Po' Man's DAWs
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Doug Eisengrein
Briefly explore software that lets you record and edit multitrack audio on the cheap
While the exorbitant price tags that come part and parcel with the majority of full-featured DAWs (digital audio workstations), and audio editors have started to come down in some cases (such as the $499 Apple Logic Studio), several bills for software is still an awful lot for those who are tight in the wallet. But alternatives do exist. On the one hand, smart companies such as BIAS Inc. — although for-profit businesses — know that both hobbyists and professionals are attracted to affordability. On the other hand are the pure motives of the traditional freeware and shareware communities, and more recently, the rising prominence of open-source audio software; both of those worlds share one thing in common: a technically savvy urge to bring useful tools to the widest possible audience, at little or no cost. If you are richer with ideas and motivation than cash flow, look no further than the suggestions presented here for assistance. You'll get up and recording with minimal pinch to your stash.
Photo: Doug Eisengrein
PRICE SHRINKAGE
Do you want to be in sync with the big-league industry standard but don't have several thousand dollars, euros or pounds to drop on a Pro Tools|HD system? Never fear — enter the most affordable Pro Tools package yet, Digidesign's Mbox 2 Micro ($279, www.digidesign.com). This simple yet unique USB key authorizes the included Pro Tools LE software and has a miniheadphone jack and volume wheel for monitoring. Aside from breaking the Pro Tools entrance price, this little Pro Tools hardware/software bundle is geared toward on-the-go laptop users. Out of the box, it features 32 audio tracks and 256 simultaneous MIDI tracks, 24-bit/44.1- or 48-kHz audio fidelity, more than 50 DSP plug-ins and virtual instruments and stereo audio output — but no inputs.
If $279 is still steep for you, check out Mackie Tracktion. When it debuted, Tracktion turned heads at trade shows for its well-featured but uncluttered interface and handsome $99 price tag. The feature set and price have risen during the course of a few incarnations, but Mackie kept alive its original promise of a competitive yet inexpensive DAW with the Tracktion 3 Project Bundle ($129.99, www.mackie.com). Don't let the uncluttered user interface fool you; this puppy boasts unlimited audio, MIDI and virtual-instrument track counts; a 64-bit/192 kHz mix engine; an Acid, Apple and REX loop player with auto-time correct; several LinPlug, IK Multimedia and other virtual instruments; a large array of loops and samples; support for QuickTime video; and plenty more.
Cockos Inc. presents an interesting take on shareware with Reaper (www.cockos.com/reaper), a full-featured DAW that is available as a fully functional trial, as a “noncommercial” license for $50 and finally a “commercial use” license for $225 (the Website explains the differences). Reaper supports Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista and even WINE (Windows for UNIX); a Mac OS X version is in development and expected for early 2008. For most individual artists, the noncommercial license should suffice. For a measly 50 bucks, you get unlimited tracks and unlimited effects per track; support for various file types, sampling rates, bit depths, varying tempos and multiple time signatures in a single project; tremendous flexibility with signal routing and sidechaining; and direct recording to a large variety of compressed and uncompressed audio types, including FLAC and OGG. All that goodness is delivered with a 64-bit audio engine and an installer that is slightly larger than 3 MB.
EDIT AUDIO, NOT YOUR CHECKBOOK
If you want to start out with a professional-grade yet affordable Mac OS X audio editor, check out BIAS Peak LE 6 ($129, www.bias-inc.com). This chip off the old Peak Pro block supports as high as 24-bit/96 kHz audio files in AIFF, WAV, SDII, AAC, QuickTime, Apple Lossless and other formats. It includes a large amount of built-in DSP effects (both standard and creative) and features a nice array of playlist and CD-burning features, including ISRC code entry and editing.
Rogue Amoeba Fission ($32, www.rogueamoeba.com/fission) is an inexpensive yet very useful audio editor for Mac OS X; aside from the usual basic array of audio editing tools such as fade-in, fade-out, cut/copy/paste, split and normalize, it is the perfect companion to iTunes. Are you tired of constantly adjusting the volume on iTunes or your iPod due to variances in your songs' volumes? Fission may be your answer. It has the unusual ability to edit ID3 tags to AAC, Apple Lossless and MP3 files on the fly — no file re-encoding necessary, which means that it is truly lossless.
Finally, for a cross-platform option, the ever-evolving open-source freeware Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net) is a great catch for Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and even Mac OS Classic users. Though essentially an editor, Audacity can record and play back as many as 16 audio tracks. The audio editing capabilities are excellent considering it costs nothing; it includes the typical fade-in and fade-out, normalize, etc., but Audacity sports its own bundle of plug-ins and supports third-party VSTs, as well. It can handle WAV, AIFF, MP3, OGG and FLAC formats, and files can be as high as 32-bit floating-point/96 kHz. Multiple bit depths and sampling rates are supported in a single project.
SEARCH-ENGINE SAVINGS
Those are just a few of many cheap or free audio applications out there. Some of the companies, such as Rogue Amoeba and Sourceforge, offer many other tools, and some searching on the Web will turn up a treasure chest of other DAWs, audio editors, plug-ins and other strange goodies that will dent your bank account only slightly or not at all. Don't worry about friends who have the latest big-name software (and lower bank balances). Google and inspiration can take you pretty far.
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