I'd been a PC user using the Sonic Foundry/Sony
line for years (Vegas for multitrack and Sound Forge for fine stereo editing), and switched to
Mac about a year ago. For my first show on
Mac, I stuck with the Sony stuff via Boot Camp, but since then, I decided it was time to leap in, and tried a few options.
Logic 8, IMHO, rocks. It's very powerful, and easy to learn if you sit with it a little; I actually learned it while designing a show on a short timeframe, talk about trial by fire. I did some stereo, as well as multi-track (7-8 ch) WAV files with it, and it was all pretty easy, although occasionally I had to dig into the help files for guidance on
rendering the multi-tracks and other obscure stuff like that.
I played with Peak a
bit for stereo editing, but wasn't in love with it. I may need to revisit the new version, but honestly, Logic does everything I've needed so far. I find myself needing a dedicated 2-track editor less and less as I get more used to working non-destructively in a multi-track.
Also, I should add that the plug-ins that come with Logic are great. I recently pieced together a bunch of water droplets for the opening sequence of a production of "The Winter's Tale", and while I found perfect drops and plops, they were quite noisy recordings. A
bit of playing with Logic's built in noise removal plug-in and they sounded perfect. The verb plugins also sound pretty decent.
And with all the media and extras that come with it, it's a bargain, and I'm pretty sure there's student pricing for it, too.
I tried Wave Editor, but it kept crashing on me. Which was a bummer, because I was really excited by some of it's advertised features, but it wasn't stable enough for me to
play with them. I had a show to get up, so back to Logic it was.
--Andy, who will have to try Reaper as it gets closer to
release on
Mac, it looks intriguing.