GarageBand vs. WavePad

GarageBand is great for demo tracking for songwriting and and simple audio editing of spoken word or podcast applications. It is also great for making EQ adjustments on audio from other macOS or iOS programs for easy export back into those programs. GarageBand isn't well-suited for mastering, however, and it's a little difficult to get volume levels up in post-production if capture wasn't just right

Incentivized

Highly recommended for voice over recording and editing. Great for splicing together several different recorded files to create a final track. Our voice over talent typically sends us their unedited recordings with multiple recordings of the script. Then we can listen to the different versions to select the best fit for our client. We just select the sections we like and copy them into a new file, then continue to add the sections until we have the final voice over. It is easy to tighten up or stretch out the recording to better fit our timeline.

We have not used WavePad for recording live music so not sure how well it is suited for that. If you need multi-track editing you will need another product. MixPad makes a nice companion.

Incentivized

• It is easy to edit in the way that you can highlight something and simply delete a part of what you are working on.
• I love that I can drag two or more tracks together to keep them in sync when editing.
• It's not difficult to add a click track when you need it.
• I think the whole process of highlighting, cutting out parts and the basic editing doesn't take huge amounts of time because it seems intuitive.

Incentivized

• Voice recording is our most used function. It is simple and straight forward. We have trained non-technical voice over talent to use it.
• The cleanup tools have saved us from having to go out and rerecord some bad original recordings.
• Being able to cut out sections of recordings and insert a different audio piece is a great time saver.

Incentivized

• Can't save the preferences for the tracks such as turning off reverb etc.
• Project files are large, a 30-minute podcast episode with only 4 tracks is typically around 1 GB
• Auto feature to silence guest not talking
• Optimize for podcasters (I use the old version 6 as new versions hasn't had podcast options)

Incentivized

• WavePad only works with a single audio track. NCH does offer MixPad for multi-track editing. We also use MixPad occasionally to mix background music with voice.

Incentivized

An important product for our production of customer ads.

Incentivized

It's dang simple for anybody who knows even a little about recording software. It's not something just anyone can open and immediately be a professional at, but things are clearly marked, the help documentation is great, and it's easy to explore and discover functionality that can aid in your production workflow.

Incentivized

Easily handles basic audio recording and editing. Advanced editing features are there but if you don't already understand audio editing you will need to watch some of the provided videos to learn how to use the tools.

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I have never tried it. It's just simple, and you should be able to navigate most of it via self-exploration and Apple Help.

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Phone support is not available.

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It is a simple product to start using.

Incentivized

Adobe Audition is another great audio editing/recording software, in fact it is much better compared to GarageBand and has much more effects. However, it has a pretty large price tag while GarageBand is completely free. Also, Adobe Audition has a very steep learning curve which makes it hard for our staff to get used to the software. Considering all this and after deep analysis we decided to opt for GarageBand, well at least for now. We may change in the future depending on our needs.

Incentivized

We ran across WavePad years ago and used it for some simple music file edits. Cutting out some parts to make it fit better into the time slot. Audacity was recommended by a friend and we installed it and give it a brief try. We didn't find anything bad about it but came back to WavePad.

Incentivized

• Amazing value
• Very easy to get started
• For novices and professionals alike
• Loops library is simply awesome
• Export capabilities very effective to share tracks

Incentivized

• We are able to work with local voice-over talent and amateurs and that allows us to keep our cost low to our clients.
• WavePad is so inexpensive that is pays for itself on the first project. The Master's edition is less than $100 and the standard edition is less than $50.

Incentivized