Audio editing software for a beginner

[Rolmill]

Advance apologies for what is probably a numpty question from a technophobe: I am looking for a simple, user-friendly and free (or at least cheap) audio editing application.

My requirements are simple (I think): I want to collate audio files submitted to me (I suspect mainly in mp3, wma and m4a format, e.g. on iPhone voice memos) by individual singers and stitch them together to produce a 'choral performance' of a piece. So I would need to be able to edit start/stop times, mitigate background noise, change individual track volumes, possibly fade individual tracks out to 'remove' wrong notes etc.

I have looked through some threads here on the subject of DAWs, but they seem to focus on more technical aspects (such as sampling, effects) which I'm not (currently) interested in for my basic purpose, which is to allow a choir to generate a performance of a piece without actually meeting. If it works OK I could also go on to use it for a small orchestra, though I think this would be much more challenging.

This is currently just an idea, which may never come to fruition, hence the reluctance to shell out any/much dosh at this stage!

I have a Windows PC, so Garage Band is out. I understand that Audacity is free and is reasonably well-regarded, but seems to have a reputation for being a bit 'clunky' - though I don't know if this would affect what I want to do; I have also heard that it doesn't accept m4a files.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

[MrGongGong]

A quick response
You could do all of that with Audacity
BUT I would suggest that you would be much better off with Reaper ...

That is a big (and could be very tricky) job so having something that really works smoothly would be the best way to go

Reaper isn't "free" but you can "evaluate" it endlessly without loss of features.
There are plenty of tutorials on youtube etc

https://www.reaper.fm

[Dave2002]

I saw a very helpful Youtube video some while ago on exactly this, but I'll have to dig around to find it.

I think Audacity might have been used - it's certainly possible. There are probably ways to convert m4a files - do you need that in case people record using iPhones? [That's what it says - "read the question"!]

How many singers would you want to stitch together? The more you have the harder (in some ways) it becomes.

You could also use video editing software, if you have any. Da Vinci Resolve might work for you, though it requires some effort to learn, and your PC will need to be fairly capable - i.e. not minimum hardware spec.

Some people are still recommending Lightworks - which I think is also rather good, but ... A lot of the better "free" software packages will try to lure you into either an expensive download, or a drip-drip subscription model - perhaps by making it easy for you to create a video or audio, but then making it very hard to export (or in a quality level you really want) without paying something for the privilege.

https://www.techradar.com/best/free-video-editing-software

https://www.lwks.com/index.php?optio...102&Itemid=213 Lightworks

https://motionarray.com/learn/davinc...ree-vs-studio/ Da Vinci Resolve

I'll try to locate the best of the Youtube remote choir tutorials - though it's proving a bit difficult to find again.

Sorry - it's based on Premiere - it's this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gtazh8EoSA&t=1087s Paloma Sings.

This page might also help you - https://galachoruses.org/resource-ce...-virtual-choir

[Dave2002]

If you want to try doing anything "live" you can use Zoom - as mentioned in this video - https://youtu.be/STXzs5qnPwg which is specifically for choirs. I didn't know about "Turn on original sound" option" before - so that is helpful. That option is to force Zoom to use better quality sound, appropriate for singing - or perhaps instrumental performances.

[Bryn]

I saw a very helpful Youtube video some while ago on exactly this, but I'll have to dig around to find it.

I think Audacity might have been used - it's certainly possible. There are probably ways to convert m4a files - do you need that in case people record using iPhones? [That's what it says - "read the question"!]

How many singers would you want to stitch together? The more you have the harder (in some ways) it becomes.

You could also use video editing software, if you have any. Da Vinci Resolve might work for you, though it requires some effort to learn, and your PC will need to be fairly capable - i.e. not minimum hardware spec.

Some people are still recommending Lightworks - which I think is also rather good, but ... A lot of the better "free" software packages will try to lure you into either an expensive download, or a drip-drip subscription model - perhaps by making it easy for you to create a video or audio, but then making it very hard to export (or in a quality level you really want) without paying something for the privilege.

https://www.techradar.com/best/free-video-editing-software

https://www.lwks.com/index.php?optio...102&Itemid=213 Lightworks

https://motionarray.com/learn/davinc...ree-vs-studio/ Da Vinci Resolve

I'll try to locate the best of the Youtube remote choir tutorials - though it's proving a bit difficult to find again.

Sorry - it's based on Premiere - it's this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gtazh8EoSA&t=1087s Paloma Sings.

This page might also help you - https://galachoruses.org/resource-ce...-virtual-choir

Yamb (free) is very handy for extracting the aac file from m4a files. An easy to use, though not as feature-loaded, alternative to Reaper might be Sound Forge Studio. Best obtained as 'free' bonus software with the now somewhat dated but entirely serviceable Sony Vegas Movie Studio 11 .

[Dave2002]

Yamb (free) is very handy for extracting the aac file from m4a files. An easy to use, though not as feature-loaded, alternative to Reaper might be Sound Forge Studio. Best obtained as 'free' bonus software with the now somewhat dated but entirely serviceable Sony Vegas Movie Studio 11 .

Does that work with the latest Windows versions?

I gave up on Windows years ago, but occasionally I wonder if it's worth buying a PC in order to access different software.

[MrGongGong]

If you want to try doing anything "live" you can use Zoom - as mentioned in this video - https://youtu.be/STXzs5qnPwg which is specifically for choirs. I didn't know about "Turn on original sound" option" before - so that is helpful. That option is to force Zoom to use better quality sound, appropriate for singing - or perhaps instrumental performances.

