Re: [AUDITORY] Recommendations for an audio editor?

[Xander Brewer <afb8252@xxxxxxx>]

  Hi all,
  
  
Just want to mention Ardour. As a Linux enthusiast I find commercial support for audio work to be lacking; Ardour has been effectively my go to for years. Cross-platform (Win, Mac, Linux), nearly all the features of ProTools (it can even import PT sessions!), all for the low low price of free (as in beer AND as in speech). 
  
  
It also has an active development community - if you want a feature, you can just add it yourself and make a PR!
  
  
- Xander

Oct 11, 2025 00:08:12 Oberfeld-Twistel, Daniel <oberfeld@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:

Dear list,

 

we’ve been using Adobe Audition as an audio editor for decades, but now our IT department is cancelling the campus license due to an (admittedly) high price tag.

 

So I was wondering if someone can recommend an alternative audio editor. I’ve tried Audacity but find it has some limitations.

 

Here’s what we want to do with the editor / which features are important:

 

• Look at waveform and spectrogram of audio files (also with more than 2 channels)
• Show time axis in units of seconds as well as in units of samples
• Convenient zooming (time and amplitude)
• Selection of time windows not only with the mouse but also by entering end and start times / samples numerically
• Frequency spectrum for the selected time window
• Amplitude statistics for the selected time window (at least RMS amplitude and peak amplitude)
• Convenient way of switching between audio files
• Playback of whole sound and of loops
• Format conversion (i.e., WAV to FLAC, sample rate conversion)
• Less important: Signal processing / sound effects, except for amplitude normalization

 

Daniel

 

---------------------------------

Prof. Dr. Daniel Oberfeld-Twistel

Johannes Gutenberg - Universitaet Mainz, Experimental Psychology

Wallstrasse 3

55122 Mainz

Germany

http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/oberfeld/