In our article, “What Is Audacity,” we discussed that Audacity is free recording software with capabilities of a digital audio editor.
Audacity can:
- record audio to your computer hard drive (assuming you have enough hard drive space and a good quality sound card),
- play tracks together which have been recorded separately,
- apply effects to the recording, and
- mix together a number of separately recorded tracks.
In this article we provide a quick view of how software audio editors, both free and commercial, relate to alternative audio editing technology in use today.
First, we take a brief look at the spectrum of software audio editors available today.
Next, we backtrack to the late 1970s, when “integrated” digital audio editors, which are a combination of hardware and software, came into being as the computer age brought digital technology into common use, replacing analog technology.
Lastly, we backtrack further to give a moment of homage to the tape recorder as the analog (sound wave electronic pulse) precedent to digital (binary code electronic pulse) audio editing equipment.
Is there a commercial music editor similar to the Audacity sound editor?
The software music editor, in both commercial and free versions, came into existence with the beginning of the MIDI revolution, which started in 1983-1984.
We now have such software digital audio editors as the free-to-Macintosh-owners Garageband (incorporated into Macintosh software, 2004); and Cakewalk, Adobe Audition, Cubase, and Pro Tools (which work on both Macintosh and Windows operating systems), to name a few.
You will find a Wikipedia list of commercial and free digital audio editors, including Audacity, here.
The Wikipedia list of audio editors basically compares software digital audio editors with respect to the operating systems on which they will run, and the sound files which they are able to produce. The main limitation seen with Audacity in our view is that it does not utilize MIDI technology to the extent that a few other programs do. However, a certain limited use of MIDI is available with Version 2.0 of Audacity, which is the current version at time of writing this article in 2012.
The internet discussion of Audacity confirms that Audacity is the most capable free recording software tool available, and will produce a flexible, high quality result in an audio project. Without knowing the intricacies of the numerous audio editors available commercially, it is clear that time spent learning and working with Audacity will advance your familiarity with digital audio editing practices and audio technology in common use.
How was audio editing done before software digital audio editors such as Audacity were developed?
It is clear that Audacity’s audio editing design and capabilities are within the mainstream of audio technology, so that using the software will develop skills transferable to use of other digital audio editors.
But how does a wholly software digital music editor fit into the spectrum of audio equipment available? If it is possible that a software music editor really performs tasks that were once performed by hardware audio equipment, how has that capability come about?
In the late 1970s, personal computers became powerful enough to run digital audio software, and hard drives became affordable. The simplicity of digital audio editing, as compared to the hand-splicing of tape recordings, led audio engineers to prefer digital editing, where editing could be easily undone and redone without damaging an original recording.
Wikipedia explains that editing, recording, and mixing functions, in the early digital audio editors, integrated hardware with software. A single hardware device contained a mixing console, control surface, audio converter, and provision for data storage on a hard drive, but used software to record binary code electronic pulses (moving away from sound wave electronic pulses).
Wikipedia states that integrated software-plus-hardware audio editors are still seen in recording studios, but are quite expensive, and require care and maintenance. Wikipedia has a nice explanation of the components of such equipment, known as Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs), here.
While early in their development, these workstations would store recordings directly to a hard drive, such equipment today will often connect to a computer for functionality of certain controls, and for data storage.
How was audio editing done before integrated digital audio editors came into existence?
Continuing our look backwards, up to the 1970s, it’s worth recalling that audio engineers recorded sound waves onto tape media. Audio cassette tapes were available, but for high quality tape recording, reel-to-reel tape and multitrack recorders were utilized to produce magnetic tape recordings.
Tape recordings were edited by manual cutting and splicing of tape. It was a physical challenge that required manual dexterity, knowhow of equipment, and a lot of intuition and guesswork.
These analog recording systems have provided the visual model used in development of digital audio editors such as Audacity, with knobs and similar hardware representations presented in an image onscreen.
Audacity can provide a high quality digital recording.
It can be confusing to consider that an audio editor may be all hardware, a mix of hardware and software, or all software.
Hardware audio equipment with capabilities of a player, recorder, effects processor, and mixer is still available today. But such audio equipment can be expensive and space-consuming.
A software-plus-hardware “integrated” digital audio editor with all of those capabilities may be seen in recording studios, and represents a significant monetary investment in most cases.
A software digital sound editor needs hardware, but on a lesser scale:
- an audio pickup device (computer sound card),
- an audio storage device (computer hard drive),
- connection to an input source (internet access, a microphone, or direct connection to an audio source, and
- a listening device (speakers or earphones).
Using a digital music editor well takes study and effort. But whether the Audacity user is a beginner or an audio engineer, the end result can be a high quality recording with Audacity.