Freeware/Shareware DIGITAL AUDIO EDITORS ---------------------------------------- (C)1993 IdMEDIA & Francois Dion Rev: 1.0 Email: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA Postal: IdMEDIA c/o Francois Dion C.P. 312 St-Lambert, QC Canada, J4P 3P8 This is the first revision of the F/S DAE list. It will be updated when i get an new version of a software or new software. A commercial DAE list will also be available shortly. Reviewed here are all the freeware/shareware wave editors with at least recording, playback and editing functions that can handle 16 bit audio files and works on any soundcard with a windows wave driver. Some can only handle one opened file at a time (Cool, wave works, wham), the others from 2 and up but none of them can record/play on hard disk, they all require the use of RAM. All the applications support correctly .wav (except for wave works) and some can even decompress u-law files (Wham on .au files) or ADPCM files (Cooled on .wav files with MS_ADPCM). Some applications also let you edit the RIFF info (creator, style etc...). Reviewed: Cool waveform editor 1.21 Goldwave 1.00 NoiseMaster 2.0 Wave Works 1.1 WHAM 1.31 Audio Lab 1.1 was not reviewed because it doesn't support 16 bits, Sound Tools 3.3 because it doesn't support windows 3.1 multimedia audio and Surf 1.1 because i couldn't get any sound out of 16 bit wav files. Hopefully updates will be made to these because they have some functions that could be interesting (noise gate, ring modulator, chorus, reverb, touch tones, etc...). I also hope that this will push the different authors to ameliorate their software. All of these files can be found on: archive.epas.utoronto.ca in pub/pc/ultrasound or in some case on: ftp.cica.indiana.edu in pub/pc/win3 Cool Waveform Editor 1.21 (cooled.zip) ------------------------- This software was very hard to review, since i tried the unregistered version. It will work on 30 seconds wave files (or a certain length also, so you may get more or less than 30 seconds on certain files, curiously), so i tested it with 30 seconds or less files. Longer files will produce strange results. I 'll register it, so i'll do another review of it, registered (because there are some weird bugs that i suppose are caused by the program beeing not registered and having a 30 seconds limit). First of all, the strenght of this program are the effects. You have the basic effects like echo, amplify, maximise volume etc., but even these basic effects have full of options that makes them far more powerful than on any other software. For example you can specify different parameters from beginning to end of file. On top of that, the transform menu includes: reverse, equalise, amplify, echo, flange, wave(theta waves), channel mixer(stereo files), invert, special efx, stretch, enveloppe, delay and you can silence the selection. There is also a noise generator (pink, white or brown) and a function generator which is not as flexible as Goldwave's since you cant type directly the equations, but is far simpler to use. You can select the function, the stereo phasing, the volume, the harmonics etc... The editing has all the functions that one would expect, including a trim function that will cut everything *not* hilited. The zoom is straightforward and there is even a possibility to loop the sample, but you cant modify the loop points. You'll have to press stop, then play again (Noisemaster does the same thing). There lacks the sample rate conversion, mono<->stereo and 8<->16 bit conversion, but it's the only option lacking. You can adjust the DC bias, compose music with samples on a graphical score (like a baby Csound with a user interface), and there is also a CD player, cue list and play list, and it can uncompress ADPCM files so you can edit them and then will save it back in ADPCM! On the minus side, you can only work with one file at a time, so cut and paste between different files is almost impossible (and also since there is no way to do sample rate conversions it's even harder...). It also is limited by RAM so you wont be able to have very big samples loaded. MY CONCLUSION: this software is ideal to create new samples for MOD files or other tracker formats (like the newer 32 channel 16 bit formats) or for Gravis Ultrasound patches. For these, the RAM limitation is not a problem, nor having only one file opened at a time. At 10$US registration this is definitely worth registering! Goldwave 1.00 (goldwave.zip) ------------- This software has the basic effects like echo, fade out, amplify, maximise volume, invert and reverse. It also has a function genera- tor (the only program with cooled that permits you to generate waveforms as you want. Cooled is easier to use but has some limita- tions. See next section) and some extended edition functions like playback rate and silence (the generator, silence and rate are, strangely enough, under effects and not edit). The editing is quite good, lacking only a trim function and a looping playback of a selected zone. Goldwave also makes good use of 2 button mouse for editing to set the selection. Good zooming capabilities and transparent mono<->stereo conversions and sample rate conversions with tape splicing or mixing makes Goldwave the easiest and one of the most powerful waveform editor for windows. In fact, i would nominate this program as the best in both share- ware and professional software if it had the special effects of cooled (like stretch or efx), but most importantly, if the program would use either hard disk or virtual memory to manipulate files. This is the only real limitation of the program. You can load a lot of files (more than wave for windows) as long as you have enough ram. But if you only have 9 megs ram left once you start goldwave, well that's what you'll be able to work with. You may have an additional 20 megs of virtual memory or 1 gigabyte free on your