I’m settling into my digs on my Mac mini, and getting ready to tackle that pile of recorded audio I have that’s waiting to be turned into podcast (mostly for work).
I started my podcasting career using Audacity on Windows, and after about a year or so, graduated to Adobe Audition, which I liked for it’s RMS normalization, better noise reduction results, and simple multitrack editing.
Now that I’m on the Mac, I’m looking for something similar in functionality to Audition, that’s either free or cheap. I’ve got the latest beta of Audacity for Mac OSX, and it does the job, but I get the feeling that there’s this whole world of useful Mac software out there that I’m not aware of. Tim Germer already recommended Sound Studio (which crashed when I tried to run it). I’m trying to make sense of the editing capabilities built into GarageBand 3, but I think I’m missing something fundamental.
So, my Mac using friends, what do you recommend I try for audio editing? Should I just take the blue pill, and force my brain to figure out how to make GarageBand do its magic with the 24 bit 44KHz WAV files that get recorded on my M-Audio Microtrack? Is there some other magic program out there that I’m not aware of?
Instruct me in the way of the Mac, o my fruity brethren. I am an open vessel, an unmolded lump of clay. 
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hi, i hav the same problem as u. i tried looking 4 sumthing similar 2 audition 4 mac. i got protools (bcos its the industry standard in pro music recording) & soundtrack pro 4 most of audition’s functions.
I’ve also had this problem. It seems that GarageBand is more for production. As far as editing sound files, I don’t think you can even import them into GarageBand. Adobe Audition is a really good program and surely there’s something similar for Macintosh. Anyone?
jskip, Learn how to type English, please. Good luck working with ProTools in the industry with typing skills like your’s bcos engineers and producers don’t dig it.
Check out Peak LE form Bias. It has RMS normalization like Audition does.
Peak is an old app that is over rated. Soundbooth does just about everythign Peak does and is cheaper. Audition has multitrack editing and waveform editing all in one…something not many apps have these days unless you get something like Logic, Pro Tools, etc.
And even those great / expensive sound apps don’t have that great of wavesform editors. They spend more of there dev time on the multi-track part.
I can’t say that I’ve seen anything that does both well for the mac.
try melodyne studio, its got a full range of audit editing features and various other great stuff like pitch correction etc. can also use AU & VST to extend it.
Have you looked into Audacity? (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)
While it may not seem as slick as Audition or any of the other (very expensive) packages it does handle audio editing very well. I have been using it for a while now and before moving from PC to Mac was using it side-by-side with Audition (which I had been using since it was CoolEdit, back in the day.)
There are lots of plugins available and I have been incredibly pleased with its performance.
Hi
I really like Adobe programme. I used it a lot when I had PC but now am Mac user and very difficult do get similar programme and am missing adobe as it is easy and just wonderful editing tool. I hope Adobe will try and help Mac user for. I also have audacity but not the same and do not waste my money on expensive softwares like logic and other programmes.
Please all Mac users help us.
Thanks
Well i agree with all of you guys, adobe audition its an amazing DAW and its such a shame that mac don’t have one like it so far, i have a mac and a pc on my studio and the PC its only for the audition, the softwares i recommend for using with a mac are: Logic Pro, Pro tools & Ableton Live, garage band its a pretty usefull tool if you know exactly what you’re doing and if you apply great plug ins such as Izotope, well fellows there’s plenty of softwares out there but son long i’ll still dream on having Audition running on my mac…
P.S: you can run audition on a mac if you have parallels desktop but it runs on low memory and it may crush, anyway hope this answer helps!
I’m recent switcher to Mac but keeping my PC solely for Audition. Mac for video; PC for music. Not perfect but workable.
Audacity has come a long way. It used to be limited, however the new beta version is excellent. I am very picky too, being a long time Audition junkie. After I finally realized
that windows is not cool at all, I had to find a unix equivalent that didn’t suck. Oh, and it had to be free. Oh, and it had to let me edit waves down to the milliseconds. Audacity does all of these, plus it has a feature that Adobe couldn’t even get down; It automatically highlights the very small gaps inbetween beats so you don’t have to constantly zoom in and out…VERY COOL!!! It does all of the things Audition does(minus the kiddie effects), but requires the user to be more self reliant.
Another Audition lover here, also hoping to run Audition on Mac. Again, keeping PC for Audio, Mac for Video. Sad really!
There is a petition to get Audition on MAC . . . . http://www.petitiononline.com/djtobes/petition.html
JOIN THE REVOLUTION FRIENDS . . . . . . .
You guys/gals need to seriously check out audacity. The newest beta version.
If you can’t hang with that then you are using too many effects…
DJ HARDATTACK here .
Adobe is wicked .. and would be amazing on mac .. I too have a mac and a Pc .. and i only use the Pc for editing music .. Pc is totaly not reliable for anything other then adobe and playing cards … I have taken on Pc on stage for the use of Serato and it crashed every time I put it in front of a croud . so i am forced to go with a mac ..
im sure adobe will pull up its socks and produce what we need ..
Adobe Soundbooth is good!
