I'm currently using the freeware Audacity for audio recording and editing under Windows, but I'm thinking about buying something more professional.

I just know about CoolEdit and Soundforge; are there any good alternatives? I just need a simple, stable wave Recorder/Editor with some decent plug-ins and filters (lame_enc.dll export would be nice) nothing too fancy.
dev0

You already found the best.
CoolEdit and Soundforge.

there's wavelab (i hope that's an editor, I never used it only heard about it) and goldwave also.

Eheh. IMO, the best is Magix' Samplitude 2496 6.0.
www.magix.de

The only drawback is that it uses Qdesign's engine to export MP3 files. :rant: I strongly suggest people using Samplitude to export to Wave and encode with Lame or FhG.

Aside that, the program is great and ultra-profissional.

Regards;

Roberto.

also its price tag is way out of competition

I use CoolEdit and I am satisfied with it. It has a lot of features, a nice editor, of course recording capability, plugins etc. And it is not too complicated which would probably be in your favor.

wavelab 4 has my vote for editing, arranging, mastering, and CD burning, sound forge comes in second place, despite of its inability to burn CDs in DAO mode :rant:

I just downloaded the demo of cool-edit and it looks really nice, but then shortly afterwards I found this "Test-Build" of Audacity 1.1, which now includes MAD for MP3-Import, LibSndFile Support and many other new features, and I have to admit that it really has cought up to professional (non-free) Audio Editors.
dev0

Agreed !
But it's not for the newbie. It's interface, working with "virtual projects" (like Adobe Premiere) is special. But it allows powerful features, like buttons working in real time.

I use sound forge 6.0 alot of nice features and it works in real time. I like the sound analyze in cool edit 2000. I can tell the quality of the song as well if its been recoded with that feature.

Wavelab Lite ? - Best way of recording DAT Longplay 12 bit 32 kHz ?

Hi,

my source is sometimes my DAT, in 12 bit 32 kHz, longplay.

After recording that 12bit 32 kHz to wave into my PC
I want to achieve 2 things:

1. convert those waves to 44,1 kHz, 16 bit, burning to CDDA.
2. convert those waves to mp3, quality --alt-preset extreme.

For both aims I want to achieve best possible quality.

My problem starts with recording with wavelab Lite (this program was delivered with my soundcard, Terratec EWX 2496, and worked so far well, with recording original 44,1 kHz 16 bit source).
The soundcard is able to record/pass through original bitstreams.
But in wavelab lite I can only choose between
8, 16, 20, 24, 32 bit
(and:
11, 22, 32, 44,1, 48, 64, 88,2, 96 kHz sampling).
So I could sample with original 32 kHz, but the original 12 bits cannot be selected.
So what do you recommend ?
I could record at
1.
32 kHz, 16 bit
-> later upsampling with ssrc_1.29_hp_high_precision to 44,1 kHz

record at:
2. 44,1 kHz, 16 bit
-> whole upsampling (numbers of bits and frequency) would be done on the fly by wavelab lite.
The question rises: is the quality of this upsampling as well as quality of later upsampling with ssrc_1.29_hp ?
I have a PIII-800 MHz. Is it fast enough for well upsampling on the fly with wavelab lite ?

record at:
3. 32 kHz, 24 bit
doubling the numbers of bits, keeping original sampling frequency
Would this be well, with wavelab lite, see question at 2. ?
-> later up/re-sampling with ssrc_1.29_hp to 44,1 kHz, 16 bit

record at:
4. 44,1 kHz, 24 bit
better than 3. or 2. , or just overkill, or even worse than 1. ?


Or is there a good audio editor, that has the possibility to record at 12 bit, 32 kHz ?