You also need to do a few other tweaks to get reasonable sound in Zoom
Turning OFF all the background noise suppression etc and enabling stereo by turning it on in the account browser online etc

and so on

[Dave2002]

Another free DAW which should work with Windows is LMMS. See this video which shows how a short audio fragment can be used in that tool - though I think there are other (possibly better) ways to use audio in LMMS. https://youtu.be/T7IAvoqWAD4

I had difficulty getting LMMS to work, but if it works on your Win PC it can probably be tamed. It might take a while to learn how to use it though - but that's par for the course for most DAWs in my opinion.

https://lmms.io/

Another way to use audio in LMMS is as a sample track - see https://youtu.be/1peNtT0GfPo

You could put each choir member on their own sample track, and adjust the levels and timings between them.

[MrGongGong]

There are always more and more things to play with
The best advice I was given many years ago was to find something that works for you and stick with it
For what you want to do it would be Reaper IMV
Stable, loads of folks using it and not too tricky to learn

[Dave2002]

There are always more and more things to play with
The best advice I was given many years ago was to find something that works for you and stick with it
For what you want to do it would be Reaper IMV
Stable, loads of folks using it and not too tricky to learn

I agree - up to a point. It might take time to find "something that works for you" - people are different.

I found Reaper quite hard, but there could be a lot of reasons for that - possibly connected with hardware. I find it easier in Logic, but now I can do things in Logic I can do similar things in other DAWs too - so generally can get Reaper to work too. The OP hasn't access to LPX, so other tools which work on Windows may be better. Video editing tools are often good enough - so might be a way forward, rather than a DAW.

I have found that access to loads of tutorial material - both text and Youtube (or Vimeo) helps a lot for trying to get to grips with these things.

It is possible that some things are actually easier on Windows, as (maybe) the OS doesn't keep trying to be clever, and hide things from the software used (e.g. Bluetooth, settings in obscure Preference files, Audio Midi setup utilities, etc.) though other issues such as dodgy drivers might still be a problem even with Windows. I'm not rushing to go back to Windows despite some of the problems I've found with DAWs in MacOS.

I think the original project mentioned - doing choir recording - could be rather challenging - though many have obviously found it of interest, and some have succeeded - particularly during these lockdown periods. Some efforts have clearly used expert resources (e.g. the ROH orchestra, the MET orchestra and various other choirs) - organisations which can call on professional experts with considerable knowledge and skills to get a job like this done.

I think the Paloma Sings choir video mentioned earlier is worth looking at. Those people seem pretty much music pros to me - and there aren't too many of them, though I doubt that they started as computer tecchies. Trying to do a large choir could be really challenging. I'd suggest trying a very short piece first - one or two minutes, in order to see how feasible it all is.

[Bryn]

There are always more and more things to play with
The best advice I was given many years ago was to find something that works for you and stick with it
For what you want to do it would be Reaper IMV
Stable, loads of folks using it and not too tricky to learn

And if one is tempted to venture into ambisonics, it's a good fit with relevant plugins. I was sufficiently impressed to fork out the very reasonable registration fee, a few months ago. However, in line with the "find one and stick with it" approach, my main audio editing tool remains Sound Forge Pro (now sticking with version 13, having started with version 3, some decades ago.

[Rolmill]

My thanks to MrGG, Dave 2002 and Bryn for their suggestions, all of which are helpful.

Choir would probably only be 10-12 singers, but orchestra could be 20-25 participants - depends on member courage levels!

Reaper looks good on their website, so I'll probably give that one a go, especially as the 60 day trial period is sufficiently generous to allow me to work out for sure whether it is suitable.

I saw a recommendation for Ocenaudio, has anyone tried that one?

[Dave2002]

My thanks to MrGG, Dave 2002 and Bryn for their suggestions, all of which are helpful.

Choir would probably only be 10-12 singers, but orchestra could be 20-25 participants - depends on member courage levels!

Reaper looks good on their website, so I'll probably give that one a go, especially as the 60 day trial period is sufficiently generous to allow me to work out for sure whether it is suitable.

I saw a recommendation for Ocenaudio, has anyone tried that one?

Don’t worry about the 60 days for Reaper. It’ll go for a year at least, unless things have changed. I was happy to pay once I got it working, but it took a long while.

If you get stuck with it, post again, and I think some of us can help.

[MrGongGong]

And if one is tempted to venture into ambisonics, it's a good fit with relevant plugins.

Pete Batchelor from DMU has made some guides on youtube for this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IYAw1BgU4U

and on
and when i'm able to travel i'll be able to finally to go and do more at EMS in Stockholm with it.....

[Dave2002]

Just revisiting Reaper to see if I can fathom some of the problems. Some "features" are well hidden.

Just noticed that if the Mixer (^M) is open, there is a "button" at the top right of the screen - in the corner, labelled Monitor FX which may be Red - and next to it is a Power button. Depending on how that's set, it may go Green, and that makes a significant difference as to whether there's any sound output on my MBP.

Of course if this is all in a window it's quite possible (ha ....) that this will have moved off screen, so completely invisible. This seems like a real "gotcha"!

I'm still not absolutely sure why sometimes I don't get any output from it, but at least at the moment I'm homing in on issues, and I can see level meters going up and down when I play an imported midi file.

I have had this working before, but I find it worrying that my knowledge of the interface is such that I seem to be presented with new problems each time.