Audiofile Engineering Triumph - mac editor $60

[siliconarc]

crazy bargain audio editor. i really liked Wave Editor 1 (Triumph is the renamed WEv2) but they've really brought it all together for this version. just thought i'd give a headsup before it goes up (to the still very cheap $79.99).

[mholloway]

frankly this move sucked, IMO. Wave Editor worked perfectly for me as it was, now it doesn't exist, and Triumph -- in addition to having an incredibly stupid name -- has a completely different workflow and after messing with the demo for 20 minutes I was both perplexed and angry. Additionally angry because I'm expected to buy this at full cost, despite owning Wave Editor. And then even more angry all over again because the last version of Wave Editor had a HUGE bug on Lion (and this is a Mac only program, mind you) where if you copied any amount of audio from one file to another (which is what I do constantly with the program -- like, it's almost all I do with it, extracting short pieces from long pieces and pasting them into new documents) it inserted an enormous amount of silence before the pasted material (in fact, the amount of silence was equal to how much audio content existed in the file you copied from up to the start-point of the copy... so if I'm sampling a movie, it could sometimes be an hour or more long!). And they never fixed this bug in wave editor, but moved on to Triumph.

So my existing copy of purchased Wave Editor is completely broken, and will never be fixed by Audiofile. And you cannot download (legally) previous versions that didn't have the major bug they never fixed.

And I don't want triumph, but my only (legal) option is shell out the cash for the new program, since there is no upgrade pricing for Wave Editor users (granted, it's a cheap program, but still, this is bullshit).

I was therefore forced into pirating an older version of a program I had already purchased, just so the program I bought would actually *work correctly* and I wouldn't have to pay money to this company for their totally new program that I never asked for.

What a Triumph!!

boo.

[siliconarc]

OOF
i never fully got to grips with WE1 so saw this and tried the demo. really clicked with me, and it deals with DDP export & import which i need for authoring cds for pressing plants etc, for a bafflingly low price in comparison to other DDP apps. sucks about leaving old bugs unresolved n that, though.. pff...

[stringtapper]

I went for it while it was cheap(er) because I need something new since Bias folded. I never got along with WE's workflow and I'm still having trouble with Triumph. It's just not very intuitive when it comes to simple actions like operating the transport and simple editing. I'll try a bit more but I may have to see how SoundForge for Mac is looking.

[fishmonkey]

unfortunately i also have a bit of a negative vibe about Audiofile Engineering, because in my experience they don't provide good support for their products, and i also think their upgrade policy sucks.

DSP-Quattro is also inexpensive and very good and the dev is actually a friendly human being.

[Tarekith]

I've been using it for awhile, and I'm still on the fence about some aspects too. I really liked WE for just about everything I do in mastering. It had a few bugs that got introduced in Mountain Lion (not being able to import audio as consecutive layers), but for the most part I have a very efficient workflow with it.

The one thing it really sucked at though, was CD assembly. Moving layers around, along with their effects and markers was tedious at best. And that's the one thing that Triumph is really good at now!

I like some parts of the new version, being able to save custom preset chains is great, and having it full screen and not just floating windows is MUCH better. Plug in automation is very handy, if slightly unintuitive since most of the shapes you need to start with are fade ins or outs. The fact that changes to plug ins now 'dirty' the program is very welcome from a mastering perspective, as is the much easier to read metadata entry methods. Personally I'm a big fan of the Audiofile guys, they've been extremely nice and very responsive whenever I needed to contact them (as long you don't use their forum).

The two things I don't like about Triumph mainly are:

- The reliance on scripting for just about any action you want. I think it's cool that Triumph supports custom apple scripts if that's what people are into, I just find it annoying that all the basic editing functions are presented that way. You need to do a LOT of scrolling to find what you need, there's no way to collapse or delete the scripts it comes with right now.

You can write your own scripts, but I found that for me it got way too complicated for anything remotely useful I'd want. Just give me simple editing commands somewhere please, let us chose which ones we want to see and in what order they are

- The Rendering process is terrible now. I thought the old Save, Save As, Save To, Export etc functions in WE were kind of goofy, but this is a whole new level of annoying for me. Having to jump through multiple screens each time and Triumph doesn't remember your previous selection for all the choices like WE did.

Plus it doesn't default to a sensible name anymore, everything is Workspace 1 or something. You can't even highlight a file while choosing the save location to grab that name like just about every other OSX app works, you need to manually retype it each time. And why do we always have to save a copy of the render in the Triumph project, as well as location on disk we specify? It really breaks my workflow and adds a lot more tedious steps to something I do 20+ times a day, if not more.


