Subject:questions about sf compared to nuendo

Posted by: Homebilly

Date:7/4/2004 5:50:40 PM

i just got back into electronic recording (after an almost 10 year break) with the goal of making sound tracks for video games and popping out a few break beat toons and such along the way . i was planning on going the nuendo route but have been noticing people love the sf series and a salesman told me i could do the same things with sf as i could with nuendo .



can i get the same end product if i use sf and acid (for the surround) ?

can i rewire reason into sf ?

can i use things like groove agent with sf even though it is a steinberg product ?

is the final audio product as good as it would be for cubase sx2 or is it so so and the audio to video aspect is the main selling point ?

i ordered a cubase sx2 upgrade and was planning on upgrading to nuendo when i had the extra $$ but i was thinking i could return the sx2 (since it is not open yet) if i can obtain the same end goal for a lot less with the sf and such .


i do not wanna have to learn a ton of software - i want to get what i need to get from start to finish and not spend more time learning new software than i do making the beats .


any help is much appreciated

Subject:RE: questions about sf compared to nuendo

Reply by: RikTheRik

Date:7/4/2004 9:11:08 PM

> i ordered a cubase sx2

Check the SF product description... and don't take any advices anymore from that salesman !! SF is not a multitracking application but an audio editing application. SF supports only 2 tracks (stereo files).

To do anything serious, you'll have to learn one of the major sequencers... either Steinberg, Sonar, Acid or Vegas depending on your needs.
I would keep the cubase sx2 upgrade and learn it. It is a serious piece of software. If you want to save bucks, you should check the SL version or Sonar.

Subject:RE: questions about sf compared to nuendo

Reply by: Homebilly

Date:7/5/2004 1:33:19 PM

thanks for the info .

Subject:RE: questions about sf compared to nuendo

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:7/5/2004 8:42:02 PM

One thing that's nice about the Sony apps over the Steinberg apps is the user interface is very intuitive. So if you want to get up and running without the steep learning curve I would recommend the Sony apps over the Steinberg apps for that reason alone. Like mentioned Sound Forge is not a multitrack editor, it is a 2 track stereo editor and is probably the best software out there for disecting and processing audio, that is either mono or stereo. In Acid you could do your surround mixing and tempo adjustments in a seudo multitrack editor fashion, but it has some limitations on the editing, compared to a true multitrack program. You might want to look at Sony Vegas, instead of Acid, that may be more of what you're looking for and has a lot of the Acid features in the latest 5.0 version. Both have demo versions, I would try them both out to see which works for you the best. As for doing surround for Video games, most of the games I have seen are Dolby Prologic II encoded. What that means, is that you would do your surround mixes in a multitrack program that allows surround mixing, like Vegas, Acid, Sonar, Nuendo or Cubase. The surround mix will be rendered to 6 individual .Wav files for a 5.1 surround mix. From there you need to take your 6 .Wav files and run them through a program that will take those files and encode them to a Dolby Prologic II Stereo .Wav file mix. This 2 track encoded .Wav file can get further edited in Sound Forge. None of the multitrack programs I listed above will do the Dolby Prologic encoding of the separate .Wav files, so you will need to look into purchasing some software that will do that. Go visit www.surcode.com for more details on those tools. It all depends on what game console you're doing your surround sounds for. I know for the PS2 it only has 2 outputs, so you will need to do a dolby Prologic II encoding process, which will play the mix out the 2 outputs on the PS2, which get's fed to a home entertainment system, that has Dolby Prologic II surround decoding playback abiltiy. I think the Xbox, actually has 6 individual outs for 5.1 true surround playback. So I guess the moral of the story is, find out what delvery format you need for the system it's going to be played on, before you waste a lot of time or money.

Feel free to post further questions in this forum. If you haven't been doing a lot of work in the past 10 years, there's a lot of different formats, especially when it comes to surround material, that we can help clear up some of your questions if you run into anything confusing.

Subject:RE: questions about sf compared to nuendo

Reply by: Homebilly

Date:7/6/2004 9:55:59 AM

wow , lots of good info in that post . thanks .

what i gathered is that i can use vegas as my main sequencer and then get my finished audio to video product in sound forge and it would be easier to learn than nuendo .

i am guessing it would not be redundant software like learning on cubase sx2 and then going the route of nuendo .

i am going to download the trial verison of vegas this afternoon and check it out for a few days .

i will stop by with more questions when they come up .

thanks again

Subject:RE: questions about sf compared to nuendo

Reply by: Homebilly

Date:7/6/2004 11:08:37 AM

i just got off the phone with sony and they suggested acid to me for the rewire and vsti support .

am i going to need acid , vegas , and sound forge to obtain my end goal ? the support lady was very nice but not very knowledgable .

Subject:RE: questions about sf compared to nuendo

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:7/7/2004 4:42:16 AM

Well, you don't need both Vegas and Acid, but there's some Pita's in Acid as far as editing. Let's say you have 2 sound files you might want to edit together with a slight crossfade between them. In Acid you would have to put each file on a seperate track and then nudge them individually and adjust the fade in/out of each file individually. Doable yes, but not very user friendly for editing. This is because Acid is more designed for timestretching/tempo matching features and only allows you to put 1 file per track. Vegas allows you to put as many files onto a single track and automatically crossfade them, and trim the files, plus slip editing features. So much more powerful than Acid for editing multiple audio files together. I would think this would be a pretty important feature in doing Sound Design work. The person at the other end of the phone probably recommended Acid, because you want to take multiple files and tempo match them and speed or slower them up without effecting the pitch. This is Very easy to achieve in Acid, if your loops have assigned Acid properties. You just adjust a master Tempo and Keysignature adjustments in Acid and the individual audio tracks will adjust accordingly to the master adjustment settings. Vegas does not have a master Tempo and key signature adjustment like Acid, but again you can achieve the same thing with a little work. In Vegas it has Acid and tempo/pitch features for each file. You right click on a file and select "Properties" and within there you will see a Pitch/Tempo property, where you make Acid adjustments individually for each file. Vegas has a master Tempo, which you can set, which is under File>Properties>Audio and it will look at the current tempo of the file that has Acid properties assigned to it when you are dragging the file into a project and adjust the Tempo settings for you automatically that corresponds to the master tempo you have set in File>Properties>Master Tempo dialog box for each project. You would then just need to go to the Pitch/Tempo and adjust the pitch to match the key signature of each file. So basically, in Vegas you can get most of the features that Acid has, it just takes a bit more work, but you can't do the same in Acid for the editing features in Vegas. So if budget is a big concern in choosing Acid or Vegas, I would actually recommend Vegas over Acid.

In Sound Forge you can create Acid loops and assign the properties as far as current tempo and key signature, that gets recognized by either Vegas or Acid. Also in Vegas you can make each file show it's adjusted tempo and keysignature, without opening the properties dialog box. I know a lot of this may seem a little confusing at first, but once you learn the ins/outs of Vegas, you'll probably find Vegas will meet your needs a lot easier than Acid will.

I would expect the next version of Vegas to have the master tempo and key signature feature like Acid has. Like I said, it basically already has it, it just isn't as user friendly as Acid in making it a single adjustment like in Acid.

If you're using other apps like Reason, that are Rewire compatible or using virtual synths that are VSTi, then Acid has these features, which Vegas doesn't. So that may be another consideration if you're planning on linking outside apps into a host program for creating music.

Subject:RE: questions about sf compared to nuendo

Reply by: Homebilly

Date:7/7/2004 7:19:10 PM

thanks again !!