[Slow_Hand]

I was curious myself, so I downloaded Audacity and tried.

It's a granular time-stretch algorithm. By the sound of the artifacts at extreme settings it's akin to the 'Complex Pro' algorithm in Ableton Live (if you have any reference to that) and seems to be equally effective at a wide variety of sources (percussion, vocals, full records).

Is it better than most commercial offerings? Hard to say after a brief test, but it's not bad!

I suspect it's plenty good for the needs of Audacity's audience, who are unlikely to be demanding audio pros. As an audio professional I would never use Audacity, but if you need a quick, free, and (relatively) simple option to time-stretch a file, then it should fit the bill.

[skrebbel]

What's the regular go-to tool for audio pros? Adobe Audition or something else? I'm from the age when Sound Forge was considered leading (and Audition, then named CoolEdit, was its cheapo shareware competitor) so I'm probably way behind the times.

[Slow_Hand]

I'll clarify first that I word in record production. I don't work in audio post-production (film, video, tv, etc). While some of the tools do overlap, the industry standards for each discipline will differ, so I can't speak to the video side of things.

For my work the standard DAWs are Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Cubase, and Ableton Live. There are lots of options each with their own strengths, but any of these will do a great job. I think it comes down to the person's workflow preferences. Certain disciplines will favor different DAWs.

Other than that Izotope (programs like RX and Ozone) are doing cutting-edge work for audio restoration. There are certain companies that are competitive or exceed them in certain situations, but Izotope is the company you're most likely to see working professionals use these days for general utility.

It can be more nuanced than that, but I don't know if you're asking for a deeper explanation.

[okbrown]

It's still apps like Sound Forge, Wavelab etc. I use audacity mostly for the loopback feature to record audio from various "sources"

Though with this new update, I thought I could stop using Sound Forge but quickly realised it doesn't have a real time pitch control on play back (think the pitch control on a turntable) so I will be keeping with Sound Forge untill then.

[vintermann]

Do you really make enough from being an audio professional that price doesn't matter?

Whether you do or not, there are a hell of a lot of hawkers of software and "hardware" alike, who stand ready to sell their overpriced "professional" tools to people who fail to make it in the music industry (which is going to be most of them, regardless of tools or even skills). A high sticker price is a way to prove your commitment - to oneself, at least. The end market is less likely to care.

[hurryer]

Good professional audio hardware is not overpriced. Sure, there are $15k microphones but you absolutely do not need those, a $1k one is top quality and not expensive if you use it regularly.

You are confusing it with audiophile gear.

Regarding Audacity, it's missing tons of features and it's UI is bad. Just like Gimp vs Photoshop. I did some audio production and Audacity is just not usable beyond the most basic operations, and even those are a bit of pain.

[orlp]

> a $1k one is top quality

$100 gets you a SM57 which probably has been on more platinum albums than any other mic.

[seanw444]

Exactly. After a certain point, you get diminishing returns. $100 gets you probably 85-90% of the way there, which is certainly more than enough. People forget that a good mic and a good DAW do not fix a bad take. The price of the tools is less important than their proper usage, and simply recording things well.

You don't even need an SM57. I know for a fact the iPhone mic and iPhone Garageband has been one artist's success.

[Slow_Hand]

The SM57 is a great mic in some situations. A lot of situations even. But saying that an artist can use an SM57 or an iPhone mic on a hit record and is sufficient is missing the point.

Steven Soderbergh has shot several feature films on an iPhone and the movies were still great, but they're nowhere close to unlocking the full potential of visual expression that you'd get with more refined tools.

Artists who are serious about their craft will keep an SM57 and an iPhone mic in their color palette (Frank Ocean comes to mind), but that's all they are for serious practitioners: a creative choice.

[Slow_Hand]

The SM57 is a workhorse of a mic. It's great in a pinch and probably a desert island choice. It's earned it's classic status for a reason and is probably on more records and stages in the last 40 years than anything else. Great mic... to a point.

That said, the ceiling of what's possible is far higher than what an SM57 can deliver. Not to diminish it. In some instances it's perfect, but one wouldn't have to look far to find better choices, depending on the context and needs of the record.

A Toyota Corolla (don't @ me, I'm not a car person) might be a low-cost, reliable choice in a pinch, but it's far from embodying what automobiles are capable of.

[hurryer]

As a dynamic microphone, SM57 is only usable in the studio for certain kinds of vocals/instruments - the loud ones.

You wouldn't want to record an acoustic guitar ballad on it.

[lozenge]

Ableton Live Suite costs 750 USD? Not much for a lifetime license of something that you would use on every project. Plus there's the ability to collaborate with other professionals that depends on the Ableton project file format.

Edit: Mind you, it contains software instruments, sound packs and MIDI effects allowing you to add synthesized music to recorded music. Audacity only manipulates existing audio and you will need to bring in other software if you want to add synthesised audio which in Audacity will just be treated as extra audio tracks rather than MIDI. That will obviously make it more difficult to produce music. It would be like having to rasterise every layer instead of using a vector graphics to build an illustration.

[Slow_Hand]

Yes. I'm seasoned enough and do the work often enough to be discerning about my choice of tools. An amateur cook might not worry about their choice of chef's knife, but someone doing the work every day is going to make the investment in tools that enable them to express themselves at their full potential, and with minimal resistance. These tools may sometimes appear overpriced to outsiders, but for a regular user it makes a big difference and is worth the investment.

I've also been around the block long enough to know what tools are worth investing in and which to avoid, so I'm not worried about vendors with bad value add.

The "Mixdown Industrial Complex" that provokes gear lust in audio professionals is not something I worry about at this point. I'm mostly satisfied on the tools that I use and the shiny new thing doesn't interest me like it once did. The focus now is on the work.

[westcoast49]

> better than most commercial offerings

The audacity!

[thowawa47827]

<3

[RicoElectrico]

How is granular time stretch different from OLA or WSOLA?