Become a Site Supporter and Never see Ads again!

Author Topic: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)  (Read 5146 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline acidjack

  • Site Supporter
  • Trade Count: (37)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *
  • Posts: 5845
  • Gender: Male
Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« on: March 10, 2009, 06:44:21 PM »
I am finally lucky enough to be making the switch to Mac this month.  I feel like the Mac is going to be a lot better for audio applications, and I have read up to a degree about the software available, but thought I'd ask opinions before I "try out" everything there is and end up with a wacky jumble of stuff (like I have now).

Here is what I use now:

Editing: Audacity.  Clearly Audition is the gold standard.  I would be willing to pay for nicer software than Audacity, but not sure that I want to spend up to Audition just yet.  Is there something in between?  What's the best free app?  (No, I do not steal software, so that's out of the question).

Tracking: CDWave (or use Audacity for 48kHz files).  I know this program doesn't exist for Mac.

ID3 editing:  AudioShell (love this - allows you to easily edit ID3s right from the "properties" menu) - please tell me there is a mac equivalent.

FLAC/MP3 conversion: I use a handy program called NCS Switch, which I believe is available for Mac.

Ripping from CDR: EAC (which I believe is available for Mac)

Torrents: uTorrent (I assume this is available for Mac?)

Checksum/FFP files: Trader's Little Helper.  I know this is not available for Mac - what's the best alternative? 

Whew - think that's everything.  As I said I don't mind paying for software - just maybe not ready to spend multi-hundreds on a single app just yet.  Ideally I'd also like to have an app that can perform a few of these functions well - typing out this list reminds me what a ridiculous number of apps I am using to do what are really just a few basic tasks....
Mics: Schoeps MK4V, MK41V, MK5, MK22> CMC6, KCY 250/5, KC5, NBob; MBHO MBP603/KA200N, AT 3031, DPA 4061 w/ d:vice, Naiant X-X, AT 853c, shotgun, Nak300
Pres/Power: Aerco MP2, tinybox v2  [KCY], CA-UBB
Decks: Sound Devices MixPre 6, Zoom F8, M10, D50

My recordings on nyctaper.com: http://www.nyctaper.com/?tag=acidjack | LMA: http://www.archive.org/bookmarks/acidjack | twitter: http://www.twitter.com/acidjacknyc | Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/acidjacknyc

Offline willndmb

  • Trade Count: (17)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 6792
  • Gender: Male
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2009, 07:54:15 PM »
audacity
xact
transmission
those are what i use
Mics - AKG ck61/ck63 (c480b & Naiant actives), SP-BMC-2
XLR Cables - Silver Path w/Darktrain stubbies
Interconnect Cables - Dogstar (XLR), Darktrain (RCA > 1/8) (1/8 > 1/8), and Kind Kables (1/8f > 1/4)
Preamps - Naiant Littlebox & Tinybox
Recorders - PCM-M10 & DR-60D

Offline TNJazz

  • Ninja
  • Trade Count: (44)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 5530
  • Gender: Male
  • "Those who know, know."
    • NINJA DYNAMITE
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2009, 08:03:16 PM »
audacity
xact
transmission
those are what i use

+1

All good choices,  although I use Waveburner to track (part of the Logic Studio Suite).
Check out my band!  --> http://www.ninjadynamite.com

Offline greenone

  • Trade Count: (4)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 9273
  • Gender: Male
  • Russian mics... strong like bull...
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2009, 10:31:28 PM »
Audacity is the only full-featured free editing program that I'm aware of, unless you can locate a copy of Spark, which is no longer in development and isn't Intel-native. On the lower end of pricing you've got Sound Studio ($79) and Amadeus Pro ($40). Rogue Amoeba's Fission may be worth a look as well ($32). So there's your free editing/tracking.

xACT can do tagging, FLAC/mp3 conversion, cdparanoia (the Mac/*nix equivalent of EAC) and checksums. It'll even output a basic track listing/timing if you feed it files and track names. Absolutely free, though Scott (the developer) actually likes XLD better for ripping.

Torrents, I'm also a Transmission man.

And for burning, I've settled on a program called SimplyBurns because I've ditched my old illegitimate software now that I've upgraded machines and think Toast is a total ripoff at that price.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2009, 10:33:05 PM by greenone »
Unofficial Blues Traveler archivist - glad to work on any BT or related recordings
archive.org admin - happy to upload tracked material to the LMA

Roving Sign

  • Guest
  • Trade Count: (0)
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2009, 10:39:22 PM »
not sure if its the same on Mac - but the Linux version of Audacity exports to FLAC directly...might even have some tagging features.

Also easy enough to learn tracking on Audacity...wish I had done it before switching to Linux...

Offline greenone

  • Trade Count: (4)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 9273
  • Gender: Male
  • Russian mics... strong like bull...
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #5 on: March 11, 2009, 09:06:26 AM »
I think you're right. Amadeus definitely does direct to FLAC export as well, but AFAIK neither program cuts on sector boundaries by default so you'll have to check for SBE's if you go direct to FLAC. If you export to WAV/AIFF just use the "fix SBE" tab of xACT to fix and encode at the same time.
Unofficial Blues Traveler archivist - glad to work on any BT or related recordings
archive.org admin - happy to upload tracked material to the LMA

Offline Todd R

  • Over/Under on next gear purchase: 2 months
  • Trade Count: (29)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 4901
  • Gender: Male
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #6 on: March 11, 2009, 11:32:25 AM »
I think you're right. Amadeus definitely does direct to FLAC export as well, but AFAIK neither program cuts on sector boundaries by default so you'll have to check for SBE's if you go direct to FLAC. If you export to WAV/AIFF just use the "fix SBE" tab of xACT to fix and encode at the same time.

