free audio editor w/ ASIO

[Mr. Tingle]

Tracktion has better audio editing functions than kristal.

Select a clip, press m,h then f7. Now make all the fine adjustments you want, fades etc. Also, select a clip, click view source info, now choose edit audio file then basic editing operations. You can trim silence, change bit rate, reverse etc.

Don't forget you can put filters on to individual audio clips.

[headquest]

freaking work 1 month at mcdonalds and buy Adobe Audition....

RonC

Audition doesn't have ASIO either, does it?

I could see it could be an issue when using Audition as a ReWire host, and there have been quite a few negative posts about Audition over on the Propellerheads Reason forum...

Is this an issue for you, Ron?

[rockstar_not]

I'll ask perhaps a dumb question: Why does the audio editor have to have ASIO capability?

I swear I've used Audacity on my ASIO only setup. I'll try it tonight.

Audacity as an audio editor is pretty nice - particularly since it's free.

-Scott

[AD80]

I'll ask perhaps a dumb question: Why does the audio editor have to have ASIO capability?

It doesnt. I dont even think Tracktion (or other hosts) can share ASIO with another app unless its rewired . I use Audition and SF with tracktion not on ASIO. Havent tryed Audacity yet.

[Robert T]

This is probally a stupid question but what do these"audio editors" do that T doesn't?

[Crossinger]

This is probally a stupid question but what do these"audio editors" do that T doesn't?

Precise surgical edits of audio material. Quicker access to destructive methods of audio manipulation (denoize, compression), faster cut/copy/paste for re-arranging snippets (e.g. loops), easy conversion of file formats... and so on...

You *could* do it with Tracktion, too. But until Tracktion has instant clip-rendering, it is a p.i.t.a. IMHO!

I've never used the built-in audio edition functions of a sequencer (even not in my Cubase days). An audio editor is simply so much faster to use for manipulations that I'm willing to use it first, before importing the result into Tracktion.

J.

[headquest]

This is probally a stupid question but what do these"audio editors" do that T doesn't?

everything Crossinger has already said...plus:

In Audition's case, Adobe have expanded on the usual "Audio Editor" paradigm to build Audition into a complete audio solution, with 128 multitrack audio recording, editing, surround sound, ReWire host capabilitys, VST and DX host, and video support. The video support is a biggie, because Adobe as you no doubt know are one of the top professional video software concerns, and Audition specifically integrates with their other pro products.

As a Tracktion user, the benefits that owning Audition brings me are:

1) The audio editing itself, as outlined by Crossinger. The effects in Audition are truly top shelf. Tracktion has an option (under "view source material" selection when you select an audio clip) to assign an external audio editor, and with Audition selected, one click takes you straight to Audition's edit view. From here you can apply (destrucitvely) any of Audition's awesome effects, e.g. the convolution-based reverbs, compression, noise reduction, clip/pop removal, etc. These leave Tracktion's effects - and many VST plugins - standing in terms of pro quality.

2) Mastering - render your Tracktion opus at 32-bit and then open it up in Audition for applying the final spit and polish... before saving your final creation in any of a huge range of formats, including MP3

3) Time-stretching. If you select the right tool from the icons in Audition, you can simply drag an audio clip to fit whatever you want on the timeline, and the audio clip will instantly be stretched, with no pith shift at all (and without artefacts ). This is great, and highly useful! If you want to score backing music for either spoken word (Audition is very popular with radio broadcasters) or video (there is a video frame that can run along the timeline) then Audition is perfect for this.

4) Mixing. Tracktion is a useful ReWire host (and I use it as such for projects that include MIDI as well as Audio), but Audition is better if you wish to mix and master a complete track done in Reason/FL/Live. You can open your ReWIre client software so that all the tracks automatically align in Audition's multitrack view, and then open Audition's intuitive but powerful mixer. This gives you three band parametric EQ hardwired to every track, bus/send effects as well as insert effects for each track, etc. Also automation with splined curves, which sound more natural than Tracktion's automation lines (at present).

5)Loop-composition. In Audition you can pain loops much as in Acid or Sonar ("groove clips")... but acutually better in my view. For loop-based composing on a timeline (i.e. not like Live) then I think Audition is unbeatable.

