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I am looking for a simple audio editing tool for OSX, to slice and normalize long live recordings into individual songs. I would prefer a low-cost or gratis solution and ideally one that is in the App Store.

I am playing in a band, and when rehearsing, we just keep a recorder running all the time. Of course, there are a lot of pauses, sometimes we make mistakes and start from the beginning, sometimes we play the same song several times, and listening to the entire rehearsal again is rather boring, so I want to keep just the "gems".

I would like a tool that allows me to

  • quickly visually scan the waveform for pauses
  • simply cut out individual songs
  • normalize them
  • save them as individual files
  • (possibly compress as MP3 in the process)

The tool should be lightweight and simple. I own and use DAWs such as Logic, REAPER, Ardour and Audacity, but those are overkill for this simple task.

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    Isn't Audacity lightweight and simple? Personally I don't think it's overkill (unlike Logic, REAPER, Ardour).
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Apr 28, 2014 at 15:23
  • @FranckDernoncourt: Note: I didn't downvote your answer. Maybe it's just a lack of familiarity, but I just tried it out again (like I wrote, I do actually use it from time, but not for simple slice&save stuff) and I couldn't even figure out how to easily cut the file into tracks. Audacity still has DAW concepts like multiple tracks and regions and effects and stuff that detract from the goal. I usually do that right after rehearsal, because otherwise I just keep putting it off, but at that time I'm typically tired and it's late, so I'm really looking for "point&shoot" here.
    – Jörg W Mittag
    Apr 28, 2014 at 15:35
  • No worries, actually it was my mistake as when I was answering I didn't you had already mentioned Audacity. To easily cut the file into tracks, you can select the waveforms you're interested in, then File > Export selection. Would that be ok?
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Apr 28, 2014 at 15:38

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Maybe Fission is a Solution for you ? I used it for cutting spotify recordings and it worked perfectly.

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  • Looks promising! I just managed to process an entire rehearsal using the trial version in under 10 minutes without even looking at the manual. 30€ is a tad bit more than I was expecting but it seems worth it.
    – Jörg W Mittag
    Apr 28, 2014 at 15:52
  • Well, it's a bit expensive, but also worth it if you need it very often. If you really don't want to spend 30€, I would use GarageBand, but as you noticed with all the other Apps, that requires a bit more steps and is not very intuitive. Also if you need it only once, you can use the Trial. And if you have a little knowledge about resetting Trials, that might also work temporarily.
    – rwenz3l
    Apr 28, 2014 at 16:40
  • Took me a while to convince myself, but I finally bought it, and it's awesome. Unlike Ardour and Audacity, all the familiar navigation and zoom multi-touch gestures work, the UI is clean and simple, it does what I want and not more. Thanks!
    – Jörg W Mittag
    May 27, 2014 at 10:22
  • BTW: the trial isn't time-limited, but it puts random fade-outs into the output. So, it's cool for judging the UI, processing speed, and quality (which is what trials are about, after all), but you can't use it, not even for a one-off.
    – Jörg W Mittag
    May 27, 2014 at 10:24

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