In my job I’ve been spending a lot of time looking up this or that application, figuring out if it would be best to do something with a Web-based or a desktop app, trying to balance out functionality and convenience. And periodically I’ve come across a site called Aviary, at http://aviary.com/.

Aviary had lots of mentions in a variety of places because it offers several different image editors. The tools available include an image editor (also a vector editor) as well as a color editor and even a screen capture tool.

I didn’t look deeply into Aviary because for my image editing needs, I use GIMP. And I love GIMP. But my attention was taken back to Aviary today when I read on its blog that it had released an audio editor. So I looked a little closer, and — helloooooo, Aviary.

All of the Aviary tools have bird names, so the audio editor’s called Myna. The audio editor allows you to import music in a variety of formats, or record your own music. If you’re creating music for noncommercial purposes, you can also use materials from APM’s Quantum Tracks library in your music creations.

Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like. If you’re using clips from Quantum Tracks (these clips covered a lot of ground, though I missed world fusion and international beats) you can just drag them and drop them in to place. Importing audio is slightly more complicated but not much. Myna’s home page has a demo but this app is not very complicated and I found I could figure out a lot just by playing with it.

Want to see what other people are using Myna for? You can take a listen at this Myna gallery. Here you’ll find lots of tunes by your fellow Aviary creators.

Aviary is free but of course there’s a paid option available if you want more stuff. Features for premium accounts include more tutorial options, private collaborating, and more private files. The premium accounts run you an extremely-reasonable $24.99 a year.

I have never found a audio app I really like — it seems like they’re either way too complicated or don’t have enough features. I am surprised to see that one I DO like might be Web-based. And discovering that, I’m going to have to take a closer look at the rest of Aviary.