Audacity - alternatives ? (PC)

[daz]

Audacity is fantastic at what it does, considering its totally FREE. It is however a tad flakey, and its .dlls or engine seems a little sensitive. It does not take much for the lot to fall over and stop responding or throwing up error messages, that nesesitate an actual reboot of ones computer. As just a fresh re start of Audacity itself will often just not do.

Does anyone have any alternatives to this ? I mean something also freeware or shareware, not some Pro tools for £500 or somethind, and which would take a year to learn anyhow?

I am not hopefull on this, but you never know.

[Mornats]

Give Reaper a go (http//www.reaper.fm). It's not shareware or freeware but the non-commercial licence fee is a generous $60 and the trial never expires (although it's worth paying the licence just to support their attitude towards fair pricing if nothing else).

If you're Mac based then Garageband is pretty good I found.

The caveat to the above is that if I've misunderstood what you use Audacity for then I've talked a load of rubbish! I'm kinda assuming you're using it as a DAW...

[flyfisher]

Interesting comments about Audacity stability - I've always found it to be rock-solid, though I generally only use it for wav editing and recording from YouTube.

For music recording, I've been using the freeware Kristal Audio Engine (http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/). Probably not the best available but I've found it very easy to learn, possibly because it doesn't have every bell and whistle that the high-end DAWs offer.

[DolganoFF]

+1 for Reaper!

[cheddatom]

5imon turned me on to Reaper and I have to say it's ace. I'm still usng Cubase 'cos i'm so used to it, but i'd say it was perfect for you.

[Skol303]

There's plenty of commercial software to choose from (my personal fave is Reason), but you can't beat Reaper in terms of bang for your buck$.

£50 (or whatever it is nowadays) and you get a fully functional DAW that competes well with the best of 'em and punches way above its price tag.

Plus, the demo is free to use for 30 days (or longer if you want to keep 'evaluating' it...).

[51m0n]

Yeah, do yourself a favour and at least give [url="http://www.reaper.fm/"]Reaper[/url] a try, I've done some seriously complex mixes on it and never had a problem, its rock solid, uses very little CPU given what it can do and includes everything you need in a DAW to record, mix and even master complex full fat tracks.

Oh and it runs on Mac and PC (32 & 64 bit)

Edited November 25, 2011 by 51m0n

[Mornats]

And if you're after some virtual instruments (which Reaper doesn't bloat itself with) then download the free Kontakt player from the Native Instruments site as it contains around 1GB of sounds. Also grab the free version of Sampletank from IK Multimedia. There's a free synth (Reaktor Spark I think it is) from the NI website too.

[lowdown]

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1322399297' post='1450288']
And if you're after some virtual instruments (which Reaper doesn't bloat itself with) then download the free Kontakt player from the Native Instruments site as it contains around 1GB of sounds. Also grab the free version of Sampletank from IK Multimedia. There's a free synth (Reaktor Spark I think it is) from the NI website too.
[/quote]

EZdrummer download price at the moment $29.00 [Just under £19.00]
[url="http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/EZdrummer/"]http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/EZdrummer/[/url]


Garry

[Leon Transaxle]

Another vote for Reaper. Cost me £38 the other week at current exchange rates.
Minor updates are released all the time. Its gone from 4.12 to 4.15 since I've been using it.
There is however quite a learning curve (even if you're used to Cubase). It probably does it, but it just does it slightly differently sometimes.

[winterfire666]

+1 for reaper, give it a go its free to try and very cheap to buy

[rmorris]

[quote name='winterfire666' timestamp='1327402790' post='1510503']
+1 for reaper, give it a go its free to try and very cheap to buy
[/quote]

add my +1 to that

[mentalextra]

Does any of this free software have any effects built in or are they just for recording and playback?

[paul_5]

Reaper comes with a fair number of plugins (compressors, reverbs etc...), but it will automatically link to any plugin form any other DAW installed on your system - mine picked up ALL of my VSTs (Cubase format), AU (Garageband) and RTAS (Protools) and lets me use them all.

Shame I'm going back to hardware really.

[OldG]

Worth mentioning that Reaper will use mostly any free VST you point it at, A good place to start would be here.... [url="http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/"]http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/[/url]

[winterfire666]

Reaper is the best!

[charic]

I'm curious, for most people who have moved over to reaper what did you use before?

My first DAW was protools (loved it)
Then logic (bit of work then loved it)

Tried cubase (don't get on with it)
Then reaper (find it too clunky)

I'm wondering if most people who like reaper came from a cubase background?

[paul_5]

I've got 20 years of Cubase under my belt, then moved to protools about 3 years ago. Reaper is a little bit clunky at the moment, probably because I'm a 'keyboard shortcuts' sort of guy, and I'm just not familiar with Reaper ones yet.

[charic]

Once I've moved and I'm able to get my monitors into a decent position for mixing then I'm getting protools again. It's just so intuitive

[Mornats]

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1330768217' post='1562639']
I'm wondering if most people who like reaper came from a cubase background?
[/quote]

I used GarageBand for about a year until an OSX update buggered up its ability to record then switched to Reaper. It's a bit clunky but there are some powerful features in there for not much cash. However, you can get Logic Pro from the app store for £140 now which is tempting but I'm not keen on tying myself to a Mac (it's work's Mac, not mine and my PC is far more powerful at the moment anyway). I loved the simplicity of GarageBand and the nice interface.

[OldG]

I started with Acid 4 and 5... Reaper was an easy transition from there as they were very similar at the time.

As for clunky. once you set the options to suit your work flow - it all makes sense. I know it sounds boring, but It really helps to spend some time with the manual and user guides.

[ash]

Hi I have mastered & recorded several CDs for commercial release using Adobe audition which I think is a great DAW and editor, very straightforward and similar in core concept to Audacity although much more sophisticated. I have used this alongside Ableton Live 4 (a very early version) for nearly 10 years with no issues. Audition used to be known as Cool Edit pro in a simpler form and was developed by Syntrllium before being bought out by Adobe who saw it as a way in to the DAW market. You can track down demos of Cool Edit online I believe. No idea of the retail cost now. I tried Audacity when I used a Mac for a while but found it too restrictive. Good luck!

[51m0n]

Anyone saying Reaper is clunky needs to give it a bit more time IMO.

Its lightening fast in the right hands, and seeing as it is about the most configurable DAW out there(there are even downloadable sets of ProTools key mappings and look and feel layouts apparently) pretty much how you need to work can be covered.

There are a few areas where its no all the way there I know (midi editing isnt it's strongest point for sure), but a little more time with it will reap huge rewards.

[paul_5]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1330799408' post='1563238']
Anyone saying Reaper is clunky needs to give it a bit more time IMO.

Its lightening fast in the right hands, and seeing as it is about the most configurable DAW out there(there are even downloadable sets of ProTools key mappings and look and feel layouts apparently) pretty much how you need to work can be covered.

There are a few areas where its no all the way there I know (midi editing isnt it's strongest point for sure), but a little more time with it will reap huge rewards.
[/quote]

Thanks for the pointer about PT key mappings, I'm off to get some now...