Amadeus II - The $30 DAW

This $30 direct-to-disk recorder offers podcasters one thing that GarageBand 3 and even Apple's Logic cannot, and that's the ability to record 120 BPM audio for longer than one hour and eight minutes. It supports audio files up to two GB in size and can handle up to three hours worth of CD-quality music at a time.

Some standout features:

Support for 16 and 24Bit sounds and arbitrary sampling rates.
Multiple undoing.
Fast forward / rewind.
CoreAudio support under MacOS X.
Extensive support of markers.
Fadings, transitions, normalization.
Raw sound data import/export.
Multiple scraps.
Several sound generators.
RIAA curve compensation.

Beyond the basics, Amadeus II provides some of the sound repairing functions of more expensive programs like Bias' SoundSoap 2. Additionally, I was amazed to find out that you could create sonograms and detailed spectral analysis of any audio imported into Amadeus II.

I was very surprised at how well Amadeus II supported AUs and VST plugins. I have a number of such plugins installed on my computer and Amadeus II immediately saw them and accessed them without a hitch. If you don't have any plugins, HairerSoft is nice enough to provide links to some free AUs and VST plugins to get you started.

I used to use Sound Studio or Audacity as my simple audio editors when I just wanted to master to two tracks. But Sound Studio costs more than twice as much as Amadeus II and doesn't offer the denoise options. And Audacity while free, is less elegant and less intuitive.

My wish list for Amadeus II would be better documentation and better ways to interact while editing audio waveforms. I also wish it offered a simple mixer. Short of those limitations, I consider Amadeus II to be a real bargain.

HairerSoft offers a free 15 day trial at their website.

For more on podcasting, visit my site PodcastingTricks.com

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