ROUNDUP Audio editors

Roundup Every month we compare tons of , so you don’t have to! AUDIO EDITORS Don’t you just hate it when the purity of minimalist electronica is threatened by the presence of a tune? Why not do what Graham Morrison does and cut it out with an audio editor?

Audio editors aren’t just the applications isn’t quite what you might The remaining editors, Glame, domain of musicians. Sooner expect. We’ve included the biggest WaveSurfer and Freecycle, focus on a OUR SELECTION or later, even normal listeners names, such as and ReZound, specific editing task. Whether it’s for AT A GLANCE would like to edit a radio show, or trim which use the familiar amplitude an ad hoc filter network using Glame, and combine sections of music waveform interface augmented by or loop generation for samplers with Audacity ...... 37 Freecycle together. Used in that context, the dozens of smaller tools for fading and , they all have a slightly Freecycle ...... 37 editor needs to be easy to understand, effects, but there are also a few that different approach. Each editor has its efficient and able to get the job done take a different approach. own unique set of features, but we’ve FreeWheeling ...... 39 without the user requiring too much FreeWheeling, for example, allows judged them on whether these help or Glame ...... 39 specialist knowledge. It’s a similar you to , cut and paste hinder the editing process. There’s no ReZound ...... 40 situation with Gimp, where users are everything in real time while you’re use in providing the world’s best ...... 38 far more likely to be editing their playing the music. It attempts to create distortion sound if you can’t accurately WaveSurfer ...... 40 photos or images on their own a performance out of the editing select the audio you want to apply it to. websites than using it professionally. process. The same is true of Sweep, In the end, the main criterion for This Roundup contains seven audio which may look like a normal editor, judging these editors is that they get editors, all capable of taking your but the cursor actually moves with the job done with the least amount of original sound file and mangling it inertia, playing whatever it passes over hassle; after all, that’s what Gimp has beyond recognition. The selection of as if it were a stylus on a record player. become so good at.

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Audacity One of the most comprehensive editors.

■ VERSION 1.2.3 ■ WEB http://audacity.sourceforge.net ■ PRICE Free under GPL

If you’ve ever edited an audio file compositing vocals, or editing dialogue, using , there’s every chance as you can move, edit and cut sections you’ve used Audacity. It’s one of the across all the channels. more functional and mature editors The audio editing itself is also very available, and this cross-platform well implemented; Audacity’s clever application is extremely popular. Its use of the cursor means that you can design isn’t going to set the world extend selections and loop points alight, but then you could say that using just the mouse. There’s also an about most audio editors and it excellent, non-destructive envelope shouldn’t put you off Audacity, as it’s mode for changing the volume of your perfectly capable of getting some audio over time. You’re free to expand preview available. You could always Amplitude envelopes can easily serious results. and contract each track view, so you use Jack in some way, but it’s still change the volume of the audio The most important feature is the can make the best use of your screen extremely difficult to make subtle over time. multi-track support. It is possible to real estate by enlarging the tracks changes. But without doubt the have up to 16 separate tracks stacked you’re working on. As well as all this, biggest criticism we have with Audacity vertically in the main window, and Audacity keeps a history of every edit has to be the sluggishness of the LINUX FORMAT VERDICT record to any of them at the same you’ve made, and you can move interface. Because of its versatility, the The most functional editor available – time. This makes Audacity feel more backwards, and forwards, through display can take a long time to update, there are few tasks Audacity isn’t capable of. The only thing letting it down is its like a multi-track recording application each edit should you need to retrace and what should be simple things like sluggish feel and quirky interface. than an editor, but it’s this same your steps. moving the playing position are a little approach that has made WaveLab (on Unfortunately, and unlike WaveLab, unintuitive. Otherwise, Audacity is an RATING 5/10 Windows) such an impressive effects can still only be added offline, excellent application for getting the application. It’s a great way of but at least there is a real-time job done.

