Remember Peak LE? Currently using Audacity? Check out TwistedWave audio editor, a continually updated two-track editor. TwistedWave brings with it cheap, powerful, and simple editing capabilities. When you don’t need ProTools or Logic, but you want something more powerful than Audacity, TwistedWave fits the bill.
Clearly, the folks (or really just a guy in Paris named Thomas) behind TwistedWave are not trying to compete with the big boys of multi-track-dom. TwistedWave is directed toward the simpler life, where efficient and easy two-track editing is king. While you can do advanced work and use plug-ins, it also makes it easy to crank out a podcast or customize your ringtone. You can do all of this without an interface, or TwistedWave will recognize and use any connected audio device. But where TwistedWave clearly outshines its competition is in its forward thinking and incorporation of the increasingly mobile needs of users. More on that in a second.
The interface is stylish and simple. It reminded me of Figure 53’s QLab in terms of its intuitive setup and good looks. You get an overview of your entire waveform, and then, in a larger area, you can see a magnified section of the audio selection. From here you can easily cut, copy, and paste audio, as well as play it back. You can also easily select a region of the audio to be edited. Buttons for fade in and fade out are available, or you can manually enter a fade time, although you can’t draw the volume curve. A handy crop tool allows you to get rid of any audio not in your selected region. There’s also very handy silence tool that lets you detect silences (and in advanced mode, determine your threshold and/or duration), and then you can choose to delete the silence or place markers or add a specific sound in place of the silence.
Any effect plug-in that’s on your computer can be accessed in TwistedWave, including any Audio Unit plug-ins that were installed courtesy of Apple. As a part of TwistedWave, however, you get DSP Dimension's DIRAC Time Stretch/Pitch Shift plug-in, which uses one of the most advanced algorithms for time-based manipulation. It sounds darn good. You can also have fun with the flexible speech synthesis plugin and get your computer to finally say “I love you.” There are other smart capabilities as well.
The program can support up to 64-bit, 192 kHz recording and editing, and can export and import myriad file formats--all your usual suspects plus snd, mp2, mp4 (and r for iPhone ringtones, a for iTunes, b for audiobooks), and on and on. If you are making an audiobook or podcast, when you export your audio, any markers in your session will translate to chapters in your finished product. And if you are looking to embed metadata, you’ll have the time of your life. There’s also support for Soundminer and foreign metadata in FLAC files.
Clearly, it packs a punch, but what’s it good for? Mono or stereo recording, two-track editing, file conversion (it’s so flexible), mastering, and then a big one: batch processing. It will whip a mess of files into shape in one swoop, allowing you to set the parameters (such as normalize, fade in, fade out, delete silence, save as an MP3, etc), and let it go. It’s pretty cool and made me feel so efficient I got a beverage while it worked.
And now, to the bonus of the great iPad, iPhone, and online integration: As I have previously written, you can download the iPhone or iPad app and do full featured editing as described above, but on your mobile device. And since you're mobile, you can add AAC compression and export your mobile work to Dropbox, iCloud, or any FTP account. The interface on the mobile deviced is basically the same as on the full computer version, which makes switching between versions very comfortable. It’s so good it’s actually a little scary.
You can also configure your iPhone or iPad to act as a remote control for TwistedWave running on your actual computer, a pretty cool idea that could be useful for your do-it-yourself recording sessions where you need to be performing and recording at the same time. Again, it’s really quite smart.
Finally, TwistedWave is beginning to exist as an online application, where your session is run remotely over an internet connection. It’s still in beta-testing, but it works fairly well, letting you record and playback audio, and do basic editing. You can upload a file or import on from SoundCloud or Google Drive. It’s not ideal yet, and I’m not entirely sure when I’d need it, but it’s solid forward thinking for sure.
And what’s best is that, unlike ProTools and more like QLab, the creator is constantly working on ways to make TwistedWave better. You can suggest ideas or vote on ideas already posted. You can also try a full version of TwistedWave free for 30 days, and when you’re ready to buy, it’s only $79.