Stereo editing programs for Mac

Chris Fitzgerald · Post by **Chris Fitzgerald** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 5:43 am

I do a lot of live recording of my performances, all the moreso since getting an Edirol R-09 recorder. It produces a wonderful basic recording, and loads into the computer in a flash. If the tracks are balanced and clean sounding, I just basically dump them into an iTunes folder and burn a CD for the car, in which case all is good.

Sometimes, however, the balance between channels can be off, leading to an imbalance between instruments, or the room can sound too bright or dark EQ wise, etc. In these cases, it's nice to be able to throw the files into a stereo editor for normalization (especially to ballance out the left and right) and EQ. All I have at the moment are Sound Studio and Audacity, and while each of these work, they each have little quirks that bug me a little bit, and no real time plugin EQ's. What stereo programs should I be looking at to clean up some of these live recordings?

sdemott · Post by **sdemott** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 6:20 am

BIAS Peak or DSP Quattro.

Peak has been the de facto 2 channel editor for Mac for ages - DSP Quattro is a distant relative of TCE's Spark.

Both will do what you need them to do...and demos are available for each of them.

HTH

sdfalk · Post by **sdfalk** » Sun Oct 29, 2006 7:37 am

Coming soon..
Amadeus Pro.
I've been one of the beta testers for the developer.
I think it's going to surprise some people.

Chris Fitzgerald · Post by **Chris Fitzgerald** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 4:41 am

I downloaded the demos of both. DSP quattro seems to have a lot more plugs, but I don't quite feel comfortable with the non-visual (non-graphic?) layout of them. I got good results out of the Peak LE demo, but do I understand correctly that there is only one insert point on the LE program, meaning that you can only run one plugin at a time? That would really be a drag.

Assuming that this isn't the case, I could use a little advice since I'm a plugin newbie: I like the layout of Peak LE, and I can deal with the 2 band EQ, but for what I'm trying to do, I think a good compressor or multiband comp would be in order. What are my options without spending a fortune? The regular version of Peak is around $600! If I could run multiple inserts on LE, what are the options for a good comp or multiband comp that I could run on my G4 iMac without choking it to death?

(sorry for the newbie questions...)

Chris Fitzgerald · Post by **Chris Fitzgerald** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 8:51 am

Worked a bit more with the DSP Quattro demo last night and was able to make some pretty good headway. The price is certainly right! From the OSX Audio boards I gather that quite a few people are using this program. Does it have any options for "batch processing"? (I'm assuming this means applying an identical bunch of settings to a batch of files) This would make it a gimme. Anybody know of any real flaws in Quattro?

gearboy · Post by **gearboy** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 11:28 am

Chris Fitzgerald wrote:I downloaded the demos of both. DSP quattro seems to have a lot more plugs, but I don't quite feel comfortable with the non-visual (non-graphic?) layout of them. I got good results out of the Peak LE demo, but do I understand correctly that there is only one insert point on the LE program, meaning that you can only run one plugin at a time? That would really be a drag.

You should do the following.

••• Spend the $99 on Peak LE
••• Spend the money that you would end up spending on the full blown version of Peak and purchase Izotope's Ozone3.

If you do this, the single FX insert point will never be an issue, and you'll have an amazing Plug-in/Mastering Suite for any audio application.

I've been using Peak LE 4 for the past three years. Once I purchased Ozone3 in April 2005, I've never looked back or complained about Peak LE again.

I only use Peak LE to edit stereo mixes for CD, dither, and "master" stuff. Sometimes I use it to create loops, but honestly, I use DP to edit everything in my multitrack mixes. I've become quite the DP editing whiz kid this year. Copying beats from other projects and dropping them into other songs, reverse guitars, multiple mic'd group drum editing... Things that I could never dream of doing in Peak LE.

Jeff

Chris Fitzgerald · Post by **Chris Fitzgerald** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 4:47 am

gearboy wrote:You should do the following.

••• Spend the $99 on Peak LE
••• Spend the money that you would end up spending on the full blown version of Peak and purchase Izotope's Ozone3.

If you do this, the single FX insert point will never be an issue, and you'll have an amazing Plug-in/Mastering Suite for any audio application.

I've been using Peak LE 4 for the past three years. Once I purchased Ozone3 in April 2005, I've never looked back or complained about Peak LE again.

I tried the demos of Peak and Ozone together. BOOYAH! Exactly what I've been looking for. Ozone seems like a real gem, and it's easy enough to use that even I don't have that many questions about how to make it work. Thanks much for the heads up!

One other question: Ozone says you can "buy" the product by simply registering the demo, but it's more expensive that way. When you buy it from a retail place, does it come with any documentation? It's a pretty intuitive interface, but I'm sure that there would be some good tips in any docs that might come with it.

gearboy · Post by **gearboy** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:16 am

Chris Fitzgerald wrote: I tried the demos of Peak and Ozone together. BOOYAH! Exactly what I've been looking for. Ozone seems like a real gem, and it's easy enough to use that even I don't have that many questions about how to make it work. Thanks much for the heads up!

Sweet, so glad that you agree and that it's going to work for you.

One other question: Ozone says you can "buy" the product by simply registering the demo, but it's more expensive that way. When you buy it from a retail place, does it come with any documentation? It's a pretty intuitive interface, but I'm sure that there would be some good tips in any docs that might come with it.

Izotope has a ton of free PDFs on their website, including a "Mastering with Ozone" guide, that's really well put together. I learned a whole lot.

I believe that Ozone comes with a PDF if you buy it on the site. I think you'll save $50 if you purchase it at Banjo Mart or the like, though.

Jeff