I found Audacity super intuitive and that's what I use. I got Cubase LE with a bunch of stuff for free, and couldn't figure out how to work it. The EQing doesn't sound very good to me but it's not really necessary. I more or less don't really master my stuff.

trigalg693, I get the impression that you know everything. Do you?

I thought Audacity was easy to learn and use, and I'm by no means a techno person.

I use Sony Sound Forge and like it. It is Windows only. There are two versions, Studio for around $65 USD and Pro for around $375. While I use the Pro (I started with it before Sony bought it, and there was just one version, which eventually morphed into Pro), the Studio version looks like it has just about everything you could need.

heh since Cinnamonbear called me out, I take back the statement about EQing being unnecessary.

My point is more, with the equipment/experience that most amateurs have, it's hard to convincingly improve the audio. When I went to music camp, the person who recorded all the stuff added EQ and reverb to rather faithful recordings of a gorgeous Shigeru Kawai SK-9, and it ruined it IMO. The bass on that piano was already strong, and he pumped it up more so the rest of the notes sounded washed out, and the reverb wasn't to my liking. Part of the problem is different headphones and speakers, what sounds good to you from your headphones might sound bad with another pair of headphones or someone with different taste.

Hence, I like leaving the recordings alone, the most I'll do is apply levelling. EQing is fun to mess with but I don't trust my ears enough. When I say Audacity's EQ is bad, take that with a grain of salt. The distortion might just be in my head :P

Called you out?
I thought he was serious!

Ha-ha! I'm not exactly sure what either of you mean! But, yes, EQing is very, very tricky business. You can easily wreck things, but you can also substantially improve them, too. I recall one year going to a live, outdoor concert (an annual, local, multi-stage rock/jazz festival) and at one of the stages where there was music playing that I don't even normally like, I had to stay and listen because the sound guy had managed to bring definition and balance to every single sound that was coming from the five or seven instruments and voices on the stage. I was in awe. I had never heard sound coming from a PA so clearly as that day. I kept going back to that stage all weekend to hear many different bands sound so excellent because of the practiced hands and sensitivity of that sound guy, who was contracted by the venue. Holy smokes, he was good! (I told him so, too! ) The sound coming from the other stages did not even come close to matching the clarity that that guy had going for the musicians under his care.

And yes, trigalg, you are right. The guys that do EQ mastering for a living say that, as you are working on your stuff, you need to run it through a variety of different sound systems and make your compromises and find the happy middle ground, or adjust for the particular application (radio? tv? cd?). Different equipment does different stuff. For example, it is said that JVC speakers are bass-heavy. Also, some playback systems have EQ presets hidden in them that you can't even get to to adjust!

But it seems to me that, if you are making recordings, you owe it to your listener to make their experience as pleasant and meaningful as possible. The art of recording is as important as the art of performance if you are going to record a performance.

--Andy