For many years, an audio around the periphery. As with ReCycle, application called ReCycle has been at the main control is the threshold slider, Freecycle the heart of drum loop creation. and it’s this that’s used to introduce Before ReCycle, you had to alter the the hit points. Lowering the threshold Beat slicing and loop creation. playback speed of a loop to force it increases the number of hit points, into the time signature of the tune you which are drawn as vertical lines ■ ■ VERSION 0.4alpha WEB www.redsteamrecords.com/freecycle/index.php were working on. This changed the across the waveform. You can easily ■ PRICE Free under GPL pitch of the loop, in the same way that see when the hit points correlate with speeding up or slowing down a tape the beat, and you can even remove affects the sound. Too slow, and it individual hit points by right-clicking sounds like an Ent; too fast and it on their small X icons. sounds like a cartoon chipmunk. Beat detection isn’t restricted to Most of the information the brain amplitude threshold. You can also use decodes from a sound is in the initial frequency analysis, or several others attack stage of a waveform, and it’s courtesy of the Aubio library (yes, that this part ReCycle focuses on. By is spelt with a ‘b’), and an envelope finding the starting point of each drum can be created for every slice. Of hit in a drum loop (called the hit course, none of this would be much point), the software is able to cut or use if you couldn’t use the output in add to the tail of each hit, without some way. As with ReCycle, you can altering the frequency. As long as the export your beats in an Akai sample change isn’t too great, you won’t format, or as separate samples that notice, and a vast library of previously can be played using an automatically unusable drum loops can be recycled. generated MIDI file. That’s where Freecycle comes in. Freecycle shares many of its LINUX FORMAT VERDICT features with ReCycle, but also A wonderful tool for slicing up beats; manages to add a few of its own, it just needs a little extra functionality. though both user interfaces look very similar. Most of the main window is RATING 7/10 If you’re familiar with other beat slicing tools, you’ll feel right at home taken up by a waveform display, with with the open source ReCycle clone, Freecycle. many of the main functions scattered

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Real-time performance capabilities may seem a little esoteric, but the Sweep bonus is that for normal editing tasks, the flying cursor makes the whole Fun real-time editor that keeps things simple enough for newbies. application feel very responsive. If Sweep were just an ordinary audio ■ VERSION 0.8.3 ■ WEB www.metadecks.org/software/sweep ■ PRICE Free under GPL editor, it would still be good. It makes such a difference to be able to move around within a file the same way you can with editors for other systems. The user interface is just so responsive, even with large files. Selections can be extended or reduced by dragging the borders, and you can alter the playback speed using a large slider on the right. There are all the usual features you might expect, such as LADSPA effects, although you still can’t preview them in real time. A real editor As with the rest of the app, you can work with the audio file while effects are processing in the background. Multi-channel files are also supported, so you can edit a whole suite of tracks in one go. With such a straightforward application, the only other feature to mention is the comprehensive edit history, allowing you to undo and redo any of your changes. It even has its own window from which you can see It looks benign, but drag the cursor and Sweep comes alive. all your edits, enabling you to revert to and from specific points easily. Sweep is primarily developed by as featureful as something like at different pitches depending on the This is how an audio editor should Conrad Parker under part-sponsorship Audacity or ReZound. But, for the most key you press. It’s almost like sampling, be. It loads and saves all the formats from Pixar Animation Studios and common functions where you’re and being able to drag and skip the you need, and does so quickly. The CSIRO Australia (Australia’s national cutting and pasting the beginning and cursor to differing positions while interface is uncomplicated, and it has scientific research organisation). The end of audio tracks, it’s perfect. playing the audio from each point at every feature you will need for the result of such heavyweight support is a professional design that’s a step ahead of the competition, which is “A PROFESSIONAL DESIGN THAT’S what you’d expect from an editor used at Pixar. A STEP AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION – Sweep is excellent. Unlike nearly all of the other applications in this WHICH IS WHAT YOU’D EXPECT FROM roundup, it is not functionally bloated and slow. It’s fast and efficient. When AN EDITOR USED AT PIXAR.” you first load an audio file, you can see it instantly while the rest of the Like FreeWheeling, but unlike any different pitches could be genuinely majority of editing tasks. But the best waveform loads in the background. other audio editor, Sweep actually has useful for those who like to remix their thing about Sweep is that it’s fast – This is what you need when you’re some real-time performance capability. music. You can even reverse the you don’t have to wait for the user working with audio, this is the way The playback cursor, affectionately playback by pressing a single button. interface to catch up, or for a process hardware used to work and this is how called Scrubby by the developers, can to finish before you can move on. any software replacement should work. be thrown around the amplitude Remix heaven Sweep has been designed to If you’ve used some of the other waveform in the same way you might This makes Sweep an excellent accommodate professionals who need audio editors available for Linux, you move a stylus over a vinyl record. This performance tool, and it’s certainly a that kind of performance, and it shows. may have been left with the means that the audio feels very elastic. lot of fun to use. Run several instances impression that it’s impossible to have As you drag ‘Scrubby’ over the track, of Sweep at the same time, for LINUX FORMAT VERDICT a responsive user interface, but Sweep the output speeds up and slows down example, and the output of all of them This is the only editor that doesn’t seem to will change your mind. You can fly as if the cursor had inertia, and you is mixed automatically. You could have get in the way of the edit. It’s quick and it’s functional and it makes it hard to use through an audio file, select, copy and find yourself skipping the parts of the a drum beat in one, and use another anything else. paste in seconds, and change the waveform you can easily recognise. as an ad hoc sample player, where you waveform magnification without ever You can also use the keys on your could jump between different sections RATING 7/10 having to stop and wait. The Qwerty keyboard to trigger playback of an audio file in time to the beat compromise is that it’s nowhere near of the sound from the cursor position, playing from the other instance.

