User:Woozle/Ultimate Audio Editor

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I've used CoolEdit and CoolEdit Pro for many years, and I've tried using other editors like Audacity. They all have annoying shortcomings. I'd like to take one of the existing open source editors, such as Audacity, and fix it up so it does everything CoolEdit Pro does, plus all the things it should do but doesn't.

The following is just a preliminary list of features, to which I'll be adding as I think of them; eventually I'll type up a full specification.

Features

  • Ability to move multiple waveblocks together -- or to lock groups of waveblocks to each other rather than to absolute time (update: CEP supports this)
  • Envelope control of delay, with no arbitrary maximum
    • CEP 2.0 supposedly had no maximum, but due to a bug it was limited to about half a second; I pointed this out to tech support, and they "fixed" it in 2.1 by showing the correct maximum...
  • Envelope control of speed/pitch control
    • CEP allows envelope control of pitch, but in a separate dialog not matched against wave display; CEP also allows linear-change control of speed/pitch, but no envelope)
  • conversion between envelope-style data and wave-style data
  • automatic queueing of operations -- i.e. if a given operation is going to take a long time, you can put it into the background, set up the next operation (select wave chunk, select effect, press go) and the app will automatically do it next, without having to pre-record a script.
    • This is less critical now, as CPU power has increased dramatically...
  • right-click to open a selected wave-snippet in a new window (or bookmarking the current view), so that when you are done using it you don't have to monkey around finding your way back to the view you had before.
  • Session Management:
    • "session" data (envelopes, parameters, etc.) in XML-based format
    • import/export session files from other multitrack editor formats (e.g. CEP's .ses files)
    • allow creation of .tar session files with audio data included (.ses files do not include audio data, and CEP doesn't know where to find audio if directory tree is moved -- even if it's all moved together so the location is relatively the same)
    • always, or at least by default, save source filenames as relative paths (unless outside the project's folder)
      • ...so that a project can be opened painlessly after its folder is moved/copied
      • Maybe have a "make project portable" option which copies all needed files into the project folder if they aren't already there.
  • Pitch correction:
    • vocal-style auto-pitch correction, harmonizing, etc.
    • detection of persistent variations, e.g. warped/off-center vinyl record; automatic creation of correction curve
  • Ability to use lossless formats (e.g. FLAC) as "native" storage format, for instant loading (with .pk-equivalent files)
  • Import/export spreadsheet data
  • Performance module:
    • Synthesizer-style triggering of envelopes from external or internal sources
    • Wave-generation based on equations (sine waves etc.) or samples
  • Better documentation:
    • Explanation of how all the different parameters in click/pop removal work with each other
    • Wiki-based online documentation, with fallback to mirror of latest wiki contents (if internet not available)

Related Wishes

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