Although I do all my recording on a hardware digital recorder that has real knobs, faders switches and meters, I do a certain amount of editing and tweaking of other people’s  stereo files - and sometimes my own!

This type of software ranges from downright cheap and nasty to radically overpriced.

There are a few applications in the middle ground but most of them have features that I don’t need and are lacking others that, to me, are essential.

I started out with Bias Peak  Express which is excellent value for money and upgraded to Peak LE 6 mainly because the price was good and it came with the LE Production pack and the incredible Super Freq.

For those of you who are interested in podcasting, the latest version has fully integrated podcast publishing and Voice Over Ducking DSP. Ducking is virtually essential if you do voice overs and documentary movie sound tracks.

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While I enjoy working with BiasPeak and appreciate its wealth of features, I would not recommend it if all you need to do is create web clips and export them in a suitable format.

BiasPeak does not have the ability to export MP4 or OGG.

MP4 files are not much greater in size than MP3 but are superior in quality. Modern flash players such as the JWLongtail can utilize MP4s so this should be your format of choice.

HTML5 audio players appear to be the future of website music players and can play MP4s. Also, at the time of writing, Firefox requires the addition of an OGG file to the code to enable HTML5 playback. Audacity can export both M4A and OGG - and its free!

To overcome this limitation, I have to take the extra step of converting the files in QuickTime Pro. While its possible to use iTunes to do the conversion to MP4, those of you who follow the Apple iWeb user forum will know what I think about that idea!

With a little improvement and a quick start manual to supplement the poor documentation, BiasPeak Express or LE could be a winner.