Good free/cheap wave editor ?

OK, so after 15 years my 'Quistgard' enabled Cool Edit appears to pretty much given up the ghost (I need to reinstall it every time I need to use it !) and so am finally thinking of moving to another wave editor.

I know about Audacity and Wavosaur and although they were OK, they didn't really feel fully featured enough to be a viable alternative

The main features I require are -

-Low memory/hard disk footprint (so it'll load pretty much instantly)

-Super fast scrolling, zooming of the waveform (the scroll whel for X-Y zooming in Cool Edit is an absolute godsend for zoning right into individual samples in virtually an instant)

-Doesn't need to support multiple symultaneous wavs like a DAW (I have Reaper for that sort of thing) as it's function will be for analysis & mastering of a final waveform

-Has spectral analysis and general statistical analysis of the file

-Noise reduction, dithering and resampling tools

-Pitch and/or time stretching, and if possible variable pitch/time stretching (i.e. starts at normal speed and gradually gets faster/slower)

- DC offset and audio filtering (eg. subsonic reduction, ground-hum reduction) would definitely be nice

Erm, I think that's all I need anyway. I mean I could go for Audition but buh it seems so soo bloated in comparison to what CoolEdit did for it's quaint install size. Plus it's bloody 'spensive !

EDIT: Actually is Adobe Audition CS2 still free as a result of Adobe's big cockup with turning off their authentication servers ? Which was the version that stopped being effectively being a bug fixed Cool Edit and ended up being the sprawling mess that it is nowadays ?

Yeah, Adobe Audition is essentially CoolEditPro after Adobe bought it and re-branded it.

Dunno if it's still free, but I am sure you can quickly find out

I could've completely imagined it but I seem to remember there being a code split at some point which got rid of a lot of the things that made CoolEdit work so nicely. John Ehrlichman I think knows about it - I'm trying to find the post....

The free Adobe Audition was a hiccup and they fixed it shortly after.

PS. Anyone who praises Audacity will get a slap in the face.

I like Audacity. It is Nice.

*sticks chin out*

  On 8/7/2013 at 7:44 PM, hello spiral said:

I like Audacity. It is Nice.

 

*sticks chin out*

I'll slap the shit out of you - but first, dinnner.

the goldwave free license promotion still has until the end of august http://forum.watmm.com/topic/78744-goldwave-turns-20-4-month-free-license/

Audacity is all I've ever used and it's never let me down.

*Bares face*

well, if it's not wavosaur..hmm..you could try waveshop

http://waveshop.sourceforge.net/index.html

semi cheap usual suspects:

wavelab elements 7/8

sony sound forge audio

edu version or sale..~50$

  On 8/7/2013 at 8:14 PM, Squee said:

 

  On 8/7/2013 at 7:44 PM, hello spiral said:

 

I like Audacity. It is Nice.

 

*sticks chin out*

I'll slap the shit out of you - but first, dinnner.

Ooh, dinnner!

Never had that before!

*picks something nice (but not too slutty) from

wardrobe*

  On 8/7/2013 at 8:47 PM, RadarJammer said:

the goldwave free license promotion still has until the end of august http://forum.watmm.com/topic/78744-goldwave-turns-20-4-month-free-license/

wavosaur

  On 8/7/2013 at 10:41 PM, robotrobot said:

wavosaur

I'd say goldwave too, especially if "cheap" > "free"

I use audacity for throwing mixes together and wavosaur for recording and they are a-ok for those tasks, I wouldn't consider them good wav editors though.

Fuck me, a 7.8mb download - now that's what I'm talking about !

if you are trying to avoid pirating I can understand, but Soundforge is a great editor too and i don't think it's sold anymore. It's probably the best PC/windows based one besides cooledit. They took away the old effects algorithms in Adobe Audition to a certain extent. I noticed in the very newest one 'CC' they added a few back in or let you have the option to turn on Izotope (which i can't stand) or Auditon algorithms. The problem is just a lot of essential stuff is now missing, like the old draw a pitch envelope resampler/pitch shifter effect. Even the pop/click eliminator doesn't sound as good as it used to.

  On 8/7/2013 at 10:51 PM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 8/7/2013 at 10:41 PM, robotrobot said:

wavosaur

See post #1 - I have tried it but it's not really good enough features wise (or gui wise) for my needs.

That'd be me then !

Sorry to waste your time. I really like wavosaur but I'm going to have to accept the fact you are looking for something else. I hope you find what you are looking for.

i tried recently to download the free sony acid express, and i regret it now since i had to join the acid planet forum, which is a ghost town, the graphic design felt creepier than mcdonald's and i had to REGISTER the free program before i could find out how bad it sucked, and the whole experience made me feel dirty.

it's really sad to see sound forge go that way. it really blows that you cant buy say, an old version of sound forge, cause thats all anybody really needs anyway.

i hope wavosaur could step up their game a bit more and just LOOK at an old copy of SF6 to get an idea of how a proper wave editor should work, including the 20 year old dsp stuff like an envelope controlled pitch bend, a concept such that eludes modern dsp programming experts even today.

should make a kickstarter for some programmer to remake audacity with cooledit type of interface and features and effects. redo the gui and put some taste into choosing effects and adding previews. definitely needs a bpm and bar and beat counts. these are basic features available in most commercial software so copyright shouldnt be an issue

  On 8/8/2013 at 12:13 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

if you are trying to avoid pirating I can understand, but Soundforge is a great editor too and i don't think it's sold anymore. It's probably the best PC/windows based one besides cooledit. They took away the old effects algorithms in Adobe Audition to a certain extent. I noticed in the very newest one 'CC' they added a few back in or let you have the option to turn on Izotope (which i can't stand) or Auditon algorithms. The problem is just a lot of essential stuff is now missing, like the old draw a pitch envelope resampler/pitch shifter effect. Even the pop/click eliminator doesn't sound as good as it used to.

well, it's still available but bundled/slightly bloated..quite a steal though..~ £23

sound forge @ amazon.co.uk

Is there an editor (other than CoolEdit obviously !) that can do this -

i.e. you can highlight a section (or the whole wav) set the initial and final stretch ratio (or specify exact length), then choose pitch, time or resampling stretch types ?

It looks like Goldwave can do the resampling one using the doppler tool (which is really quite nice) but not the other two

unfortunately nothing else I've used besides Cooledit can do all 3 as elegantly and configurable. It's a shame really because time stretching with splice frequency and overlapping down to a .001 decimal place is quite useful and great for getting exactly the kind of sound you want.

Which version of Coolediit is the version to get? Sounds really good