Audio manipulation...

[Lesser Evets]

I work on a college radio station and wanted to make custom sounds from pre-recorded clips on my computer already.

What is the best program for an Intel Mac to stretch sounds, do effects like static or speed ramping, cross fading, layering, etc??

 

[CanadaRAM]

There is no 'best'

You are going to have to define whether you mean free, cheap, commercial or professional, and then what flexibility you want in sound manipulation. Do you want to manipulate stereo sources, or multi-track sources (more than 2 tracks)?

Check out Audacity, SOundHack (Free), Amadeus (Shareware), then there are a huge number of commercial programs that sample and alter sound: Abelton Live, Bias Peak, Halion, Melodyne, plus all of the VST effect plugins you can buy that work with a VST host like Cubase, Logic, Digital Performer, etc. -- there are too many options to list.

Check out http://www.macmusic.org, also look at backissues of magazines for reviews - Electronic Musician (http://www.emusician.com) , Sound on Sound (http://www.soundonsound.com) , Keyboard (http://www.keyboardmag.com), Recording, Computer Music http://www.computermusic.co.uk, Future Music http://www.futuremusic.co.uk/, MusicTech etc. Some of these come with cover CDs with trial versions and loads of shareware.

 

[Lesser Evets]

'Best' is a personal preference and I want to know your opinions, and not political soft stepping.
The fact I want is what programs are available and what they do.
So if you have a best, and you can tell me, I would like to hear about it and what you like about it.

Preferable would be stereo, and the price spread is something i will have to accept. There is always a price spread, but since I am new to this I would like to know the high and low possibilities.

The info you gave is a good start, though. There are a large number of programs out there and I really have no starting point to know which does what and what they were made for. By getting some personal opinion and experience from forum goers I was hoping to narrow my search to what I need.

 

[quigleybc]

since you're not interested in recording stuff it seems

go with Ableton Live. Not cheap but I would feel comfortable calling it the 'best' thing out there for straight up sound manipulation...

Or...
use Garageband with all it's jingles and sound effects - free


All these programs aren't really going to provide you with like....radio sound effects and beeps and lazer beam sounds or whatever...

but they'll all come with crazy soft synths, tons of reverb, delay effects so you could mess with your own samples....

but for samples, you'll have to provide those, record those yourself

 

[bowzer]

I'll second ableton live... you can try out a demo for the pc or mac.
I use it for music production, but one of the really great features is the way you can stretch and edit wav's right in the program. here's some videos of the features http://www.ableton.com/live6-showcase

 

[CanadaRAM]

'Best' is a personal preference and I want to know your opinions, and not political soft stepping.

Don't appreciate this response. You asked an impossible question - what is best, in the absence of criteria, price, prior experience, anything.

The fact I want is what programs are available and what they do.

So in other words, you would like an annotated catalogue of all available programs, and their capabilities. That's what the magazine references I gave you are for.

My recommendation:
Do your own research. Don't expect to have it spoon-fed to you, esp. if you won't make an effort define your requirements up front.