Vice

While advanced audio synthesizers might come in handy for professional DJs, users just getting started might not get confused or discouraged by the numerous features they view. If you are just getting started, then perhaps you would be better off with a more intuitive solution.

Vice is a piece of software that provides you with a clean and easy to navigate interface where you can enhance your audio samples with FX effects as well as modulation.

Following a quick and straightforward setup, you come face to face with an elegant, yet clean and user-friendly UI, a more than welcomed choice for a tool in this category. You will be happy to learn that you can simply drag and drop the sample onto the Waveform display and you can start editing right away.

The utility enables you to adjust the slices effortlessly automatically thanks to the snap-to-zero crossing features. Moreover, it comes with a smooth zooming waveform feature that enables you to create new slices from the large audio samples with without too much hassle.

The primary role of the program is to enable you to do accurate editing for each slice of your audio samples. You have various auto-slicing algorithms at your disposal, namely full manual slicing, transient detection and grid based slicing.

Not only can you improve each slice using four sets of FX effects and multiple algorithms, but you can also tweak them further using the extensive modulation system. In fact, the program enables you to connect a MIDI source and fine-tune sound-sculpting parameters, such randomization, PitchBend, Velocity and ModWheel, just to name a few.

In the eventuality you are just getting started with mixing or you just want a utility that helps you get a more fluid workflow without compromising on quality, then perhaps Vice might be worth a try.