I've been using Amadeus a bit and it's a pretty nice program for the money.  It does/can split on sector boundaries.  You need to set it up correctly to split on sector boundaries, but its easy to do and there is info in the manual on how to accomplish this.  And it saves directly to FLAC as well as mentioned.

As to the others:
Transmission - torrents
Audacity/Amadeus/Wave Editor - music editing
xACT - tagging and format conversion
Cog/Play - playback

FLAC Multi Tagger - tagging FLACs of live shows -- Excellent!!

FLAC Multi Tagger written by ts.com's own Sebastion is a great little program for creating FLAC tags of live show recordings.  After using it a bit, I've come to like it more than Foobar's Live Show Tagger -- very easy to get your FLACs completely tagged without much effort. 
Mics: Microtech Gefell m20/m21 (nbob/pfa actives), Line Audio CM3, Church CA-11 cards
Preamp:  none <sniff>
Recorders:  Sound Devices MixPre-6, Sony PCM-M10, Zoom H4nPro

Offline ashevillain

  • Trade Count: (25)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 3368
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2009, 09:23:11 PM »
I just found this (no affiliation)...it looks interesting...

http://twistedwave.com/

Offline willndmb

  • Trade Count: (17)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 6792
  • Gender: Male
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #8 on: March 16, 2009, 01:44:16 PM »
I think you're right. Amadeus definitely does direct to FLAC export as well, but AFAIK neither program cuts on sector boundaries by default so you'll have to check for SBE's if you go direct to FLAC. If you export to WAV/AIFF just use the "fix SBE" tab of xACT to fix and encode at the same time.
really?
maybe i have been lucky, but since i started using audacity to cut the files with "multi export" i have not had one sbe come up in xact
i was almost about to stop checking its been that long since i got one
Mics - AKG ck61/ck63 (c480b & Naiant actives), SP-BMC-2
XLR Cables - Silver Path w/Darktrain stubbies
Interconnect Cables - Dogstar (XLR), Darktrain (RCA > 1/8) (1/8 > 1/8), and Kind Kables (1/8f > 1/4)
Preamps - Naiant Littlebox & Tinybox
Recorders - PCM-M10 & DR-60D

Offline greenone

  • Trade Count: (4)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 9273
  • Gender: Male
  • Russian mics... strong like bull...
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #9 on: March 16, 2009, 03:12:35 PM »
I think you're right. Amadeus definitely does direct to FLAC export as well, but AFAIK neither program cuts on sector boundaries by default so you'll have to check for SBE's if you go direct to FLAC. If you export to WAV/AIFF just use the "fix SBE" tab of xACT to fix and encode at the same time.
really?
maybe i have been lucky, but since i started using audacity to cut the files with "multi export" i have not had one sbe come up in xact
i was almost about to stop checking its been that long since i got one

I think I meant Amadeus vs. the program I was using, which is Sound Studio 2.1.1b3. Sorry, I screwed that post up a number of ways. Ignore that part of it. :P
Unofficial Blues Traveler archivist - glad to work on any BT or related recordings
archive.org admin - happy to upload tracked material to the LMA

Offline Moka17

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Taperssection Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #10 on: April 30, 2010, 01:54:14 AM »
Hi everybody  :)

I am looking for a software displaying spectrum analysis on MacOs (to check wether recordings are lossless or not) : I know the menu from Audacity, is there some other software ?

thnax

Offline DigiGal

  • AES Associate Member
  • Trade Count: (30)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 2583
  • Gender: Female
  • Stay healthy and safe!
    • DigiGal Internet Archive Recordings
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #11 on: May 05, 2010, 05:49:58 PM »
Hi everybody  :)

I am looking for a software displaying spectrum analysis on MacOs (to check wether recordings are lossless or not) : I know the menu from Audacity, is there some other software ?

thnax

Audiofile Engineering's Wave Editor includes a spectrograph and a stereograph in addition to the standard level meter:

http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/waveeditor/techspecs.php
« Last Edit: May 05, 2010, 05:58:24 PM by DigiGal »
Mics: AKG CK91/CK94/CK98/SE300 D-330BT | DPA 4060 4061 4266 | Neumann TLM 103 | Senn ME66/K6/K6RD MKE2 MD421 MD431 | Shure VP88 SM7B SM63L SM58 Anniversary Cables: Gotham GAC-4/1 Quad w/Neutrik EMC | Gotham GAC-2pair w/AKG MK90/3 connectors | DigiGal AES>S/PDIF cable Preamp: SD MixPre-D Recorders: SD MixPre 6 | Marantz PMD 661 Edit: 2011 27" 3.4GHz Quad i7 iMac High Sierra | 2020 13" MBA Quad i7 Catalina | Wave Editor | xACT | Transmission | FCP X 

Offline nic

  • Big In Japan
  • Trade Count: (1)
  • Needs to get out more...
  • *****
  • Posts: 4700
  • Gender: Male
    • half dead batteries
Re: Ideal suite of software for Mac (for former PC user)
« Reply #12 on: May 06, 2010, 04:26:57 PM »
I do not know if it has been fixed but about a month or two ago there was a issue on some of the various audio trackers with the 1.9x series of Transmission.
I can't remember the specifics but it was causing a mass migration to uTorrent as that version series of Transmission was corrupting some audio files.


the water's clean and innocent

 

RSS | Mobile
Page created in 0.085 seconds with 39 queries.
© 2002-2024 Taperssection.com
Powered by SMF