Fission 1.5
I love Fission, by Rogue Amoeba. That's right, I said it. Do not judge the love between a man and this piece of powerful, yet simple to use, audio editing software. Fission 1.5 has just been announced (which is the reason for this post) and it brings some new features to this already solid offering. New in 1.5 is copying and pasting audio in a single document, or across files, gain adjustment, and a host of other things (including the often overlooked, but always appreciated, bug fixes).
Fission 1.5 is available now for $32 and is a free update for all registered users.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
joseph matt said 8:48PM on 4-23-2007
Give me...
1.) Multi-track editing to overlap audio files.
or
2.) Overlap option
3.) Direct import from Audio Hijack Pro
and I'll give Rouge another $32...
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Daniel D said 9:42PM on 4-23-2007
What does this do that garageband does not?
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nicker said 10:57PM on 4-23-2007
I am making the switch from Windows and have used Audacity for a long time. Does anyone use Audacity on the Mac and how does it compare to pay programs such as the one in this post for simple single track editing?
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Steve Shickles said 11:03PM on 4-23-2007
Nice price tag.
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matthew_treder said 11:23PM on 4-23-2007
I haven't used Fission, but Audacity (particularly the most recent beta) is a pretty solid substitute if you don't have the clam to shell out for SoundBooth, Audition, Logic, etc. It's got all the basics for 2-track editing: normalize, compress, fade in/out, even some decent (though not the best out there) FFT noise reduction. The tradeoff is conveniece: The EQ implementation, for example, isn't terribly complete; you can't save and recall favorite presets. And dialing in just the right EQ or compression can take some time; it is largely a matter of trial and error, with little visual feedback. But if you already know your way around a mixing board, you'll be able to get pro-quality resuts and work fairly fast. What you won't get is a lot of hand-holding. That's where folks like Rogue and the pricier guys come in.
I've used Audacity for small professional projects, but it doesn't replace a tool you'd pay for—yet. When it gets to 2.0, it could be a giant killer.
Meanwhile, if you're on an Intel Mac, try out the free Adobe SoundBooth demo and compare with Audacity and Rogue. I haven't tried GarageBand for straight audio editing chores. I'd imagine that's a stretch, but maybe not—it's lifted a lot of uber-cool (and formerly German, as some of us fondly remember) technology from Apple's Logic Audio.
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Eliot said 1:31AM on 4-24-2007
I had installed the trial early, but didn't even bother using it after I read this:
"*Before purchase, the quality of audio saved with Fission will be intentionally degraded with a series of audio fades."
How am I supposed to evaluate intentionally broken software?
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yakov chodosh said 4:23AM on 4-24-2007
Audacity: Free
Fission: $32
The self-satisfaction of not spending $32 and thus feeling like you've somehow made $32: Priceless?
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mkumemr said 6:26AM on 4-24-2007
What I like with Fission: it can edit AACs w/o de- and encoding. I use it mostly for splitting files for iTunes. It is extremely easy to use and does the trick w/o hassle. So for me its worth its price.
mk
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walkerjs said 7:01AM on 4-24-2007
Audacity is quite a fine audio editing program for the price (free!) It does multi-track to overlay/mix, though I'm sure the pay-software has much more powerful features for those who need it but I've used it on a Mac for years now for basic stuff (like breaking out individual tracks from a recording, or fixing the occasional hiccup.)
The main problem I have with Audacity on a Mac is that it's not a very "Mac-like" application (something which until I switched I wouldn't have really cared about two years ago; if it did what I needed who cares about the "Mac-ness" of the app? Well, now I do.) Little things like it won't save to long file names that the OS will allow, or that my side-scrolling mouse doesn't work with tracks. With tracks that can be upwards of 30 minutes to an hour and a half you'd think that side scrolling would be a very logical thing, but no I have to zoom out/zoom in or drag a slider.
Still, it does what I need it to do for free and I know how to use it, so sorry Rogue Amoeba, your AHP is great and I paid for that one, but for post processing I'll stick with the free one.
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Mrten Bjrk said 9:01AM on 4-24-2007
Why not use GarageBand? It has all the features I need...
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Billy K said 10:07AM on 4-24-2007
matthew_treder and walkerjs are right about Audacity. All the tools are solid, but the interface is sketchy at best. In some places it's just downright in the way.
Fission, like everything from Rogue Amoeba, looks great and I'm sure it works great. But it seems short on features. The only thing I can see using it for would be editing without re-encoding. However, I need that so rarely that $32 is just out of the question.
I had high hopes for SoundBooth, but until it supports multi-tracks, I'll pass (and from what I understand, they have no plans to do so).
My favorite audio editor from years back is SoundEdit16 - just simple, easy to use and enough options to handle 90% of my tasks. I've been looking for a (affordable) replacement for a long time. Every time a new one shows up (SoundBooth, Fission), I get my hopes up, but no one seems able to hit the right balance between features, ease of use and price. SoundStudio would be the perfect editor for my needs, but Burning Monkey has the idiotic idea it's worth $80.
So...still waiting for the perfect mid-range Mac audio editor...
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Jason said 1:11AM on 4-25-2007
I think most people miss the point of Fission. It's a weird app. It's not in any way comparable to SoundForge on a PC, or Audacity on any platform. Fission has a limited repertoire of features, but they're incredibly useful features and the program is very easy to use.
I wanted a simple way to re-cut very long MP3 files, put in fades, etc, without having to keep multi-gigabyte WAV file masters on my hard drive, then having to wait and wait while those WAV files were re-encoded to MP3 when I was done. Fission kicks butt at these kind of tasks, but it is not an audio editor in the same sense as Audacity or SoundForge. It can't be, by the simple nature of its non-destructive, no generation loss editing.
Rogue Amoeba makes really great software. Hell, I own Audio Hijack Pro and literally never use it. But it's so cool! And because I owned that, I got a deal for Fission, something like $12 or $16... Very nice. Rogue Amoeba always listens to their customers and appreciates them. Giving special deals to customers who already own your other products is always good business. Other Mac developers, are you listening?
PS: I swear I am not in any way associated with Rogue Amoeba. I just own and like their products.
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matthew_treder said 2:51PM on 4-25-2007
Here's a recent review of Audacity to add some more "subjective objectivity" to the discussion.
http://www.atpm.com/13.04/audacity.shtml
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Lucius Kwok said 12:01PM on 6-01-2007
Fission is a solid app though it is a bit short on features, if I do say so myself. I'm the creator of Sound Studio, so I may be a bit biased. Audacity is open source and suffers from an inconsistent and complicated user interface. Sound Booth is still a beta version not yet prime-time, and is going to cost several hundred dollars anyway.
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bhavesh patel said 3:41PM on 6-20-2007
I miss SoundEdit16!
I agree with the previous poster....! There just hasn't been anything quite like it since.
I think Audacity works fine for most tasks. $32 for the occasional lossless edit is a little too much for me.
No sleight against Rogue Ameoba though. They're a great company
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