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FreeWheeling Glame Why not bring a little serendipity to your editing? Established multi-track editor.

■ VERSION 0.5pre4 ■ WEB http://freewheeling.sourceforge.net ■ VERSION 2.0.1 ■ WEB http://glame.sourceforge.net ■ PRICE Free under GPL ■ PRICE Free under GPL

FreeWheeling doesn’t quite fit into stores a looping sample that can be the same category as the other triggered via further presses. Small editors listed here, but it takes such an circular representations of samples are interesting approach that it’s well drawn on to the corresponding key, worth making room for it. The and, like clubland revellers, they all program enables you to remix and edit start to rotate and pulsate in time with your music in real time, either as a the music, a feature that’s supposed to performance or written directly to an help you to trigger the samples in time. Ogg file, and it does this There’s also a clever Synchronise through the most colourful and option that can lock the tempo of all psychedelic user interface since Attack the loops together. Of The Mutant Camels. In fact You could easily end up with a everything – from the title to the mess of sound blasting from your incredibly laid-back video tutorials by speakers, but if you take a more the author – feels rather freewheeling, conservative approach, it does work See how many for want of a better phrase. very well. You can use Jack to audio channels you can edit The big difference between this introduce all kinds of other sounds, or at once. and other audio applications is that tracks, and edit them together in a you can’t load a music file into strangely intuitive way. There’s even a FreeWheeling, not directly anyway. built-in sample player (using Instead, it relies almost entirely on the SoundFonts) that can be triggered via Jack protocol to both feed it with an MIDI and mixed on to a separate Glame has been around for Glame provides dozens of its own audio stream and to drive the output. channel, but all this control can be a long time, and has recently been modules you can connect together, When there is an audio signal on its overwhelming. This is one piece of overhauled to provide support for the including Fast Fourier Transform Jack inputs, the waveform is software you really need to try before Gnome 2.0 desktop. It’s an interesting analysis, echo and distortion effects, as transformed into purple and scrolled you rely on it for a mission-critical edit. piece of software because it doesn’t well as saw, sine and noise oscillators. from right to left across the lower half work in the way you’d expect. It’s nearly as versatile as the Alsa of the screen, and it’s at this point that LINUX FORMAT VERDICT The first window you see when you Modular Synth, and provides almost you can change things. Definitely worth a try for the different start the application is for your audio limitless potential for changing your As you can see from the approach, but don’t expect to get the projects. These are groups of audio audio files beyond recognition. You can hang of it quickly, or to be able to make screenshot, the top half of the screen any fine edits. files you can either record directly into, open the filter network editor while houses a graphical Qwerty keyboard. or import from external files. This is editing your audio files and Glame will When you press one of those keys, RATING 5/10 obviously meant for multi-track automatically create channel inserts so FreeWheeling starts recording. With recording and editing, where you can you can process your file directly, or the next press of the same key, it record from several sources at the you can create a library of new same time and group them into the networks from the project manager. same folder. Editing stereo files may not be You can edit each audio file from Glame’s strength, but its ability to edit either the parent folder or by selecting more than two files at once makes a each file individually. If you edit the real difference. You can easily create a files in a folder they are all included in multi-track project, record-enable the edit window, so you can edit them each track and record from eight at the same time as you would with a separate microphones around a drum multi-track editor. But selecting a kit, for example. You could then single file or a stereo pair means you conjure up a filter network to process get the more usual view. The really all your hard work into a series of interesting part of Glame, though, is beeps and blips, and that’s what the filter network editor. It seems to makes Glame a particularly interesting have become something of a tradition piece of software. with Linux audio applications that the makers need to offer functionality LINUX FORMAT VERDICT over and above the run-of-the-mill The best option if you need to organise a editing tools, and the filter network lot of audio files, and a great filter network. editor is just that. The filter network is basically a RATING 6/10 modular interface for building your Look into my eyes, look into my eyes... own effects, and even synthesizers.

