GoldWave is a small, yet powerful software designed specifically to aid people in processing thair audio files, applying a long list of effects and playing them back to be sure that the end result is what you wanted it to be.



Quick setup, yet cluttered environment


The installation takes place in quick steps, yet the user interface can appear overwhelming for some people, as it consists of multiple buttons, a comprehensive menu bar and a pane in which to view the waveform of the uploaded item. As a result, beginners might have a hard time in navigating it, yet the extensive Help contents provided might come in handy.



Preview visuals and some of the built-in effects


A "Control" window is enclosed in this utility, which allows you to view real-time visuals and sound device controls. You can display sound during playback or while it is being recorded. It is important to keep in mind that you can open as many sound files as you like, yet you can edit them one at a time.



The effect menu offers quick access to commands like Censor (replace the selection with silence, a tone, noise, the clipboard), Dopler (Dynamically change pitch), Dynamics (distort, compress or limit output levels), Echo, Compressor/Expander, Filter (e.g. auto offset removal, equalizer, noise or silence reduction, smoother) and Flanger.



Some other options you can use to enhance audio tracks


In addition to that, you can use Interpolate (to smooth out waveforms between start and finish markers), Invert, Mechanize, Reverb, Time Warp, Voice Over, Resample and others.



In the Tool menu, you can select Cue Points to mark and describe specific positions within audio tracks, Effect Chain Editor (to create and edit chain effects), Expression Evaluator, File Merger (for audio files only) or Speech Converter (converts text to speech and spoken audio to text).



A last assessment


This utility uses a low amount of system memory and it did not crash or jam during my tests. The Help file is well-drawn, the response time is good, yet the interface could benefit from a lift up.


All in all, GoldWave is a great audio editor, bundled with both basic and advanced audio effects and it is definitely worth your time.



General features:

- Multiple Document interface for working with many files in one session
- Huge file editing: 4GB and beyond (NTFS only)
- Configurable RAM or hard drive editing
- High quality: 24-bit, 192 kHz
- Real-time visuals: bar, waveform, spectrogram, spectrum, VU meter and more
- Fast non-destructive editing. Cut, copy, delete and undo take only a fraction of a second, regardless of the file size
- Multiple undo levels
- Many effects: distortion, dopler, echo, mechanize, offset, pan, volume shaping, invert, resample, equalizer, time warp, pitch, reverb, volume matcher, channel mixer and more
- Effect previewing and presets
- Audio restoration filters: noise reduction, pop/plick, smoother
- Supported file formats (Wave, MP3, OGG, AIFF, AU, VOX, MAT, SND, VOC, RAW binary data, text data and more)
- File format plug-ins for the next generation of audio compression, such as WMA, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC
- DirectX Audio Plug-In hosting
- Effect Chain editor
- Audio CD Reader
- Batch processing and conversion
- Drag-and drop cue points, with audio-cue and file splitting features
- Direct waveform editing with the mouse
- Customizable tool bars
- Customizable waveform colours
- Several built-in accessibillity features and keyboard shortcuts



Changelog (2016-03-04):

- Preview checkbox in File Open window 
- Resizeable Cue Points window 
- Duplicates filter for Auto Cue 
- Several fixes and improvements





OS: Windows 7 (64 bit) or later required. 
Installer: 12.21 MB
Language: English