I thinki all of the programs mentioned above are pretty good programs. Main thing is what are you going to use it for. I have Sound Forge 6.0 and also Noise Reduction 2.0. Excellent programs. I also got a free version of Cool Edit Pro Special Edition with my Mia sound card.

I think if your best bet is to download some of the programs and try them out. See which ones you like. I have one very expensive program that I don't like at all and probably will never use.

Definitely try out the free demos..you can't go wrong. Sound Forge has a very good forum as well as Cool Edit. The old Cool Edit forum pre-Adobe is still going. It is called AudioMastersForum.org this is a very excellent forum to get help.

Best
Scott

Islander,

You may want to try the freebie route.

Audacity is a free Audio recording software for MAC/PC/Linux. I've tried it and it worked great for me. It even records at 24bit/96kHz if your hardware (Sound Card, etc.) supports it.

Here is the link in case you're interested:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Best regards,
Mike

CEP is indeed the best recording/mixing software program for audio files. not only it has a very very easy to use interface and everything at one mouse click (or two keys combination) away, but also has that wonderful feature of keeping your work, even if the system is crashing.
and is true, like someone said before, if the CEP crash, most likely is the hardware configuration the one to blame, i know because this was my case too!

i've heard about some other professional sowtware for rec/mix, even tried out some trial versions, but i tell you, the CEP is two or three steps ahead everything else.
go for it!

CEP/Adobe are the same, and are both great programs. I wanted to lighten up the load a little when I went solo and found the Kristal Audio Engine. This is a free program, like Audacity (which I also use). It has 16 tracks, can use VST effects (a tone free out there) and is simple to use. If you have a soundblaster card with the 10k chip I would also grab the kx project drivers. This combo is really nice, and I get a solid 5.22ms of lantency with no problems. I have ran this como on 2000 and XP2 with no problems. They are worth a try for free, all you'll lose is a little time trying them out.......just a thought.....

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My Tunes...
http://www.mp3.com.au/TheJCSProject/
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/9/thejcsproject.htm