Wave Editors around $300

I'm looking for some consensus on wave editors particularly with innovative editing functionality the same way Cakewalk has mastered MIDI editing. I have an Alesis I/O 26 that does OK with Sonar 7HS, and great with Audition 1.5, but abysmal with ver. 3.0 (BSOD CITY...DON'T GO THERE!). So, considering the incompatibility with Audition 3.0, I'm window shopping (no pun intended) for a good wave editor that has multitrack capability. I looked at SoundForge, and worked with ver. 6 about 10 yrs. ago before they had multitrack capability. I also looked at M-Audio's ver. of Pro-Tools. I just wanted to get a feel for any consensus for any pkgs around $300 (street) that experienced folks here have worked with that has no driver glitches, and a lot of editing functionality. I'm not so concerned about FX since I've got more than I can shake a stick at already, and I'm sure whatever I get will have plenty of good ones anyway. MIDI editing is not a priority either since Sonar does that better than any I've seen, and I'm too old a dawg to change that trick.

BTW, tell any and all friends that are considering Audition or Adobe in ANY version, not to go there. I'm having to wait 2 weeks just to get my card credited back for a download purchase. Furthermore, their customer service is all foreign outsourcing, and you might as well be talking to a robot.

Tanx,
KC

Steinberg's WaveLab 6 is on sale right now at some places. The list is currently $549, but I'm sure you can find it much cheaper than that from some online retailers. WaveLab is, and has been for some years now, one of the best audio editing packages in the world. I highly recommend it, even if you have to go a bit higher than $300 to get it. Do some online price comparisons.

I also agree with Mike above in his comments about Sound Forge.

(And don't tell anybody, but I still use the old Cool Edit Pro 2 [the predecessor to Adobe Audition that was made by Syntrillium before they sold out to Adobe] once in a while. I don't think you can buy it anymore, since it's so old, but it runs just fine under Vista with UAC disabled and in XP compatability mode.)

AMAZING how well ALL of us agree on SO many pts. I too, had Cool Edit 1.0, and cried like a baby when Adobe bought them out, and I now know I had good reason to, due to their refund policy. Not that I don't thoroughly enjoy working in Au 1.5, and 3.0 felt good too, but something in the development stage did NOT agree with my Alesis. Apparently they were developed at about the same time, so there was no way to test them on each other.

SoundForge? I felt the same way you guys did.

I just took a look at WaveLabs 6 Studio ($299) and it appears quite impressive. That does seem to be the pkg that's a step above the others.

Now, I need to figure a way I can sell my body to science to pay for it.

Tanx,
KC

BitFlipper,

By incompatibility, I didn't mean with Sonar, I meant with my Alesis I/O 26.

Wavelab. The ''Essentials'' version is only $100+. Check to see if you can live without the differences found in Wavelab 6. Otherwise, I can't tell you how amazing this program is. Plus, you get a full-fledged Mastering program!

The thing about Wavelab is that it has the most powerful analysis tools. If you find your self searching down errors and glitches Wavelab has the very best search and decide what to do tools.

It's my impression that Audition and Sound forge have identical analysis capability although it's presented in different ways...I purposefully purchased the license to Sound Forge 9 ( I also had an old old version from a ACID 1 purchase) because some folks expressed a preference for it's high powered analysis tools... which I immediately recognized as only duplicating what I was accustomed to in Audition.

It made me wonder if people who prefer Soundforge have spent much time in the other 2 programs... because the claims of unique features I had heard seemed to not really describe unique features. No biggie... it just made me wonder.

So to me those programs should be compared with an eye for for whatever gui you prefer... otherwise they seem very similar. Soundforge does have the pencil tool... but Wavelab's pencil is more comfortable too use.

Wavelab, however goes far beyond both of those programs in it's ability to let you use the analysis tools to move through a file and consider each instance of an issue and let you make the best decision... and that's a huge benefit should you find yourself trying to do that sort of work.

anyways, there all good it just depends what you enjoy or need.

best regards,
mike

The thing about Wavelab is that it has the most powerful analysis tools. If you find your self searching down errors and glitches Wavelab has the very best search and decide what to do tools.

Mike, you've piqued my interest. Although I am quite comfortable with Audition, I'm always open to alternatives. Could you perhaps elaborate a little on this? Maybe a screenshot or two?

EDIT:
Uh, never mind. The dongle is a deal-killer for me.

Bit,
It's just a dialog box where you can "find" the next glitch... it shows you the glitch... you can set a marker or fix it immediately, manually by hand with the pencil or automatically with some presets if you into that sort of thing.

It's a lot of work but at least the part the computer can do the finding and presenting the glitches automatically so you save a lot of time that way.

It very much like find next (F3) in a text file.

best regards,
mike

By incompatibility, I didn't mean with Sonar, I meant with my Alesis I/O 26.

I was going to suggest trying the ASIO driver instead of the Adobe driver, so I pulled up Audition and did that and guess what? Audition crashed! I put it back to "Audition 3.0 Windows Sound" and all is well again.