Amadeus Pro versus other sound editors

This read-only forum contains useful bits of information about Amadeus and on how to use this forum.

Moderator: Martin Hairer

Post Reply
User avatar
Martin Hairer
Site Admin
Posts: 1975
Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:49 am
Contact:

Amadeus Pro versus other sound editors

Post by Martin Hairer »

I often get asked to compare Amadeus Pro to other sound editors for MacOS X. To be honest, I can hardly be expected to have a completely unbiased view on the question :wink: so your best bet is to read independent reviews of Amadeus Pro (Google will find them easily). However, here is my personal take on the most popular audio editors for MacOS X besides Amadeus Pro:

Sound Studio It probably mainly boils down to personal preference, since both programs are quite similar. Just download them both and try them out! I believe that there is no major feature from Sound Studio that is not present in Amadeus Pro. Sound Studio has more built-in sound effects than Amadeus Pro, but all of these can be replicated by the many free VST plug-ins and Audio Units that are available.

The main features present in Amadeus Pro but missing from Sound Studio are batch processing, the ability to burn CD's directly from within the program, VST effects support, sound denoising, the "Change Pitch and Speed" function, and the sound analysis tools.

Audacity The main advantage of Audacity is that it is free. However, its user interface is rather clunky, which is a hardly avoidable consequence of the fact that Audacity is cross-platform (it also exists for Windows and Linux). In terms of features, Audacity is very similar to Sound Studio, so the same comments apply. It does however add real multitrack editing to its features mix.

Fission This is a very useful complementary tool to an audio editor. Fission allows to edit Mp3 files in a lossless way. This means that you can use it to edit an Mp3 file without having to decode and subsequently reencode it, thus preserving its original quality. One has to be aware of the fact that this approach has some severe limitations: applying any effect to a sound or allowing editing that is very accurate in time does require decompression / recompression however smart the software is. This is why Fission does not allow to do any of this and is limited to cut-and-paste functions and volume changes.

Logic This is the "Rolls Royce" of sound editing. It can do most of what Amadeus Pro can do and much more. In particular, it can handle Midi instruments and has audio editing / sequencing abilities suitable for professional studios. The main disadvantages are the price tag and the learning curve...

WireTap Studio This is more of a recording program than an audio editor. The main feature that it has that Amadeus Pro lacks is that it is able to record the output from other applications. (Amadeus Pro is only able to do that by combining it with Jack or SoundFlower, but it is a bit more complicated to set up; the manual has an explanation in the How To's section.) On the other hand, even though WireTap Studio has a built-in audio editor, it lags very far behind Amadeus Pro in terms of functionality. It cannot do any batch processing, supports less file formats, doesn't do multi-track editing, has much less effects, no denoising functions, etc.

Audio Hijack Pro Like WireTap Studio, this is a recording program and is able to record the output from other applications. While it does not have an integrated audio editor, it does have the ability to apply effects to the recording in real-time, a function that other programs lack.

Post Reply