I have over twenty years' experience of editing sound recordings. Though I can edit pretty much anything, my particular areas of expertise are classical music and speech.
Most of my editing is done using Pyramix or Pro Tools, though I am familiar and comfortable with other common editing packages used in classical music and mastering - such as SADiE and Sequoia.
Having edited many hundreds of CDs I know what can be done, what can't be done, what tricks are necessary to get something done, and - perhaps most importantly in these days of tight budgets - how to get it done quickly and with minimum fuss.
I use Algorithmix reNOVAtor, Cedar Retouch, and iZotope RX8 Advanced for noise removal (coughs, chairs etc), and various other plugins as and when necessary.
In my career, I've seen incredible changes in editing technology:
- when I started working in radio, I was editing speech on 1/4" analogue tape with razor blades and sticky tape
- at Decca in the 1980s, I used their then state-of-the-art digital editing system - which used modified IVC video recorders and custom Decca digital audio processors and controllers
- at Abbey Road I set up the largest and earliest Sonic Solutions editing system in the UK
- in the mid 1990s I was one of the early adopters of the first practical PC-based editing system that ran natively - i.e. not using external hardware. This was SAW, the predecessor to today's SAW Studio
- at the BBC World Service in the mid 2000s I used SADiE extensively for both editing and mixing - and still, occasionally, analogue tape with razor blades and sticky tape!