Wave Editor is a new audio editor for Mac OS X. It’s the second product from Audiofile Engineering, makers of the Sample Manager batch audio processor. The main special feature seems to be its handling of fades — they are non-destructive and can be applied as various bezier curves rather than simple linear or sine curves. You can try it out for yourself — their website offers a free 15-day trial version.

There’s more information on the website and in their press release. They say: Wave Editor is the essential audio editor for Mac OS X. Designed in Cocoa from the ground up, Wave Editor proudly takes advantage of CoreAudio, Quartz Extreme, and other core features within Mac OS X. Wave Editor takes over where Peak and Spark left off, incorporating the standard audio editing features you’re used to while bringing you up-to-date with the latest advances in interface design, speed and stability.

Wave Editor introduces the concept of “layered audio”. It allows audio professionals to layer audio of any rate, bit depth, and number of channels, add Audio Units and fades on top of each other, edit them, then flatten the resulting file, a process that takes much longer with legacy editors.

Wave Editor’s application of fades is new to audio editors: fades as “overlays” on top of the audio that can be adjusted in real-time before they are applied. And, for the first time in any audio editor, you can use quadratic or cubic bezier curves to shape the fades to obtain the smoothest natural effect.

Wave Editor also includes an advanced inspector, statistical analyzer, standard audio processing features, three advanced meters, full support for Audio Units, support for MP3 and AAC, and much more.