is the difference between audacity and it's commercial counterparts (if you could call them that) primarily a matter of features, or is the sound quality an issue as well? it seems pretty straightforward to me that if audacity can handle 44.1khz/16-bit, then wave audio is wave audio. but i'm not an audio pro just yet, and that seems like a pretty big assumption. what are some informed opinions on the matter?

thanks in advance,

charles

soundforge is for me the best of them all for editing .i open it at least once everyday .but when it come to digital mastering or enhancing i prefer wavelab ,it's easier to work with fxs . i still endup finishing the mastering in sounforge .

Anyone use DSP quattro? I was thinking of going with it. I am also using audacity at the moment, but would like to upgrade.

ive been using soundforge for a long time, tried audacity as a simpler alternative hoping it would load quicker for basic tasks ..

but found the audacity interface harder to zoom around on, select, plugins dont show the original interface, functions had less options that were needed

soundforge works really great.

but for straight audio editing, nothing beats the Live arrange grid, i can chop/loop/re-sequence and mangle there easiser than anywhere else.
.

I like Audacity for slicing up/normalizing WAVs for impulse kits.
Seems to do a great job there, although I would have to agree on the difficulty of zooming (Live's zooming interface has me spoiled).

Sound quality wise, it should be no difference for simple operations. Copy/paste/fade in and out/normalize etc. None.

Advanced processing like reverb or timestretch might sound quite a bit different. Probably the commercial packages have an advantage, but it isn't a certainty.

I am in the same boat.
Audiofile Engineering has a new wave editor coming out soon that I am waiting for.
http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/

why do you think this is? is this possible issue independent of the plug-ins being used?

thanks, c

i was eyeballing DSP Quattro for a long time. and even using the free Computer Music magazine DVD version (1.5 SE), but i just picked up Apple Soundtrack Pro and its AMAZING!

you get all the logic pro fx to use. and the editing facilities are much more improved.

so my recommendation is for Soundtrack Pro (especially if you qualify for the $150 EDU discount). If you can't hack the $300 regular price, DSP Quattro is the best choice IMO.

also, Soundforge was always my favorite editor. But i really feel that Soundtrack Pro is the first Mac editor that goes beyond the capabilities of Soundforge. Peak was always a half-assed port from OS9 with no improvements. DSP Quattro got me to about 80% of the pleasure and functionality i had with Soundforge, but ST Pro takes the cake.

Hmmmm..intresting adam. i don't know if i want to spend that right now. DSP quattro is pretty hard to resist at 150 i believe. So if not for soundtrack....DSP would be your pick correct?

absolutely. and it does have one feature ST Pro doesn't. you can use VSTs and AUs, instead of just AUs.

Alright cool. sorrry....one more thing. The main reason for you using ST pro is for the logic fx or is it ease of use, more features, etc.

all of the above really. some of the logic pro fx i'd like to use, but some of those plugs like Space Designer i would never use in a realtime situation. So i just load ST Pro as my sample editor in Live 4, hit the edit button in a clip, it launches the clip into ST Pro and i can throw on some space designer convolution reverb, save it and use it in Live. So basically for me its a good (affordable) work around to using the awesome Logic Pro FX that so many people pay $999 for.

As far as ease of use goes. its pretty much the same as DSP Quattro, and better than Peak.

I use Audacity now i'm on a mac but miss Wavelab that i had on my PC. I gotta check this out. Thanks Adam.