To master audio, record at 44.1 kHz and use a DAT machine with digital I/O capabilities, like the Panasonic SV 3700. Then transfer your recordings digitally to the Macintosh. Sound files and samples should be normalized to maximum amplitude to take full advantage of the 16-bit dynamic range.
The AudioMedia system from DigiDesign is highly recommended for editing synthesized audio. It supports a variety of sample formats, has simple but powerful editing capabilities, and can record or play back digital or analog sound.
SoundEdit Pro from Macromedia works with all types of AIFF files and performs best with 8-bit, 22 Khz files.
SoundEdit uses different algorithms to resample a file and to cut and paste between different sample rate files. If you resample a file to a different bit depth/sampling rate, SoundEdit may add aliasing and degrade the sound.
Use the following method for better results:
For sample rate conversion, use SoundHack or SoundDesigner. An early bug in SoundHack that caused a pop at the beginning has been fixed.