I am now happy to say that I am running adobe audition 1.5(still the BEST version they ever made) ON A MAC!!! an ibook g4, at that. I finally got off my ass and started using Darwine. Darwine is Wine for …duh…Mac, because mac has a BSD subsystem, therefore it is a Unix system. I had previously been enjoying audition on Ubuntu, using the same idea, can’t believe it works but it does, so there you go, have your cake and eat your shoes.
Does Audacity have a multitrack feature?
Hi all,
I used to use audition when it was cool edit. Since then I bought a mac and a little sampler, and have kind of abandoned all hope that a program would be as great as cool edit.
My one question: is it possible to time stretch on Audition?
I would definetly reccomend Logic 7 or 8 as Logic studio has video editing with a lot of flexibility with audio and signal flow. It’s an apple product which in the express version can even track at 24 bit 96k. Anyone who has used garageband shouldn’t have too many issues with it That’s the best that I can think of for this kind of application. I run Pro Tools 7, Cubase 4, Melodyne, Peak 5.2 UBK and Logic has always worked the best for me. Best of luck.
Nick
Well guys, there’s nothing like Audition for Mac. I used it since it was Cool Edit and GOD how I miss everything. Now that I finally have an amazing Mac Pro machine, I lost the most fantastic, intuitive, faster, good lucking, customizable software in the universe. Please Adobe hear our praer.
Sign the Petition for Audition on Mac
Seems the best way for the time being is to use VMWare Fusion and install Adobe Audition on your Windows install. I tried Audacity at the weekend but after so many hours in front of Audition changing seems a bit too much like hard work.
Gentlemen;
I recently switched to an imac with 4GB of ram. But still have to keep my PC on desk for recording. I can’t even record sounds from internal speakers by audacity on my imac. However audacity works fine on PC. Could you please tell me how to overcome the mac problem?
Thanks in advance.
I came across the same problem and I was actually a beta tester for Cool Edit. I had an idea but I don’t have Windows Vista. What if you used Boot Camp on your Mac to install Windows then install Adobe Audition on your Mac?
K~
Ok, Are you are seeking a loop editor, audio stero file mastering suite, or both?
To get what you are seeking you must purchase something to handle the job professionally so go to:
http://www.propellerheads.se/products/recycle/
It is great for the Mac and does both what you seek.
For straight up audio editing check out these products. It is all about the power you want, and the money you are willing to spend to get the results you want
My personal favorite for many years and to which I now use on my Imac is
NUENDO
http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/audiopostproduction_product/nuendo4/nuendo4_system.html
If the aforementioned are out of your price range then
check out PEAK (mastering) and DECK (recording/mixing) at
http://www.bias-inc.com.
Apple’s Soundtrack
http://www.apple.com/soundtrack/
PROTOOLS http://www.protools.com It was designed for PC and I don’t like the interface considering the price they ask for it. Simply due to our American recording Industry making it the defacto-default for the audio-recording industry (way overpriced as well) it has become hugely popular with the prostudios simply because of the hardware it had to complement the software in days when computers didn’t have enough processing power on their own without PCI card help like Protools offered. Because of all this, it had a headstart, a pricetag to match, became the standard but by no means is it the best out there anymore IMHO but because initial investment by the ‘pro’ market was so huge they don’t want to move out of their ‘comfort zone’.
You still can get a free copy of its software to use as an editor but the audio multitrack recording programs such as Cubase, Logic, and Protools will have far too many bells and whistles for what many ‘laypersons’ are trying to do (record and restore/edit old records, tapes etc) and will only confuse them further with endless menus they’ll never use.
Good luck
yes. There is an application which is Apple Logic Express 8.
You can do what ever you do with Adobe Audition.
http://www.apple.com/logicexpress/
and you can download it from here
http://www.rapidfind.org/upload/showthread.php?p=201072
Thanks
why dont you just put windows on your mac and you can put audition on it then
I too come from a CoolEdit background. I did a lot of searching over the past two years and I still haven’t found anything better than SoundStudio for day to day, simple, quick and dirty editing. I’ve tried Logic Express, Soundtrack, Audacity, Peak, even Audiofile’s Wave Editor. Although unfortunately SS is too buggy for me to love it, it still does the job (for me!) better than the others. I also compared it to the recent Peak Express (a tad too limited, but it works fine!), and SS won for most productive and easy to use interface.
I see this is a fairly old post, so I’d like to know what you’ve settled for…
I’ve actually been going back and forth between GarageBand and Audacity. I’ve realized that my audio editing needs aren’t really all that advanced, and while Audition has some awesome high end features, I can live without them. I’m too easily distracted by other shiny things to worry too much about it.
I too have been a long time user now of Sound Studio and it works. I’ve been trying to find a program which is slightly more automated and will allow me to shorten empty spaces, or lengthen to fit certain time restrictions.
I’m also looking for a program which would allow me more easily fade music in and out of my podcast, automatically. Now I have to do that all manually.
Sound Studio has worked flawlessly on my MacBook. No glitches. It’s done fine, but I’m looking for a bit more muscle.