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ReZound feels very like the first Otherwise, ReZound works in a generation of audio editors available pretty straightforward way. The main ReZound for Windows PCs about six or seven view is dominated by the unavoidable years ago. The makers have gone for waveform display, and you can select The best for stereo live recording. stability over bleeding-edge regions using the left and right mouse functionality, and the user interface is button. There are also a number of ■ ■ VERSION 0.12.0beta WEB http://rezound.sourceforge.net so stable it even manages to look like real-time controls, so you can skip ■ PRICE Free under GPL SoundForge, a popular Windows audio though an audio file or change the editor, circa 1999. Despite this, amplification of a meter by scrolling ReZound is definitely one of the better your mouse wheel, or dragging a Linux audio editors available, simply stylised bar. The waveform view is because it works. It doesn’t flinch more responsive than on other editors, when you attempt to load an MP3 or and the zooming speed in particular Ogg file, and you don’t have to spend seems far more efficient than its peers. an eternity waiting for it to generate a The big problem with ReZound is large waveform. that you can only add effects ‘offline’, The main reason you’ll want to try without any preview. This part really ReZound is for its monitoring, as it’s in does feel reminiscent of 1999, and this field that it really comes into its while it is still possible to get good own. The real-time update of the results, those of us who take real-time signal levels, along with a stereo effect changing for granted are going weight indicator, make this an to find it hard going. invaluable tool for checking a final master before burning to a CD or LINUX FORMAT VERDICT uploading to your website. The meters Another strong contender for the most are perfectly synchronised with the featured editor, but excellent monitoring makes ReZound slightly more effective The red lines in the music (something that often evades than Audacity. waveform are from clipping even the best commercial editors), errors where the volume and clipping points, where the volume RATING 6/10 needs lowering. is too high, are clearly labelled as vertical red lines in the waveform. WaveSurfer If you can’t hear the problem, maybe you can see it.

