Discuss the various methods you use in music production, from compressor settings to equipment type.
By Deta!L Thu Sep 15, 2005 3:42 am
I just got a new apple and am looking to get rid of my PC because it's old as hell and the hard drive whines. The main thing I do is chop and edit all my samples before sending them to my MPC, looking for a program to do the same thing on the mac with.

I know there is a program that lets you run windows programs on the mac, but I don't think the Mac Mini can handle that stuff.

thanks in advance

By tse83 Thu Sep 15, 2005 4:24 am
i usually use recycle for my chopping..

but if you don't got that u could use that free program audacity and chop with that..theres also this other program i use called Sound Studio..its dope for recording samples from wax...real simple.

By djdata Thu Sep 15, 2005 6:26 am
Echo that. Definitely ReCycle is the thing for chopping with.

For general purpose stuff I use DSP-Quattro, it's cheap, works great, etc. etc. Way better than Peak IMHO. Doesn't have a chop function but if you want that and a bunch of other looping-type things you want ReCycle anyway.
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By Lampdog Thu Sep 15, 2005 7:02 am
BIAS PEAK is THEE equivalent to Sound Forge on the MAC.

By lo-fi Thu Sep 15, 2005 7:21 am
Lamp's right. And it's a sweet program too.

By arctec Thu Sep 15, 2005 10:39 am
another vote for peak - it's it.

but look for audacity too, which is a freeware editor.
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By featherboy Thu Sep 15, 2005 11:50 am
Go to http://www.versiontracker.com

Then search for: audacity, amadeus & audiofinder

Amadeus is my favourite basic stereo editor, partly because I find the visual display of the waveform clearest compared to other things I've tried. I'm not too keen on Audacity although it is free & you can do multitracking on it, which is one feature Amadeus lacks. AudioFinder is essential if you have a large sample library & it can do basic editing & now has a recycle-type slicing feature.

By djdata Thu Sep 15, 2005 7:42 pm
Sorry, I just don't dig on Peak -- BIAS pissed me off a while back and something about the way the program works didn't agree with me. But it's all about what feels right.

Amadeus is pretty cool though not so powerful as some of the others, but I haven't tried it in a while.

There's also a new program out called Wave Editor. Can't use it right now 'cause I haven't gone to Tiger yet, but I've heard a lot of really good things about it on osxaudio:

http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/wave_editor.php

By j-no Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:40 pm
Apple Soundtrack.
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By Remedial Thu Sep 15, 2005 10:34 pm
The Beat Conductor wrote:Audactiy is a **** piece of ****! :roll:


Audacity has its uses.

For example, when I'm creating a mix from mp3's, Audacity allows me to save the mix without having to re-encode the entire file every time I want to save. Peak nor Soundforge allows this.

Additionally, Audacity, like an Apex DVD player, will open any file you throw at it. I've had both Recycle and Peak refuse to open up files that Audacity simply smiled and opened.

As for Peak, it's cool, but trying to highlight a portion of a file is a HEADACHE. Whereas in Soundforge you can grab the right portion of the highlighted section and just drag it further right, in Peak, you have to hold down shift and click at the spot where you want the highlight to end. If anyone knows what I'm speaking about, then you know that you may spend a lot of unnecessary time trying to highlight a section.

Also, unlike Sounforge (once again), Peak doesn't give you any alternate algorithms to choose from during timestretching. Soundforge let's you choose between six different algorithms, whereas Peak seems to only have one (with a variable slider for quality).

Additionally, to save you the wasted time looking for it, the timestretch function in Peak is referred to as Change Duration.

I don't know why Sony doesn't port Soundforge to the Mac. I hate having to go back to my PC for Soundforge's ease of use. They also need to work on version 8, because when I tried it, it was buggy as hell.

Lastly, I haven't used DSP Quattro, but I have heard good things, such as being able to load up a VST/AU instrument and record your playing. Don't know if Peak 5 might have this, but 4 surely doesn't. If DSP can also quantize the piece, then I would have to say bump opening Logic until it is ultimately necessary.

That's my 0.02.