I record live music, mostly jazz, into a Tascam HS-P82, running anywhere from 3 to 8 mics on any given night. For editing/mixing, I use an old version of Adobe Audition (v 1.5), and basically do simple mixes, only because I've never really invested the time to learn how much more the program can do, and actually sometimes find it a little intimidating. I downloaded Audition 3.0 for free, but haven't even gotten into it because a lot of folks tell me it sucks. Anyway, I've been thinking of exploring other programs, and was wondering what other folks are using these days. I'm looking for something that's easy to learn, and would allow me to do the standard stuff such as level adjustment, L/R mixing, editing, fades, noise reduction, etc. I don't see myself going all the way to a program like Pro Tools, because I suspect it's way over my head and more than what I need and would like to spend. I should say this is only a hobby, so there's no need for me to go crazy with this. If there's a logical next step from Audition, I'd love to hear about it. To sum it up, I guess I'm looking for the lazy man's way of getting the most out of an audio program, without having to take a college course to learn how to use it. I'm open to suggestions, so feel free to fire away and enlighten me. Thanks.
Randy