Ableton Forum

Wavelabs been my editor since old goldwave.

It is WAY quicker to edit in than Ableton for a number of reasons:

- Dedicated editing tools for level adjustments, FX processing, editing and zooming
- Large uncluttered wave display windows
- Quicker navication with mouse when editing fine details
- easy to add silence at start/end of files for pre/post fx processing

Wavelab also has tools for finding glitches and pops in audio (great for recordings from vinyl) and a good pencil tool for scrubbing out pops, clicks and peaks. Always served me well and I could never try and do the editing in ableton except for simple loops.

If someone could indulge me; What are some of the advantages of using a dedicated sample editor?

I apologize in advance for such a basic question.

Windows - Sound Forge
OS-X - Peak

I wish Sound Forge was available for OS-X - by far the best audio editor out. Wavelab is okay but clumsy IMO. Each to their own though.

anybody human wrote:If someone could indulge me; What are some of the advantages of using a dedicated sample editor?

I apologize in advance for such a basic question.

Uh, I rattled off a few but I guess there's more:

- easily focus and compare edited and unedited samples
- create much more precise loops and edits
- change gains, swap channels, mix to mono, convert between formats and bitrates
- large wave display windows
- simple cut/paste and edit functions for waveforms
- personal choice.

If you need fine editing controls it's just easier.

jestermgee wrote:

anybody human wrote:If someone could indulge me; What are some of the advantages of using a dedicated sample editor?

I apologize in advance for such a basic question.

Uh, I rattled off a few but I guess there's more:

- easily focus and compare edited and unedited samples
- create much more precise loops and edits
- change gains, swap channels, mix to mono, convert between formats and bitrates
- large wave display windows
- simple cut/paste and edit functions for waveforms
- personal choice.

If you need fine editing controls it's just easier.

Yeah you did, thanks man.

Can you draw envelopes or Bezier Curves on the waveform? For instance, to shorten a drum sound and then export it as a new sound file? Thanks.

Sure can. Think of a dedicated sound editor like paintshop. You can do pretty much what you like to waveforms.

i have soundforge and like it... like a previous poster mentioned it comes with CD Architect and some decent plugs for mastering and such. the price was fairly low and i got a bigger discount for buying version 9 just a few days before 10 was released.

you can chop samples in Ableton sure, but you can't get in there like you can with a dedicated editor. it's not even close. besides, like yet another poster mentioned you can do all this chopping without hogging Live's resources (4 GB RAM cap) in the process.

lastly... i got Soundforge because leedsquietman (RIP) recommended it, but not before a lengthy post explaining what he thought the advantages were.

I miss Leeds.

If you're talking a sample editor for samples to load into Sampler/Kontact/EXS24 etc. then nothing beats Keymap Pro.
http://www.redmatica.com/Redmatica/Keymap_Pro.html

I just repeat

Wavelab
NI Kontakt

I've used various wave editors. Part of the reason I started using Ableton is because of what you can do to manipulate audio. Ableton can be used as a wave editor. In my humble option Ableton is not just a DAW but the Ultimate wave editor as well.

I have to agree with Machinesworking as well. If you are looking to edit samples and load into Kontakt EXS24 etc. Redmatica's Keymap Pro is a great sample or wave editor provided you are using a Mac.

There's so much you can do to the way that a sample plays back in Ableton with clips, clip envelopes, Sampler etc I rarely have a need to "edit" the sample itself. Even cropping a sample I rarely see a need for when I can just do something like change the start & end points of the sample within a clip or in sampler. Editing samples & saving them as new files just seems like extra steps to get to the same result, when most things can be done non-destructively within a Live set.

There might be a few oddball things that can be done to a sample destructively which cannot be done eddectively non-destructively. But off the top of my head I cannot think of what those would be.

Is an editor still recommended?
And is SoundForge the overall winner now, since it came to osx?

I used to use Wavelab, but am on Soundforge now. Mostly for reasons of cost. The two are preferable but in terms of ease of use, flexibility, and good mastering plugins, Wavelab seemed to have the edge. But for my limited uses, there's little difference, and Wavelab is really expensive.

I would love to use Soundforge for my Mac as well, but they want me to pay for a full new install