums and among people working with audio, audio journalists, podcasters...

My idea is that audio editors and DAWs are two different kinds of beasts, and I agree with fmr that they should not compete and try to do everything. I would like to focus on developing an audio editor with powerful features (think iZotope RX but with obviously less features), tabs, multi-track.

The idea is to strip down from all music features like MIDI, plugin hosting, virtual instruments, synths, mixing table, ... These are feature to create music. They don't belong to an audio editor. I would like to take good features from DAW though (non-destructive inserts, audio clips...). Some good ideas may also be taken from graphic design apps, specifically non-destructive dynamic layers stuff. Some ideas will also be taken from developer tools (VS Code, Atom are good examples): I specifically think about the command palette.

I am thinking about developing this simple audio editor with a friend (who has great DSP knowledge). What I can bring to the table is expertise in designing and developing UIs. At the moment, this is just a hobby project. We plan to release it as free and open-source.

We'll see if we come up with something good! Stay tuned

[enroe]

I would like to focus on developing an audio editor with powerful features
(think iZotope RX but with obviously less features), tabs, multi-track.

Waaahooo, this is very ambitious - a great project!

Also keep in mind what already exists:

Audacity - best for applying VSTs (eq-ing, compressing) and noise-cancelling
Wavosaur - best for cutting + setting loop-points
Waveshop - best for cutting + setting loop-points for ogg-files.
Endless - best for creating multisample-sets out of wavs.

Creating an audio editor which can unite some of these "best"-features
would be very attractive IMO.

[fmr]

Also keep in mind what already exists:

Audacity - best for applying VSTs (eq-ing, compressing) and noise-cancelling

Compared to what?

Wavosaur - best for cutting + setting loop-points

Compared to what?

Waveshop - best for cutting + setting loop-points for ogg-files.

Compared to what?

Endless - best for creating multisample-sets out of wavs.

Compared to what?

Creating an audio editor which can unite some of these "best"-features
would be very attractive IMO.

If you mean creating an editor that would be the best at:

1. Applying VSTs (eq-ing, compressing) and noise-cancelling;
2. Cutting + setting loop-points (not sure what exactly do you mean here);
3. Creating multisample-sets out of wavs.

That would be great. But the competition is tough (I'm talking of the commercial audio editors, like Sound Forge and Wavelab, not the free ones - those usually do a poor job).

[LawrenceF]

the competition is tough (I'm talking of the commercial audio editors, like Sound Forge and Wavelab

It is … pretty tough. The more obvious inroad for a commercial product is the pricepoint. I mean, something equivalent to Wavelab Pro feature wise for $50 would obviously attract some market attention... even if the UI sucked a little.

[fmr]

the competition is tough (I'm talking of the commercial audio editors, like Sound Forge and Wavelab

It is … pretty tough. The more obvious inroad for a commercial product is the pricepoint. I mean, something equivalent to Wavelab Pro feature wise for $50 would obviously attract some market attention... even if the UI sucked a little.

It costs a little more than that, but Acoustica Premium is a fine editor, and way cheaper than Sound Forge Pro and Wavelab Pro: https://acondigital.com/products/acoust ... io-editor/

Another great audio editor is SOUND IT! Pro, also way cheaper then the two main apps: https://internetmusicsoft.com/sit/

Neither of these two have any loop tools, unfortunately. But Mac users have another option that also has loop tools, is great, and really cheap (99,00) - DSP Quattro v5: https://www.dsp-quattro.com/dspquattro/ ... attro.html

[jancivil]

One thing in Cubase or Nuendo you might want to take into consideration, off-line process history. But without that, an audio editor is not useful to me. You can commit or not to non-destructive edits, which even in the non-committal state are not taxing real-time resources. With the edits still active, disk space is used for audio files in 'Edits' directory, in order to be able to recall them

And as to workflow, how you recall an edit in order to remove or alter it, the interface and convenience, you know...

[reggie1979]

The sheer audacity of a survey about Audacity is audacious.

[yellowmix]

Not supporting plugins in an audio editor immediately cuts off a huge wealth of DSP possibilities. If you're going to try to supply that natively in the app that's great, but you cannot possibly include them all. Plugins aren't necessarily musical, the same ones are useful for sound design and audio restoration.

[enroe]

Also keep in mind what already exists:

Audacity - best for applying VSTs (eq-ing, compressing) and noise-cancelling

Compared to what?
...

If you read this thread carefully you would have realized that it is
about light FREE audio editors only. That is the play field we're
talking about here.