Oh yeah, no MP3 support anymore either, which would have been really helpful now that we can run multiple renders at once.


Anyway, for now I'm still mainly using WE for when I have to edit single files/tracks. I too hope that the recognized bugs get one last bug fix update so I'm not stuck using the latest beta forever. I reach for Triumph when I need to work with multiple tracks or files at once, things like CD assembly and meta data creation.

Not trying to sound all whiny about it though, it really is a great steal for the price. You get Izotope dithering, noise reduction tools, and sample rate conversion for that too. Hard to beat that.

[Machinesworking]

DSP-Quattro is also inexpensive and very good and the dev is actually a friendly human being.

+1 DSPQ is perfect for my needs.

[timothyallan]

I use WE for simple things like dithering and SRC, but the workflow for doing anything remotely complicated is balls.

[rekloos]

Sounds like anotha half ass job.
Really, WE never got beyond its shortcomings which I could spend
a few paragraphs on, and when I first heard they're dropping it all together for the new os I was stunned.
I mean really, a lot of us have been waiting for promised fixes and features ( wtf is the deal with that lame
recording meter??) for what, 3-4 yrs now? Really basic stuff, nothing extravagant, and now it'll never happen.
Tarekith, I hear what ur sayin about dithering, conversion, and such, and I believe they had some great ideas
overall but that's like having a BMW engine inside a yugo that has no power steering- have fun driving that thing around...

Really disappointed with AE, could have been such a great product, had so much potential.
And the pricing.... really? Want me to pay full price? Again?Another 60 bucks on top of my 150 I payed originally? I'm back to DSPQ, not giving them a penny!

[mholloway]

DSP-Quattro is also inexpensive and very good and the dev is actually a friendly human being.

Just demo'd this and very impressed so far! Thanks for the heads up -- I think this might be exactly what I need.

-M

[madlab]

What is the number version with that bug ?

frankly this move sucked, IMO. Wave Editor worked perfectly for me as it was, now it doesn't exist, and Triumph -- in addition to having an incredibly stupid name -- has a completely different workflow and after messing with the demo for 20 minutes I was both perplexed and angry. Additionally angry because I'm expected to buy this at full cost, despite owning Wave Editor. And then even more angry all over again because the last version of Wave Editor had a HUGE bug on Lion (and this is a Mac only program, mind you) where if you copied any amount of audio from one file to another (which is what I do constantly with the program -- like, it's almost all I do with it, extracting short pieces from long pieces and pasting them into new documents) it inserted an enormous amount of silence before the pasted material (in fact, the amount of silence was equal to how much audio content existed in the file you copied from up to the start-point of the copy... so if I'm sampling a movie, it could sometimes be an hour or more long!). And they never fixed this bug in wave editor, but moved on to Triumph.

So my existing copy of purchased Wave Editor is completely broken, and will never be fixed by Audiofile. And you cannot download (legally) previous versions that didn't have the major bug they never fixed.

And I don't want triumph, but my only (legal) option is shell out the cash for the new program, since there is no upgrade pricing for Wave Editor users (granted, it's a cheap program, but still, this is bullshit).

I was therefore forced into pirating an older version of a program I had already purchased, just so the program I bought would actually *work correctly* and I wouldn't have to pay money to this company for their totally new program that I never asked for.

What a Triumph!!

boo.

[rikhyray]

That is really disappointing, we all like to support smaller companies, but here is the case of them throwing away trust and respect of so few customers they ever had.
I started using WE after my beta Audition expired. After few months it started to get on my nerves (bugs) and so got proper Audition, and have not used WE since. The problem with Adobe products is that they pricing is attractive only if you buy suits. Cool Edit was always good software but rewriting they did for Mac turned it into the fastest editor of them all, rendering etc is stunning fast. Also GUI is the, most ergonomic of all editors I used, done by some people with brains. As much as I liked Vegas, never understood why many people are so enthusiastic about Soundforge, when on PC I preferred Wavelab , now both are available for Mac, so finally all 3 top, formerly PC only, editors are available for OSX.

[mholloway]

What is the number version with that bug ?

1.5.7 (and only on Lion, I believe, but not sure)

[analogcabin]

Wave Editor was a better workflow. Triumph just drives me nuts. Not intuitive at all. It seems like everything takes longer than it needs to.
The price is about right, but whew...... no one 2 track editor for Mac hits all the right spots.

[digid]

Can't use it because of two things: doesn't support VST plug-ins, and doesn't support 32-bit plugins with non-cocoa user interface when running Triumph in 32-bit mode. For me, that represents a lot of plug-ins ...

It's looking more and more like Adobe Audition will be the software that picks up the pieces after Bias folded.