I’m using Audacity for this, but the lastest version is kinda buggy and making a clean, looping audio clip is a bit awkward I think. Anything else or better out there?
Have you tried the Apple Loops Utility? It supposedly comes with Garageband (which means every Mac from the past few years should have it), but I had it installed with Logic. Even Garageband itself should be adequate for looping tasks. Are you using an older Mac?
You’ll need to use Audacity to convert the file output by GarageBand.
Yes, both my Macs are pretty recent but I’ve never even launched GarageBand before. Hope this isn’t a bad sign, but it took 4 attempts at launching it before I was able to get it to run without crashing. I’ve got a ton of movie, still and audio assets on this machine and I think it made GB cough…
I’ll give it a try. Seems a lot more sophisticated than I need though, but that might come in handy later.
If you just make a loop in Garageband itself, you can export as a plain audio file. I don’t remember what all the export options are, but you could use Audacity, iTunes, or Max to do conversion afterwards. Still, it may not be necessary, as Unity should be able to convert the Garageband-output files to ogg, without having to use another tool.
I haven’t really used the loop utility for anything other than browsing, as I don’t really use pre-made loops, and when I make my own loops, I use Logic, which is like a super-duper version of Garageband. If I were to ever start making Apple Loops, however, I imagine the Loop Utility would be essential, and from my playing with it, it seems powerful and intuitive.
What the Loop Utility may do for you is to allow more precise editing of the exact loop point, but you’ll have to check out the latest version of Garageband to make sure it can’t do that by itself. If Garageband does not offer enough control by itself, then make your loop in the Loop Utility, import that into Garageband (which is super-easy, as that’s mainly why Garageband exists), and export the result as an audio file.
Audacity does have some nice pro-style features, but it has always crashed a lot for me, and I think it’s ugly. Give Garageband/Loop Utility a shot and see if either or both works for you. In terms of music production, I have never seen a free, or even cheap, tool, that can hold a candle to Garageband. Good luck!
p.s. If you can’t figure out Garageband, let me know, and I’ll install it again so I can help you out better. I don’t have the latest version, but I do have the one from last year.