An especially nice feature is how well SoundEdit integrates with QuickTime. SoundEdit can open a QuickTime movie and fully control the audio tracks (number of tracks, synchronization, mixes, etc.). It also displays a series of thumbnail images (a filmstrip) of the video along the top of the track editor, which can be scaled up to a frame-by-frame view when absolute synchronization is essential. This movie with a new or newly enhanced track is then saved to disk without recompression of the video track.

As an added bonus, the SoundEdit 16 CD features a library of over 300 royalty-free sound effects, each recorded at CD quality (16 bit/44 KHz). Categories include "industrial," "buttons/switches," "liquids/gases," and "impacts"--there are 22 categories in all.

SoundEdit is an ideal application to accompany new media production tools like Macromedia Flash, Director, or any of the video editing packages, but it is not without some flaws. For one, this version is showing its age. It would be nice to see SoundEdit updated to work with MP3 files, and to modernize the interface to take advantage of the Mac's new enhanced file open/save dialog boxes.

SoundEdit 16 fills an important niche in the toolbox of the multimedia content developer, and anyone looking to do serious sound work should consider it. --Mike Caputo
Amazon.com Product Description:
SoundEdit 16's multitrack document allows you to edit unlimited audio tracks and output to any of 14 file formats and compression schemes. Edit at 16-bit for the highest possible quality, then output finished soundtracks in the format that best satisfies your needs. You can deliver on every medium from CD-ROM to the Internet. SoundEdit 16 includes 18 special effects, four tone generators, and powerful editing features that provide sound processing without expensive digital signal-processing hardware. Shape sounds with features like delay, normalize, fade in, fade out, and envelope. Shorten or lengthen sound files using the tempo effect to change the duration of a sound without changing its frequency. SoundEdit 16 lets users create audio for everything from multimedia to music to the Internet.

Customer Reviews Average rating - 2.5

Rating - 5 Date: 2007-03-11
Content: SoundEdit is a great program....Doesn't run with Mac OS X but there's Sound Studio for that system. Macromedia put together a fine recording, editing and production studio when they published this back in the 90's. Costs a lot more $$$ to get some of the features of this program NOW!!
Summary: A lot of Pluck for the Buck

Rating - 1 Date: 2002-05-15
Content: If you buy this product it's because you didn't research anything else. If you want to edit audio final cut can do a better job than sound edit. If you want MIDI than get Performer or emagic logic for between 3 bill and a 1000$.
sound edit is antiquated and has very limited function.
Summary: Works well with MacOS 7.0

Rating - 2 Date: 2001-10-11
Content: There is no advantage to paying so much to buy this instead of a Sonic Foundry sound editor(which costs fractions less). My personal opinion would be to pick up a copy of WaveLab. It is sufficient for dealing with common file formats as well as on-the-fly editing of loops/samples for DJ's.
Summary: Not too special!