In need of PC program for mixing audio

[Matt Stevens]

Gang, I have searched and researched, but it is hard to know what is real and what are fake reviews online.

 

I'll be shooting two entries for the Straight8 contest, one will have fairly simple music and the other needs a robust soundtrack featuring music and a lot of sounds of NYC (cars, trucks, pedestrians, subways, etc).

 

Right now I use Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10 for basic editing. It's nothing special, but I have barely scratched the surface.

 

Will this program do what I need in order to mix a kick arse soundtrack or should I look at something else? I'd imagine there must be some amazing freeware out there (there always is).

 

In March I will be upgrading my PC from 32 bit XP to 64 bit Windows 7 so I can download and try Adobe CS5 with Soundbooth. I'd try it now, but it is 64 bit. I'd need a 32 bit trial version.

 

Anyway, that is what I am asking so thanks in advance.

[John Sprung]

Here's one I've used:

 

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

 

It's good for tweaking stuff down at the waveform level, I haven't used it to mix multiple tracks.

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[David Katauskas]

I've been using Reaper for years with great success. I haven't found any limitations yet, and the VST plug-ins are really good.

http://www.reaper.fm/

[Alex Donkle]

From what I've heard Vegas's audio section is pretty good. However, if you want a true audio post production you need to move beyond Vegas to a program that can output an OMF. OMF is basically a file that organizes every audio edit you made so that an audio editing/mixing program can read it. Without this, all you can do is hand post a single 2-channel audio file and all the audio edits you made in Vegas are locked in. The biggest reason for this is dialog editing, but it really just makes the whole process easier.

 

Programs that currently output to my knowledge are FCP, Avid (the two standards), and more recently Adobe Premiere.

 

For audio programs, Pro Tools is by far the standard for film/video in the US.

[Hal Smith]

Soundbooth has been dropped by Adobe.

 

Adobe Audition CS5.5 is now their current audio editor and has replaced Soundbooth in their suites like Production Premium CS5.5.

 

I suggest looking into Pro Tools 9. It's a very complicated world with a steep learning curve but it can do just about anything audio.

 

The entry level M-Powered versions requiring M-Audio hardware are quite a bit cheaper. It will export to the full studio versions of Pro Tools for further processing and editing if required.