Audio file editor for making samples on Mac?

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Winslow17
Winslow17's picture
Joined: December 29, 2010

I am pretty new to this game (elec. music), wondering what others on Mac use to slice and dice audio files and extract samples for use in AudioMulch and elsewhere. I have a program called Fission, from Rogue Amoeba, which I can recommend for general trimming and manipulation of files, but to zoom in very close, I need to first chop out a rough piece of file, then reload that piece and trim again. So, I am looking for something with more precision. Are there any programs known to be especially good for this kind of thing? Thanks in advance.

Winslow17
Winslow17's picture
Joined: December 29, 2010

I just discovered this article, about Mac audio editors, which is proving useful:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2010/03/wave-editor-competition-lives-with-wavelab-7-for-pc-and-mac/

itisawyatt
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Joined: July 22, 2011

i use audacity. pretty ghetto.

moon-gold
moon-gold's picture
Joined: July 26, 2009

Late to this but agree, Audacity is excellent for so much.

For speedy batch editing and inspiration I use Audio Finder, which costs but is wonderful.
http://www.icedaudio.com/

And lately the sample editing, really, and madness in Sunvox has been inspiring me too:
http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/

drlids
drlids's picture
Joined: December 28, 2009

Late as well, but want to give Audacity the nod, too. Good if you're on a Mac and don't have the readies for Adobe's packages.

Winslow17
Winslow17's picture
Joined: December 29, 2010

Yes, Audacity does seem to do the job, at least my job, which is simple to snip bits of sound for use in the Drums contraption. I had looked at something called Loop Editor, from Audiofile Engineering (they also make Wave Editor) but that seems to be aimed at something AM doesn't do, namely read tags that get embedded in a sound file for a DAW to read. Or something like that. It seems "loop" has a special definition that is not the same as sample. But the Audiofile people declined to explain much of this to me, the novice.

Anyway, Audacity seems to work fine in its latest incarnation. i look forward to slicing and dicing.

revo11
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Joined: March 7, 2011

This is probably outside the scope of Ross's interests, but I'd love to see that a native contraption that can do a bit of audio editing, even if it's rudimentary. Barring that, I wonder if there's a VST that does this (there isn't one that I know of)? It's nice to be able to stay within the self-contained environment of AM...

Ross B.
Ross B.'s picture
Joined: April 11, 2009

> This is probably outside the scope of Ross's interests

I think AM will retain a kind of "non destructive" environment. But I have considered adding some kind of region selection mechanism so that everywhere that currently accepts soundfiles could play regions (sub-ranges) of soundfiles. This is something I would like to do and I have always seen it in the long range evolution of the program.

On the other hand, destructive audio editing is out of scope and will continue to be. If I had infinite time I wouldn't mind making a separate audio editor app. I'm not a huge fan of the direction Adobe have taken Cool Edit in.

paradiddle
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Joined: June 24, 2009

+1 for a region selection mechanism

This would be awesome!

B_Murphy
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Joined: November 9, 2011

Region selection is something I've wanted a few times.
That would be high on my wishlist.