PreSonus Studio One (Version 4) DAW
From Manufacturer’s website :
There’s a very good reason why so many musicians have switched to Studio One from older, more rigid programs. Built on a modern foundation that’s not bogged down by legacy code, Studio One Artist provides an efficient, creative companion from initial inspiration to final export. Its efficient, single-screen interface houses an unlimited number of tracks, intuitive editing tools, and advanced virtual instruments—you spend your time creating music, not wondering what to click next. The 32-bit mix engine is state of the art, while the smooth, analog, superior sound quality of the virtual instruments comes from proprietary techniques that provide much higher controller resolution.
Ntrack ($70) DAW
From Manufacturer’s website :
- Records and plays back a virtually unlimited number of audio and MIDI tracks
- VST, VST3, DirectX (Windows), AU (Mac) and ReWire effects can be added to each channel/track
- Volume, pan, aux sends & returns and effects parameters can be automated: you can “program” fade-in/outs, cross fades, boost the volume of a track when there is a solo etc.
- Live input processing allows to process with plug-ins live signals. Record the ‘dry’ (unprocessed) signal while processing and reprocess the recording later – i.e. play a guitar through a distortion plug-in then change the distortion after the recording
Cool Edit 2000 (Discontinued) Editor
From Manufacturer’s website :
This audio editing software is a full-featured professional audio and music editor for Windows. It lets you record and edit music, voice and other audio recordings. When editing audio files, you can cut, copy and paste parts of recordings, and then add effects like echo, amplification and noise reduction.
Cool Edit 2000 works as a wav or mp3 editor. This is not a DAW, because it only works on mono or stereo files, not multitrack files. This is a good way to import analog audio, from cassette tape and reel to reel machines. It is also a good program to use to master stereo recordings.
Sonic Sweet ($46)
From Sweetwater Review:
The Sonic Maximizer and some of BBE Sound’s other hardware tools have been secret weapons in the hands of countless studio engineers for decades. The BBE Sonic Sweet V4 now brings the coveted BBE sound to a convenient plug-in format. Each of Sonic Sweet V4’s four included plug-ins is designed to quickly and cleanly enhance your audio with mix-ready sparkle, excited harmonics, a fuller low end, and air-moving loudness enhancement. These plug-ins have been redesigned from the ground up with optimized CPU usage in mind — even if you’re running these on an older system, you’ll have no trouble getting multiple instantiations across your project. Best of all, BBE Sonic Sweet V4 plug-ins are fun to use and fast to dial in. And with input and output knobs on each plug-in, gain staging is never a problem. Whether you’re tracking, mixing, or mastering, BBE’s Sonic Sweet V4 has the tools required to give your audio that pro-level polish.
Tabledit ($60)
From Manufacture’s Website:
TablEdit is a program for creating, editing, printing and listening to tablature and sheet music (standard notation) for guitar and other fretted, stringed instruments, including mandolin, ukulele, bass and banjo (even taking into consideration the special aspect of the fifth string).
Additionally, TablEdit, while designed for guitarists, by guitarists, is not limited to fretted instruments like other tablature programs. Through ongoing consultation with experts on other instruments, TablEdit has developed support for hammered and mountain dulcimer, harmonica, diatonic button accordion, chromatic accordion, anglo-irish concertina, drums, violin, tin whistle, recorder, xaphoon, native american flute, autoharp, pedal steel guitar, arabic oud…
TablEdit runs on Windows and MacOS. A lite version (TEFpad) is available for iOS and Android.
It can also create midi files that I can convert to WAV or MP3 files. I use this program to create Drum tracks that I import to PreSonus Studio One Multitrack editing software.
Piston MIDI to MP3 (and WAV) Software.($30)
From Manufacture’s Website:
Direct MIDI to MP3 Converter is a fast audio utility that allows you to convert MIDI to MP3, WAV, WMA and OGG formats. Our audio MIDI converter can quickly render any MIDI file into an audio format that you can burn to an audio CD and play on a regular CD player..
