Realizing this is prob like playing stairway to heaven in a guitar-store...
.. but i know someone here has the answer, so sue me, as we'd prob say in 1985. hehe...

i'm looking for an environment in which to edit WAV. doesn't need to be fancy. In fact, something which will process all existing sample data, regardless of its power over wav manipulation, in terms of duration (i.e. no trim / delete / cut-n-paste / looping ). But to get some compression via my plugins would be GREAT.

but preferably, however a little more versatile:
such as w/ sample spec options (i.e. greater than 16bit 44.1, etc - but maybe that's asking a lot?), and compatible with your typical [ directX or VST ] DSP 'plugins' (e.g. Waves C4)

i have experience w/ SoundForge (7) -- so i can't lie-- i'm expecting something like that, but i haven't the resources to buy my own copy. and to d/l trialware would only be frustrating. so-- i'm willing to learn something new if it comes highly recommended.

is there anything out there which might satisfy some, if not all of what i'm looking for? or maybe there's something under $50?

thanks!

http://www.cockos.com/reaper/

Reaper's outstanding IMHO. Used to be, maybe still is, non-expiring, non-crippled shareware (i.e. try it for as long as you like). Non-commercial license is $50.

C.

Maybe this link is of use: http://audacityteam.org/

Id put my vote in for Audacity, and donating never hurts.

:: -- THANKS! -- ::
Carpman, Roseval, Sizetwo: thank you for the feedback. Please forgive my poor etiquette for such a delay in my reply, but I've only now been able to get back to focus on this issue.

now, on to the tunes...
First-- let me say-- i realize i write a lot. can't help it-- i just type as i'm thinking, and there is always more there that i seem to want to say. sorry! So, the first part, i think is most important, though i wrote it last, cut pasted here at top (if it seems out of place).

:: -- IS THIS WHAT IS REALLY AT ISSUE for ME? -- ::
maybe my perception is being skewed by believing i /need/ to be able to use Waves C4. i dunno... but i have had pretty amazing success w/ C4 previously. e.g.: a band i was in a few years ago recorded a live show (the only live recording of that group, hence the effort i'm willing to expend here). It was tracked to DAT w/ a singular mic-- a long, thin Senhauser (sp?) condenser, affixed near the ceiling of this basement bar at PSU, "the Rathskeller". a relatively crappy tonal spectrum captured, but I ran it through C4 and Sound Forge (adding [i think] some sort of Waves "Stereo Separation" fx-- i'm guessing a bit of Mod / Rev / Delay / phase cancellation-- pkgd as a module, slapped a name on it-- but whatever, if it helped) . pretty convincing little live recording came of it. the point is... I'd like to give a copy of it to my guitar students, but there is WAY too much F-Bomb between the songs. I figure: if i'm going to take the time to trim the "dead air"-- i should at least use the best tools i can get my hands on.

:: -- REGARDING THE SOFTWARE REC'D -- ::
Cool! I know Audacity (kinda). that's a cross platform software, yes? I'm thinking that's a popular pkg, compiled in rpm, deb, etc formats, yes? (hmm... or am i thinking of another proj w/ a similar name?)

:: AUDACITY ::
This is actually why i asked. I know i tried a multitrack audio app... prob around 2003-ish: a freeware for Win32, which if i recall-- [is] similar to Sound Forge (i.e. 2track only-- i.e. for mastering stuff). i think that was Audacity.
Same day of that experiment, i grabbed a second freeware-- which allowed around 8 or 10 tracks (maybe less/ more). if i'm right-- it was that one had its own "proprietary" set of plugins-- either not VST -- or I wasn't able to convince it to work w/ my stuff.

Could someone clear that up for me? (e.g. Does Audacity, play well w/ others-- like DirectX and/or VST?)
Maybe things have changed since then? maybe it always has supported 3rd party fx? Maybe the Audacity's own sound squashr is decent?

:: REAPER ::
This is the second time Reaper has been highly recommended to me (the quote, from a knowledgeable guy was: "...Reaper is like Acid, but more flexible, easy to use, and lightweight!..." [paraphrased. sorry!] ).
I actually wanted to try it before posting here-- but couldn't remember the URL. thought it was 'reaper dot org'. tried permutations on that, but could *not* find it that day, so i'm glad /someone/ brought it up here. yay. :-)

very cool guys, thanks. this gives me two great bits of advice to go on. oh yeah, hey-- have you ever tried "Diamond Cut Audio"? I D/L a version of that, but it doesn't seem to support 3rd party plugins-- though it looks like it might be pretty sweet on its own. (dated perhaps, but as far as i'm concerned-- if it works, then it works for me!)

EDIT:
----------------------------
BTW-- FWIW, Reaper looks like not really what i'm looking for-- although, i'm judging by the front page screenshot-- it looks more like a mutli-track (as in-- multi-supder-endless virtual tracks out the wazoo kinda thing, like digidesign -- whereas, i'm looking to do just left and right-- or 1 and 2, like SoundForge. did i say soundforge yet, btw? yeah-- something like this thing called soundforge... hehe--- sorry-- that wasn't supposed to sound dick-head-ish! makin' fun o'myself there...ftr)

wow! i'm glad you guys reminded me of Audacity! still haven't loaded 'er in n all, but i'm pretty confident. sounds like this 1.3 beta is the way to go...

[EDIT]:In case i wasn't clear, just wanted to make sure the respondents know that i am probably good to go, just based on Audacity. The site advertises a VST compat plugin, so i'm excited to check-it all out!
edit2, RE: Reaper -- i do look forward to giving it a try as well. any recommendations in terms of shared resources available for Reaper? (i.e. to best utilize the revolutionary technology [now old news, i suppose] of Acid Pro, one should have at least a few good drumbeat loops to get going. a one-shot or two, etc., but AFAIK, good luck finding anything outside of Sony, or a specialty music / software retailer)

:: Audacity Update ::
If you're interested-- this sounds like big news for the Audacity team, and the software. The July issue of PC World (scheduled for newsstands @June 17 2008) features Audacity among the best tech of the year! this quoted from Audacity.Sourceforge.net

GoldWave (~$50 USD) has an optional plug-in, and part of that plug-in is a censor feature. It makes it easy to mute the word, or replace it with a "beep" or other sound.

There's also an option to "garble" the audio, but I'll usually reverse the word or phrase to make it unintelligible, and usually this is less distracting than a beep or a mute, especially with music. ("Damn" sounds something like "mad" when reversed, but sometimes, the F-word is still recognizable.)

GoldWave is a good solid program, and it's been around 15 years, but it's not SoundForge. For starters, it's stereo only and it supports DirectX plug-ins, but not VST.

Not really sure what you mean.
Do you mean this kind of thing? ... VST, samples

C.