hard disk, goldwave will not use it. This is only version 1.00, so things will probably change on the RAM limitation. MY CONCLUSION: if you have 8 MB of RAM or more and will mostly manipulate small files but also want to work with more than one file at a time, this is the software for you, and at 30$CDN this is a very good price, but you should also try Noisemaster. NoiseMaster 2.0 (nm20.zip) --------------- At version 2.0, NoiseMaster has matured a lot compared to previous versions. It has all the basic effects of Goldwave, plus a reverse echo and swap channels. It also has an editing feature (under effect curiously) that could be quite useful, which is an offset adjust. This is more for hackers however since there is no function that will calculate the offset generated by the card so you'll have to figure it out yourself. No function generator included. The editing is very complete and has the trim that goldwave lacks, and can also loop the selected zone. I was surprised however that the loop points will not change when you move them while the loop is playing. This was THE reason why i wanted a loop function on the selection. There is not much use if you have to stop and start at each step of the loop points. This program also puts to good use a 2 button mouse. Zooming is a bit confusing but with practice is quite fast since it can be done with the mouse buttons. The only thing that is not seamless is the sample rate conversion and the mono<->stereo conversion. If you regularly use samples that are not of the same sample rate, number of channels and bit resolution, and you want to do cut and paste (tape splicing or mixing), you will loose a lot of time going to the transform menu. You shouldn't have to mess with this. Goldwave does this automatically for you and in the case of the sample rate conversion, Goldwave does a better job soundwise. Noisemaster will also support several files opened at the same time (more than four, like Goldwave). Again, this is another program that could take top honours if it had special effects, plus seamless conversion and there is also the physical memory limitation like Goldwave. MY CONCLUSION: Feature for feature, it is not as good as Goldwave, but i would try both for the 30 day "test drive" allowed by each software. It is also priced at 25$US, which is about the same price as Goldwave. Wave Works 1.1 (wavwrk11.zip) -------------- It doesn't have any effects, has very limited editing capabilities, will not work correctly for playback on anything other than a PAS16 and to record it uses the PAS16 pocket recorder. There is no option that cant be found on the other softwares. It is a shareware with a 35$US registration fee until december (more after that) and quite frankly, i dont see who would pay that much for such a basic program. MY CONCLUSION: not worth downloading at this time. I wouldn't have included it, but i suppose this can save some download time to some people. WHAM 1.31 (wham131.zip) --------- This program only has stretch, volume, reverse and playback rate. It can also do some conversions like mono<->stereo and 8<->16 bits. The editing functions are quite basic and the zoom function is not very useful (you can only select 1:1, 1:2, 1:5, 1:10 and 1:100). There is however a trim function and you can copy to file the selection. The function that is interesting is that the program can load .au files and decompress into 16 bit files. It is however limited to your RAM. You can only work with one file at a time. MY CONCLUSION: This is a freeware and can work with u-law compressed files, so if you need to read SUN/NeXT .au files, this is a good program. For hardcore editing however, look elsewere. -=-=-=-=-=-=- Glossary (update based on the questions i receive) -------- amplitude: this is the level value of a wave at a given time brown noise: noise generated by a brownian function Csound: is a program developped by Barry Vercoe of the MIT that can generate music by generating samples from .orc files and sequence it thru .sco files. For more details, look on cecelia.media.mit.edu or on archive.epas.utoronto.ca. frequency: is the number of time per second at which an event will occur. pink noise: random generated noise that has equal energy in each octave. (i.e. 200-400Hz and 400-800Hz) quantisation: is the action of transforming a continuous value into a discrete one. (quantisation noise: will happen when there are too little steps in the quantised value. Typically 16 bit is enough to fool the ears that it is a continuous value, not a discrete one). sample rate: is the frequency of the sampling. sampling: is the operation that has to be done to capture/play an analog signal to/from a digital signal. In the case of an audio signal, this sampling must be done at 2 X the maximum audio frequency component of the analog signal. Each value is quantised typically in an 8 bit, 12 bit or 16 bit value but other values are possible. white noise: random generated noise that has equal energy in each equal frequency range (i.e 200-400 and 400-600Hz) If you have or know of a software which is not reviewed or have a fix for audio lab, sound tool or surf, contact me as soon as possible. I hope that someone will make a program that will include the strong points of each of the programs so that one software can be used instead of several. I also hope that a few things will be added, like ffts, more effects, support of 48KHz, direct from disk recording and playback, simultaneous play and record on devices that permits it (or thru a wave input on one card and wave output on another), metronome, bpm etc. Ciao, -- Francois Dion ' _ _ _ CISM (_) (_) _) FM Montreal , Canada Email: CISM@ERE.UMontreal.CA (_) / . _) 10000 Watts Telephone no: (514) 343-7511 _______________________________________________________________________________ Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-...