Every now and again, a program comes along that is so amazingly useful, and so blindingly obvious in its utility and functionality, you almost wonder how anyone got along without it.

Snapper, a new Mac-only application from Dutch audio software superheroes Audio Ease, is that program. In short, it adds an audio file viewer below your Finder window that lets you playback, select, copy, move, convert, even email segments or entire audio files as simply as clicking or dragging, depending on the operation. Pro Tools users can even make a selection and send that selection right to your Pro Tools cursor! It’s customizable, completely intuitive, and probably took longer for you to read this paragraph than it would to use the program.

Audio Ease has a few video tutorials on what Snapper can do, and how it does it, on the website. That’s the best way to get a feel for this program.

Anyway, this program is just one of those things that immediately makes sense and is useful as soon as you first run it. And it comes with a 100-day fully functional demo (that’s right, nearly four months to evaluate it> and costs only $79. Trust me, this is a truly useful Finder add-on if you use audio files on your Mac.

Thanks to the company I work for, and the companies that I have done work for, I always go to the Winter NAMM show. For those not “in the know,” this is a music instrument industry show in which the developers, manufacturers, and creators of the tools and toys we use to make music show their wares in the hopes of getting music instrument retailers to make really big purchase orders. I normally have a lot of business to do, but there’s also a lot of time for fun—looking and listening to what’s just over the horizon.

You can be sure I’ll be posting my thoughts and links right here!