Spotify for Podcasters vs. WaveLab

Anchor is great for getting started with podcasting. It makes getting started in the space really accessible to anyone with a smartphone. It seems to work great for individuals and small businesses. There are probably better options for more established brands out there, as Anchor does limit some of your options, but for those getting started or those that don't have needs beyond Anchor's limitations, I would highly recommend it over the competition.

Incentivized

WaveLab is well-suited when you want to apply a lot of VST FX processing to audio, or do a real-time recording and be able to hear how the FX processing sounds as you're recording. It is an excellent tool for recording in the studio. However, it lacks the sophisticated multitrack capabilities you find in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), instead of focusing on the features of an audio editor. It is also great for quickly opening, editing, and saving a lot of files because of how fast it is.

Incentivized

• Podcasting Hosting and Distribution Solution: Anchor offers a great solution for hosting and distributing podcasts to various platforms and provides you with the RSS Feed which you can add to supported platforms.
• Recording Facility: Anchor has features to help you record podcast episodes without any special equipment or much technical knowledge. It even allows guests to record together remotely.
• Editing: Anchor has a workflow available that allows arranging various parts and recordings of the podcast and allows adding elements like advertisements, music, sound effects, etc.

Incentivized

• Realtime FX Chain - This is the big one for me. I always had both WaveLab and Sound Forge (along with some other audio editing programs, and using Pro Tools at school). Of the two, I preferred Sound Forge for its user interface and hotkeys, but I preferred WaveLab for its realtime FX. The ability to easily chain FX together and tweak them on the fly while the audio is playing is enormous for me.
• Speed - Quite simply, saving a huge file in WaveLab is orders of magnitude faster than in Sound Forge. To this day, I don't know why that is, but it's just faster. Opening and saving files is a breeze in WaveLab, while in some other audio editing programs, it can take 30 seconds or a minute for a large file.

Incentivized

• As with many help systems, the search results can always be more precise to the query. Not a deal-breaker by any means.
• More guided tutorials to help the new podcaster get going with a little less trial and error.
• Live chat support would be awesome.

Incentivized

• User Interface and Hotkeys - I've always struggled with the UI in WaveLab, and even after all these years, I am just much faster in Sound Forge. I used to have a job as an audio editor, where I edited hundreds of hours of interviews. By using the "Mark" feature, I could easily cut out silence, "ums" and "ahs," and other audio artifacts in Sound Forge. I struggled to do the same in WaveLab but was never able to work even a fraction as quickly.
• Built-In Audio Processing - I much prefer Sound Forge's built-in audio tools like time-stretching, normalization, compression, and so on. WaveLab has many of the same tools, but I have not found them to be as easy to use, and in some cases, nonexistent (relying instead on a VST plugin).

Incentivized

I have never contacted Steinberg, so I am not sure how responsive they are. Still, I've watched countless tutorials on audio editing and mastering in WaveLab, so I am pleased with the level of support available from the online community of users. It is a much-loved program among audio industry professionals, and there are all sorts of great tutorials, tips, and tricks available online.

Incentivized

We selected Anchor because of the known branding with Spotify and the built-in audience. It was also one of the first search results when trying to learn about producing a podcast, which made it easy to find and get started. We don't even need to use GarageBand to capture audio with the Anchor app and other resources for getting podcast content ready to go.

Incentivized

I am relatively agnostic about what audio software I use. I still use WaveLab to this day, 21 years later, for applications where I want to apply effects chains and tweak them in real-time. Sound Forge even can't do this for some reason. But when I have a lot of editing to do, I'll typically open Sound Forge instead, because I prefer the workflow of using the "M" hotkey to mark the audio as it's playing, and then quickly skip through markers and edit out audio artifacts. When I'm recording a vocalist, however, if I am not using a Digital Audio Workstation (like Ableton Live), then I do prefer WaveLab. I can apply VST effects in real-time to the audio coming in through the sound card input and playing back in their headphones.

Incentivized

• Minimize the time our clients require to find the resources and help they are looking for.
• Maximize my support teams' time by having users self serve themselves with the information in our audio files.
• Free usage of the service, via both web and mobile apps.
• Excellent audio quality and streaming support.

Incentivized

• Positive Impact - Ability to rapidly edit audio for EPUB3 ebooks and interviews.
• Positive Impact - Being able to hear in realtime how audio effects chains will sound, and to save commonly-used effects chains.

Incentivized