SONAR Home Studio 4
Don't be deceived by the name, Home Studio 4 looks like it will be an editing powerhouse with one of the best interfaces in the Pro-sumer market with up to 64 audio tracks.
Ableton Live 5 Public Beta
Ableton Live is a great app, but I haven't found an occasion to switch away from my other audio favorites. If you're Live curious, Ableton just opened the beta to the public. Test drive the app in beta to get your head around it's capabilities vs. your existing tools. Beta limitations are very minor, including no Japanese language support, no manual, no additional skins and a limited number of presets.
Peter Kirn Reviews Soundtrack Pro
Mac users may be more accustomed to apps like Bias Peak or even Pro Tools LE handling their primary audio editing duties, with Soundtrack relegated to providing audio tweaks for Final Cut. Not so says this review from Peter Kirn at MacWorld:
Recording Skype Calls
My own experiences recording VoIP calls have varied between outstanding and awful depending on network traffic. Doug Kaye offers an excellent road map for proper audio routing to help insure optimum call recording every time you need to record using Skype. We used a very similar setup for live calls using Firefly and an Asterisk server on The Chris Pirillo Show and ultimately switched to POTS lines because streaming and VoIP on the same network...
Cakewalk Sonar LE
Cakewalk made a killer announcement for anyone looking to break into the higher end of multitrack audio recording without going broke. Several Edirol products are now shipping with an LE version of Sonar 4.0, the Cakewalk flagship editing product. While Sonar LE isn't the full fledged version you get buying direct, it's certainly no slouch. With 24-bit/192 kHz recording, 14 audio effects, 4 MIDI effects, two included DX software synths, up to 64 audio and 256 MIDI tracks, drum editing, notation, ReWire support, DirectX and VST plugin support, this is a direct shot across the Pro Tools bow. A recent deal to enhance Pro Tools LE for M-Audio users looks like a waste of time from DigiDesign when compared to this Cakewalk offering. Pro Tools may still carry a ton of mindshare, but I've seen Sonar in action and I know it handles everything you could want from an audio system at a fraction of buying into the Pro Tools brand.
