Hi. I have spent days looking at the descriptions of different apps, reading about different apps and listening to podcasts on different apps. I am trying to decide what audio editing app I should get for my Mac but I can't choose so I need your help. Here are some things that I do not need the app to do. I am not into making my own music so I don't need an app with instruments and stuff like that built in. Here are some things I do need the app to do. Cut out parts of audio files, merge audio files together and be able to merge them overlapping or not overlapping, convert between .mp3, .wav, .m4a, .aiff, .aiff and .caf. Something that I would like the app to do but if it can't that will not be a deal breaker is I want it to be able to adjust the volume of the right and left channels separately so I can make a sound louder on the left and quieter on the right. Like I said, I am not trying to make music, I just want to be able to convert and edit audio. However, I have a bunch of music files in .m4a and .wav that I want to convert into .mp3. I also have a bunch of .aiff and .caf sound files I want to convert to either .wav or .mp3. I record all kinds of sounds from doors opening and closing to rain falling to cars starting up and driving to anything else you can think of and I want to be able to edit out the parts at the beginning and end where I start and stop the recorder. I also do podcasts and want to be able to edit out long pauses and if the phone rings in the recording and stuff like that. Also, if I miss something when I am recording I want to be able to make another audio file and paste it where it needs to go. I just need this app for converting and editing. I am not planning on recording with this app, I will be using a different device other then the Mac for recording. With all of that out of the way, the apps I have looked into are: Garage Band, Pro Tools, Logic, Amadeus Pro, and Fission. Out of those I think I should get either Amadeus Pro or Fission. The problem with those is the descriptions of both Amadeus Pro and Fission both say they can edit and convert, but the podcast on Amadeus Pro I found only demonstrates editing and does not demonstrate converting so I do not know if converting in Amadeus Pro is accessible. The podcast I found on Fission only demonstrates converting and does not demonstrate editing so I do not know if the editing is accessible in Fission. From what I can tell, Garage Band, Pro Tools and Logic are partly accessible but can be hard to use at times and also either do not have all the features for what I am trying to do or are too advanced and just overkill for what I am trying to do and Amadeus Pro and Fission are more accessible, easier to use and have more of the features I want. Now my questions are: 1. For those of you who have used both Amadeus Pro and Fission, are both editing and converting both accessible on both the apps? 2. Which of those do you think I should get or do you think I need a combination of more then 1 of them to accomplish all the tasks I have outlined? 3. Do you have any other app suggestions other then the ones I listed? 4. do you think my evaluations of the apps accessability and features are true or not? Thank you.
Comments
Amadeus pro, I think
Hi there.
Well, I haven't tried Fission. Anyways, as you said, Garage band and Pro tools are focused on composing and mixing music tracks.
Amadeus pro is capable of cuting, and pasting audio, and you can convert from many formats as easy as a classical "save as" in Windows: just select file/save and choose your output format.
Audacity is capable of some (if not all) of that, but it's a little harder to deal with its accessibility. On the other hand, it's free.
Batch Converting?
Can Audacity batch convert? I forgot to say that is also something I need. I do not want to convert files 1 at a time.
Audacity
I use audacity, but with a PC. I mainly use it for editing podcasts including adding bumper clips and clipping/cutting the vocals. It has multiple channel capability. I am not sure if it is available for Mac. If so, it is free and will do everything you want it to. The PC version is very user friendly and accessible. If you do choose it... please post your findings on using it with VO. Good luck.
About audacity
Good morning,
Yes, audacity has a feature called "chain effects" that is in fact bach processing. However, remember that audacity it's not the most friendly app on its Mac version, it may require a little practice and some workarounds. It's free, so try and ask anithing.