6) Audio recording. I find that I personally get better audio recording results directly in Audition than I do in Tracktion. If I am doing a project that is wholly audio (i.e. no MIDI - Audition doesn't offer MIDI editing) then I would lump straight for Audition, and not use Tracktion at all.

These are my personal uses ... but there are others (which I've not yet tried). FOr example, Audition is a favorite among professional audio analysis people (including - apparently - the FBI ) and is often used by remastering engineers when they set out to resore old vinyl recordings.

BUT it's not free! It costs around £200 in the UK (from Amazon).

Oh, and the reason I still use Tracktion is that I still need a MIDI and Audio sequencer, and Tracktion is my favourite!

[Robert T]

Thanks for the answers, Crossinger& Heaequest I'll have to check it out. Is there a demo?

[Crossinger]

Demo for what? An audio editor? I use a different one than headquest. Or - to be more precise - different oneS! For a bunch of offline-FX I still prefer Acoustica:

http://www.acondigital.com/index_english.html

For nostalgical reasons I have a copy of "CoolEdit 2000" on my HD, which unfortunately is discontinued! It's the little brother of the predecessor of Adobe Audition.

And, finally, Steinberg Wavelab Lite 2.0, which came along with an old version of Cubasis. Unbeatable in terms of speed & ease of use, but feature-limited and restriced to 16bit/44KHz.

J.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Crossinger]

No, I don't laugh... Goldwave for sure is one of the "classics".

...but four different audio editors on my system would drive me nuts...

always decisions, decisions, decisions, decisions, ...



J.

[Lunch Money]

Precise surgical edits of audio material. Quicker access to destructive methods of audio manipulation (denoize, compression), faster cut/copy/paste for re-arranging snippets (e.g. loops), easy conversion of file formats... and so on...

- I can't see why you'd prefer destructive for some of these things (denoise for sure, though)
- Re-arranging snippets has GOT to be quicker in Tracktion than any audio editor. I don't get it!
- How much more surgically precise can you get than sample-accurate?
- Easy conversion of file formats-- yup, that's a good one.

You *could* do it with Tracktion, too. But until Tracktion has instant clip-rendering, it is a p.i.t.a. IMHO!

Not sure what you mean by "instant", but selecting a clip and pressing "render" seems pretty instant to me! If you want it to be destructive, just apply the filters to the clip (as mentioned) rather than the track.

I've never used the built-in audio edition functions of a sequencer (even not in my Cubase days). An audio editor is simply so much faster to use for manipulations that I'm willing to use it first, before importing the result into Tracktion.

OK, fair enough. I have to admit, for certain functions I keep turning to audio editors, too (in my case, usually Audacity), but it's mostly for algorithms that I don't have in T, such as noise reduction and de-clicking.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying audio editors aren't handy for some things, I'm just pointing out that there are options from within Tracktion that you may have overlooked.

* also: you probably don't WANT your editor to have ASIO, or it won't be able to operate until you close Tracktion.

* headquest: some very good points-- if I got a commercial editor, it would likely be Audition.

Greg

[quincy]

Isn't kristal a host and not an audio editor?

Yep

[headquest]

Thanks for the answers, Crossinger& Heaequest I'll have to check it out. Is there a demo?

Yep, and it's UNLIMITED for 30 days - i.e. every feature is fully operational, so you can see for yourself how it will fit into your workflow, etc...

Get it from here:

http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/overview.html

(downloads > tryout)

Have fun!

[headquest]

* also: you probably don't WANT your editor to have ASIO, or it won't be able to operate until you close Tracktion.
Greg

An excellent poiint Greg...

Everybody scratch the comments about ASIO drivers earlier in this thread... you really DON'T want them in your editor!

I also wonder whether I get the BEST audio recording results in Audition BECAUSE it doesn't use ASIO drivers? (i.e. larger buffer gives better quality?). I'm not too scientific, so I can't be sure about this... but recording in Audition is fabulous, and I have never had latency issues. (I think the only time you would encounter problems would be if you decided to record MIDI into Reason/FL running as a ReWire slave within Audition as host... that's best avoided!)