Steinberg WaveLab 3.0Steinberg's WaveLab entered the world a few years back as a simple, well-designed, 2-track audio editor for Windows. By version 2.0, the program matured into a sophisticated editor packed with cool-looking hardware-style plug-ins. WaveLab 3.0 represents a quantum leap beyond earlier versions: Steinberg added a ton of powerful features, improved performance, and transformed it into a hybrid 2-track/multitrack editing system. The Audio Montage window lets you assemble multitrack compositions by arranging audio clips in a user-friendly, nondestructive environment. Without resorting to keyboard commands, you can quickly combine clips, create crossfades, generate volume and pan curves using rubber-band- style envelopes, and apply up to ten VST plug-in effects. Best of all, these features were added without sacrificing WaveLab's intuitive user interface.

Versatility is the key word with WaveLab 3.0. It has a bucketful of sophisticated editing tools for surgically altering waveforms, designing sounds, mastering audio for CDs, and preparing broadcast and multimedia soundtracks. The package has noise reduction, time stretching, pitch shifting, harmonization, SMPTE time-code support, high-quality VU meters, and the best-looking 3-D FFT display around.

We could go on, but you get the idea. WaveLab 3.0 has "winner" written all over it.