Please help me find an audio editor to meet my needs... (very specific)

[Jeremiad]

I am producing a CD series for learning English which will consist of drills of questions and answers. There will be a lot of tracks to polish, so I need to do it as efficiently as possible. I currently use Cubase 6.5 for various projects, but I'm not sure if it meets my requirements for this project.

For each track, there will be 2 people speaking, one asking a question, and one answering. I will then cut the silence out from between the question and answer, as well as before and after, leaving only the wave.

[----question---------answer-----] →(ripple delete)→　[question][answer]

After that, I would like to assign 3 different kinds of markers A,B,C to the heads of the remaining events.

A B C B
[question] [answer] [question2] [answer2]

Finally, I will insert paste silence at B (to keep all the tracks uniform) and well as various cues at A and C.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a program that I can use.
Many thanks in advance.

 

[ecc83]

The obvious and cost effective answer is Audacity but I would think there will be better if you are paying!

Sony Soundforge. You might find the "object" editing in Samplitude very effective. You can download a 30 trial of each of these, you might even find you don't need the full blown Samplitude and can get by with one of the Music Studio cheapies?

Further thoughts: Whatever you use I understand that THE most efficient way to use DAW software is to get really into the keyboard shortcuts and also to set them up for your particular tasks? You might even find a MIDI surface is the way to go?

Dave.

 

[Bobbsy]

You might want to have a look at Adobe Audition.

The marker system doesn't work quite how you describe to it IS primarily an audio editing tool and very fast. It's used in a lot of radio production applications for exactly that reason.

Adobe have a 28 day free trial and, after that, their current marketing model is a monthly or annual rental (which doesn't really suit me but might be good if yo have a finite project to use it for).

 

[Tom Hicks]

markers and macros are available in most DAW software.

drop markers on the timeline, navigate there then use assigned shortcut to perform a macro like insert silence of a specific length.

the demo of samplitude is great for this sort of post production work.

or even reaper.

 

[BroKen_H]

+1 Soundforge. Did a sound workup for a dramatization last year. Dropped all the sounds in order in a directory. Added the files with markers all at once by drag/dropping. Added various spaces between the sound bites to allow for my actors to move into new positions, whatever. Done. Moved it into Vegas and added the pics/video/effects. Took hours, not days.

 

[Jeremiad]

Thanks for all the advice! Since I have Cubase 6.5, I'll study up on macros and see if I can find an efficient workflow.