Topic: Switching to Mac - rethinking post production tools / methods

[detroit lightning]

Have been a PC guy forever, and currently using my work PC for any editing (audacity, cd wav editor, foobar, traders littler helper, and izotope), but the company is cracking down on any unauthorized software...so I plan on getting another computer, probably a mac.

Seems like I can use everything I'm used to with mac, but figure this might be a good time to re-evaluate my post production process (my absolute least favorite part of taping).

Just wondering if there are any suggestions for mac based tools that I should look into using. Thanks!

[nulldogmas]

Audacity and iZotope for Mac both work great. I use an app called Tag for tagging, xACT for checksums, and Clementine for playback.

[opsopcopolis]

Pretty much any DAW > Audacity IMO. If you're interested in taking a step up in functionality, without the cost, I'd take a look at Reaper. All the Izotope stuff will work the same way. You'll need xACT to replace TLH (although Reaper can export straight to FLAC)

[mccordo]

I just made the jump from yet another laptop PC that crapped out on me to a MacBook and could't be happier. I hadn't used a Mac in years prior to this one but I've picked it back up pretty quickly. Hopefully you'll have a similar experience.

Looks like we used the same programs on PC, and I tried Audacity for Mac when I first got it. While it was nice to see a familiar face, I felt that I could do better. After separating the polywav files in Wav Agent, I'm currently using only Fission and xAct for everything else. My transfer process is: Wave Agent (Split PolyWav Files) > Fission (Tracking/Conversion to 16/44.1) > xACT (Fix SBEs/FLAC Level 8/Tagging).

If there's any Mac vets out there that can point me in a better direction that what I'm doing now, I'm all ears.

[AdamHuston]

Switched to MAC recently as well. Extremely happy with the performance so far!

[detroit lightning]

Thanks everyone!

I used Mac for a year @ work, and generally liked it. At this point i'm more or less aligned with apple in terms of devices, so i figure it just makes sense. Plus the mac mini looks like a pretty good deal for what it delivers...

[opsopcopolis]

Plus the mac mini looks like a pretty good deal for what it delivers...

The modern Mac minis are pretty great

[fotoralf.be]

Been using Mac OS since OS9 under Shapeshifter on an Amiga 3000/060 (the fastest 68k Mac Apple never built) and Mac hardware since the beige G3 desktop. Currenly on a Mac Studio M1.

Software currently in use:

- TwistedWave for audio editing, processing and conversion. Great at batch processing loads of files.
- various software from Rogue Amoeba for all things audio, from automatically recording internet radio programmes to routing audio between different apps
- Reaper for those rare cases where a 'real' DAW is required
- izotope RX9
- Library Monkey for organising my audio files
- DDI Codec (from the App Store) for decoding aged Dolby-encoded recordings that won't play back correctly on a cassette deck

Audacity unfortunately doesn't work with a number of VST/AU plug-ins I'm using all the time, most notably dearVR AMBI MICRO, and various other ambisonic plug-ins.

Ralf

[nulldogmas]

- various software from Rogue Amoeba for all things audio, from automatically recording internet radio programmes to routing audio between different apps

Audio Hijack (for recording audio from any app) and Airfoil (for sending audio from any app to a remote speaker) are both pretty indispensable to me as well.

[GLouie]

I'll mention that you don't need Wave Agent if you use Reaper; it can import the polywav directly and "explode" it into all the tracks, then I mix and master and render to stereo. Unfortunately, it has to rewrite the tracks and often seems to save them in weird places. And Wave Agent won't do 32bit float.

[mccordo]

I'll mention that you don't need Wave Agent if you use Reaper; it can import the polywav directly and "explode" it into all the tracks, then I mix and master and render to stereo. Unfortunately, it has to rewrite the tracks and often seems to save them in weird places. And Wave Agent won't do 32bit float.

Thanks for the tip. I'll look into Reaper this weekend. The lack of 32bit isn't a problem for me yet since I still have the original MixPre3 and 6 that don't do 32bit, but who knows what the future may bring?

[checht]

I've been using Apple computers since I was a developer for the Apple II, Macs since the SE.

Reaper seems well liked by many, but it doesn't have good skins for folks like me with poor vision.

I'm extremely happy using Audacity as primary DAW. It handles 32 bit poly waves with ease, exports marked regions as tracks without hassle, and accommodates the plugins I like. If there are VST plugins you like that don't work in Audacity, that could be a stopper. I've had to search a couple times to find alternatives for things like MSED, but did end up with plugins that do the job well.

Audacity gets a lot of shade, but it is well suited to importing from a recorder, joining segments, trimming, tracking out songs, and exporting. I've tried to switch to Logic and Reaper, but ended up back w Audacity.

RX for repair/improvement is a must.

I fancy Tag Editor for tagging.

And of course xACT.

Hope this helps!

[aaronji]

A few months ago, I replaced my Windows desktop with an M2 MacMini (16 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD). It's been fantastic, with a tremendous increase in speed compared to my old Windows machine. Since I was using Audition on the old computer, I got the Mac version for the mini. Luckily, I get an awesome deal on the license through my employer. I have been tracking using markers in Audition to replace CDWave (although I wish I could get a Mac version of that) and xACT has replaced foobar2000 (tagging) and TLH (flac and ffp).

[BlueSky71]

I changed over to Mac about 2 years ago as well Aaron min m1 at first now mii m2. What amazing processing speeds. I don't do video much, but for anyone that does I can't imagine the time savings.I  was missing CDWAV for a bit, but my buddy told me to try fission during my changeover. To me I like it better now, it can do some things CD wav cant, like normalize each track if you want to and also change output formats. I think it was 30 bucks.

[vibrioidxire]

The macOS equivalent to Exact Audio Copy is XLD, as it also converts to FLAC and gives an accurate log of the rip as well