I'm looking for a WAV editing program that will allow to perform two particular actions

1. Comparing one WAV file to another and discerning which parts (if any) are identical

2. Scan a WAV for repeated data in such a way that it allows me to pick out when a song which loops.....loops.

The latter is something I've been meaning to find for a while - it would be immensely useful in timing emulated formats (such as NSF, GBS, etc) that have been dumped to WAV files.

The former is the one that drove me to make this topic. I have two versions of a song, the original and an edit. I like the way the edited one opens, but there are certain parts of the original (such as a segment with clearer vocals) which I would like to, uh, edit into the edit.

I'm really not good with audio processing, either using an external program or my own ears and brain. It would be great if someone here can suggest a utility that would allow me to remove the uncertainty caused by my poor attention span and apparent tone deafness.

So, uh...

Nobody has any suggestions?

i don't think any program that i know of out there can help you with the requirements you're looking for.  programs that show audio in wave format can be cheap (Audacity is free, Adobe Audition or Vegas are not), but you still need to look for wave similarities yourself.  And neither of those programs will "scan" a file for you.  I don't know of any program personally that can do that for someone.

Basically what you need to do is listen for the parts you want carefully and look at the waveform in the editing program to see where that point is.  For editing something into something else... that's something you would probably need multitrack editing for.

^ What he said. I'm not aware of any consumer programs that offer what you're looking for. And I think even at the professional level all that work is still done more or less manually. Computers just aren't that smart yet.

I would assume that voice print analysis software works in a similar way to what you're looking for.  Maybe you can get the CIA or NSA to hook you up.

It's as James and Boco say.  I've come across no such programs myself, but as someone who does looping and edits on a daily basis, it would sure be a great asset.  I have nothing but my own eyes and ears to rely upon, but doing it for a number of years has certainly made the job easier.

I used to use Sound Forge, these days I use Audacity. Just zoom in real close on the waveform and loop points usually become readily apparent.

man, I guess I really was hoping for too much. Thanks.

The reason I thought you could do this was because of the way that a waveform can be represented visually. The human eye can clearly see how sections of a looped song are identical in nature, and I thought even personal use computers had advanced to the point where software could discern where in a picture visual data repeats itself. Is that not true? I really don't understand, well, anything, but I figured a computer could analyze a waveform by treating it as media in which data can be recognized as recurring.

I'm sure such a program would be relatively easy to code, it's just such a niche purpose that nobody's bothered to do it.  Outside of your expressed purpose of automatically finding loops in VGM, I can't really think of any application for it.