A key difference between our fast MIDI to MP3/WAV converter and other similar programs is that our fast converter provides direct MIDI conversion (rendering) without sound recording. The main advantages of direct MIDI conversion are the CD audio quality, the conversion speed and the silence during conversion. You don’t need to listen to the MIDI music, nor adjust the recording level while converting. Just drag and drop your MIDI files and the rest is done automatically by Direct MIDI Converter! Conversion speed is up to 10 times faster than the original MIDI file time! Musicians can use their own SF2 Soundfonts for fast rendering and change the instruments’ quality.
Piston Direct Audio Converter and CD Ripper ($25)
From Manufacture’s Website:
Using Direct Audio Converter and CD Ripper, you can easily convert your favorite music tracks between all popular formats, rip audio CDs to any popular format you like and even import tag information from the FreeDB database.
Direct Audio Converter and CD Ripper allows you to convert your favorite music tracks from one format to another without any quality loss (such as WAV to MP3, MP3 to WMA, MP3 to OGG, MP3 to WAV, etc.). The program supports all popular formats, such as MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, FLAC, Monkey’s Audio APE, MusePack MPC, WavPack WV, SPX, AIFF and AC3. Even better, happy iPod owners will be delighted with Apple format support for AAC, MP4 and M4A (iPod audiobooks). With Direct Audio Converter and CD Ripper, you can convert your whole music collection to another audio format while keeping the original folder structure (including subfolders and preserving the original folder structure features). And you can be sure all audio tag information will remain unchanged after conversion.
Audacity Editor
From Manufacture’s Website:
In the app, every audio creator can:
- Record live with a microphone or mixer. Or digitize imported recordings.
- Edit your tracks fast with intuitive tools, including cutting, pasting and smooth volume mixing.
- Perfect your audio with more advanced effects:
- Reduce background static with noise reduction tools.
- Adjust tempo without altering pitch or vice versa.
- Alter frequencies with equalizers, high and low-pass filters and more.
- Add impact with distortion, echo, reverb and more effects.
- Import, export and convert files in every popular audio format, including mp3, m4a, AIFF, FLAC, WAV and more. You can even combine clips from multiple formats into the same project.
- Take your editing to the next level with an extensive selection of third-party effects plugins, designed by the passionate Audacity, open-source community.
- Collaborate and backup projects with Cloud saving.
- Visualize and analyze your audio clips in Spectrogram view.
- Upload and share your files online to audio.com, instantly.
Windows Live Movie Maker (Free)
This is a brief description of the software from the cnet web site:
Functional freeware that’s aimed squarely at the casual consumer crowd, Microsoft’s Windows Live Movie Maker easily turns photos and video clips into slideshows and movies on Vista and Windows 7. However, its toolset and interface lack a certain sophistication that users of all levels would appreciate. The app comes bundled into the bulky Windows Live Essentials suite of apps; to separate it out, you’ll need to uncheck the other boxes before installing.
Like Microsoft Office 2007 apps, Windows Live Movie Maker tucks its actions and menus into a visual ribbon. You’ll get started dragging and dropping video clips and photos into the storyboard. You could finish a minute later with a click of the AutoMovie button, which populates the movie with a title, transitions, and pan and zoom effects. It’ll also prompt you to add a song from the hard drive. Automating movies is handy, especially for time-restricted users. After all, you can always tweak later with the help of the menu tabs.
The intermediate photo-, audio-, and video-editing features are sparse–you can split and trim videos, fade songs in and out, and pick a start and end point for audio and video. The publishing and sharing options are better thought out. Windows Live Movie Maker can e-mail a finished video, burn it to DVD, or upload it to YouTube or Facebook (with a plug-in). Videos also save in HD format for your TV (standard or wide screen), and can convert to a mobile-phone-friendly format.
All in all, Windows Live Movie Maker is decent freeware that lives up to its promise of making movies fast. You won’t find many advanced tools, but more ambitious types can still create interesting videos and slideshows.
Made for Windows 7, its videos only go up to 640 X 480.
I use it to put album cover pictures on the songs that i put on youtube.