■ VERSION 1.8.3 ■ WEB www.speech.kth.se/ ■ PRICE Free under BSD

WaveSurfer is described as an analysis is also impressive; you’re not audio ‘visualiser’ rather than an audio just restricted to the spectrogram. editor. This doesn’t mean it’s totally Some of the highlights include a pitch bereft of editing tools – it does have contour, for mapping pitch against time rudimentary cut, copy and paste – but for mono signals. It’s also possible to to use it solely for that purpose would plot other signals, such as power and be missing the point. If there are formants on top of a spectrogram, problems with an audio recording, which itself can be modified for either So this is they’re often a lot easier to see than low or wide band analysis. what Milli hear, which is where a visual tool like This may all sound rather technical, Vanilli really this comes in. WaveSurfer was but in reality viewing a spectrogram of looked like. developed at the Centre for Speech an audio file can reveal many Technology (CTT) at the Royal Institute problems without any specialist of Technology in Stockholm to aid knowledge. Noise and hum stick out research there, but don’t worry about like two sore thumbs, as does the but WaveSurfer works instinctively, LINUX FORMAT VERDICT it being too academic: the application frequency range of a recording, which loading and playing large files with is easy to use. are some of the more common ease. If you rely on it for making edits, Not too long ago, this kind of tool would When you load an audio file, you problems. There is also a transcription it can feel a little cumbersome. have cost some serious money. Now you can have a great piece of analytical can view it using several predefined mode, where you can enter words in a Updates are slow, and it’s difficult to software for next to nothing, as long as you profiles, but you can also start with the horizontal strip, and if that’s not know whether the application has know what to do with it. amplitude waveform view. The best enough, you can easily add crashed or is still working, but it’s worth thing about WaveSurfer is that you can functionality using the plugin it for the great visualisation tools. RATING 6/10 add and remove analysis panels as architecture and the provided API. It Analysis like this used to cost good and when you need to. The range looks a little like a Windows application, money, but now it can be yours for free.

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AUDIO EDITORS THE VERDICT

All of the editors in this use a little of each, where you can use than any monolithic application could Freecycle is worth a mention as it Roundup are good at the advantages of one before moving ever hope to. copies an excellent idea and does it something, whether it’s on to another. That’s the great There are several common well; it’s the only option for creating Audacity’s multi-track display or advantage with open source, and it problems with audio editors. They can percussive loops and for use with a WaveSurfer’s incredible visuals. There also means that each editor can take an age to load the original file, sampler or a sequencer, but for may be situations where you need to concentrate on its own niche far better and any processing you perform on general editing it’s obviously not so that file, whether it’s cutting out a useful. The same is true for small section or applying an effect, FreeWheeling, which takes such an can take almost as long as loading the unusual approach you have to give the file in the first place. While you can’t author credit for even coming up with SWEEP reduce the CPU time it takes to the idea in the first place. But when it perform all these actions, you can, to comes down to editing a file and 7/10 a certain extent, hide it in the getting the job done, Sweep just can’t background, and that’s just what be beat. It’s quick and easy for Sweep manages to do so well. beginners to understand, and Sweep is the default audio editor comprehensive enough for more with SUSE for good reason. Loading is demanding tasks. As a result it gets transparent and fast, and the way it the award for the best audio editor in consigns processing to a background our Roundup. LXF task – so you can still work on the audio file – is excellent. This is just what you need when you’re working OVER TO Y on something as interactive as audio OU Unimpressed by editing. After using Sweep, it’s hard to Sweep? Perhaps you’ve had a top ten record using go back to the clunky approach of nothing but a piece of s tring and Audacity or ReZound unless you need a matchbox. Post your opinion What you can’t see in the image is that Sweep lets you drag the cursor of the editors in our over the sound in real time, which is a real boon. some of their more advanced features. Roundup on the LXF forum at www.linuxformat.co.uk . TABLE OF FEATURES

Client Real-time FX Offline FX LADSPA 24-bit Synth MIDI Jack Spectrogram Ogg MP3 Frequency Multi-track Undo–Redo History analysis Audacity ✔✔✔ ✓✔✔✔ ✔ ✔

Freecycle ✔✔✔✔ ✓ FreeWheeling ✔✔✔✓✔ Glame ✔✔✔ ✔ ✔✔✔✔✔ ReZound ✔✔✔ ✓✔✔✔✔✔ ✔ ✔ Sweep ✔✔✔ ✔✔✔ ✔ WaveSurfer ✔✔✔✔✔✔

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