Subject:What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Posted by: spinweb

Date:3/29/2005 6:55:36 PM

I see that Sound Forge 8 is on sale until April 15. What can it really do that ACID can't that I might need to make pro-sounding modern rock tunes? And is the Sound Forge light app a good place to start for $70?

Thanks,

Eric

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:3/30/2005 6:07:22 AM

SF studio (or whatever it's called now) is a good program. It is missing some features, mainly effects and ability to write to mp3. The full SF is an editing and mastering program with full support og vst and dx effects and essentially all audio formats. I guess you could do most things in acid, but it would take a while and not be as precise.

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:3/30/2005 10:54:55 AM

Sound Forge is a full-on digital audio editor, able to help you edit your audio down to the sample level. In addition, there are lots of handy tools in there to help tweak and polish your audio. It's basically my last stop.

As DKeenum mentioned, Sound Forge Audio Studio is a good place to start but you may find yourself wanting what the full version of Sound Forge has. Be sure to check out the trial versions if you haven't done so already.

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
Buy Instant ACID by JohnnyRoy and mD!
mD at ACIDplanet

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: spinweb

Date:3/30/2005 11:14:39 AM

<<able to help you edit your audio down to the sample level.>>

Can you give me an example of how you might use it on a rock song? Can you zap bkd noise, like Sound Soap? What is the way you edit at the sample level?

Thanks,

Eric

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: Illogical

Date:3/30/2005 11:17:49 AM

I have that Sound Forge cut-down version, got it more or less free with AP5. I'll admit I still haven't gotten my head around it completely, but the most basic things I wanted it to do (use plug-ins to master my song), it can't do. I do all my work in Acid Pro, including mastering. People say Sound Forge will render your mastered tracks cleaner, but I haven't heard any good explanations of why that would be. Either way, you still have to render to Wav from Acid Pro to be able to edit your file in Sound Forge, so if the rendering in Acid is as bad as the Sound Forge cheerleaders would have you think, then you've already lost, right?
I do use Acid differently when I master as opposed to mixing. Mixing ends with rendering a stereo wav file. Then I open a new project (Well, I have a basic template I use, but let's not cloud the issue) with only 1 track, the wav of the mix. Now's when I can apply the expanders, EQ, Multi-band, limiters, maximisers and all that other stuff we love to beat the life out of our music with, and render the file in whatever end format(s) I want. If acid is weak at doing this, I'd love to hear from Sony why that would be.

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: Illogical

Date:3/30/2005 1:16:54 PM

Sorry, me again, another thing I don't understand about Sound Forge is what is the point of recording in it. I understand you are supposed to be able to better edit the sound, but since it only works with one track at a time, you can't even have a backing track going to sing or play along with. Am I right there? I know there's probably a metronome, but that'll only take ya so far, and isn't likely to inspire any brilliant performance.

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:3/30/2005 4:52:38 PM

Think of ACID as a knife and Sound Forge as a scalpel. Both will cut meat, but I probably wouldn’t want to use a scalpel to cut my steak or have my surgeon do an operation on me with a steak knife. It’s a matter of the right tool for the right job. Yes, you can edit with sample accuracy in ACID. Just set the timeline to read Samples and use the arrow keys to move back and forth.

You can also do all your mastering in ACID and no, I don’t think anyone will be able to tell the difference. Forge just has some tools like the ability to automatically ensure that selections are on zero wave crossings, detecting and repairing clipping, Audio Restoration, fixing DC Offsets, etc., that are very useful and easy to use. It makes it easier to edit sections of a wave. You could easily remove lip smack or plosives or sibilance other things that would spoil and otherwise perfect recording. You can’t Normalize a recorded wave in ACID. You need Forge for that. That’s why ACID has an option to Edit in Sound Forge. The right tool, for the right job.

> another thing I don't understand about Sound Forge is what is the point of recording in it

Many live performances are recorded in stereo. If you wanted to record a lecture or other live event, why bother with a multi-track recorded when all you need is stereo (or mono) recording. Let’s say you what to record the school choir? Just place a mic at each end of the stage, feed them into Sound Forge and you’re all set. Need to record live nature sounds in the field? Take a mic, your laptop with Sound Forge and record away. Sound Forge is not a music composition tool. It’s a stereo/mono recorder/editor and it does that very well.

I think its an indispensable tool. Download the trial and see if you like it.

~jr

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: Zacchino

Date:3/30/2005 5:32:50 PM

About the knife and the scalpel comparision... Well, Acid is my scalpel of choice. Especially with the mousewheel, it's like "ok zoom where I'm thinking I want to zoom" and *bam* your wave file is taking all your screen. That's one of the main reason I didn't change my main sequencer ^^.

About "the ability to automatically ensure that selections are on zero wave crossings"

I'd love to see it in AP5 ^^ As well as a right-clic + normalize as I suggested in my older post. This is not absolutely necessary but you know... It's the little handy tools we all love ^^.

By the way, I tryied out a software called Podium, damn, Its stability is rocksolid... You should hire this genious who made this. Also, the big point about this software is bus organisation. Very sweet. Do you guys at sony take a look out there to see other apps or becoming apps features ?

Ow sorry, I'm out of the subject again (i'm a professional at it)

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: Illogical

Date:3/31/2005 7:51:38 AM

As far as recording, you could do all that same stuff in Acid, which isn't a multi-tracker either, but can record in stereo no problema. Normalizing isn't in Acid, but normalizing usually sounds like crap, even to my untrained ears. I think the short version of the story is that Sound Forge Audio Studio does not have a whole lot to offer someone making rock and roll music. In mastering, I'll concede that Sound Forge 8 (the full version) is probably superior to Acid in several ways which I'm not fit to explain (because I don't know what things like DC offset mean), but the cost difference ($500 vs. $70) is nothing to sneeze at and the stripped down version is almost demo-ish in its limitations. Plus, when you buy the $70 version, you still are given the full 300+ page manual for the pro version, so you'll find yourself sifting through page after page of instructions that only apply to the pro version. There is so much chopped out of the $70 version that it really should have it's own manual, IMHO, but of course having all the pro features cluttering up your reading experience is somebody's idea of marketing. Don't buy it unless it's free is my advice, cuz really it's just a commercial for the real version. And we don't pay for commercials, do we?

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: FuTz

Date:4/1/2005 5:00:13 AM

One thing though... I bought the Studio version 2 years ago for 60 bucks and now I can upgrade to SF8 for 150 bucks.
Right now, you got studio for 70 bucks, and that should allow you to get SF8 before april 15th for 150 bucks...

You do the maths... ; )

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: zerobae

Date:4/3/2005 5:18:04 AM

Can somebody confirm purchasing Sound Forge 8 really works the way FuTz suggested, until 15 april? (Buy SF Studio ($70) --> upgrade to SF 8 ($150).)

Also, I think I read on the upgrade page, any version of SF will qualify for the $150 upgrade offer. Now I got "Sound Forge XP" years ago with my CD burner. I can't even find a serial number, so I guess it won't buy me the cheap update. Or does it?

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:4/3/2005 7:12:28 AM

You need a serial number to qualify for the upgrade. If you go to the Sony Upgrade page, you’ll see that the price to Upgrade Sound Forge Audio Studio to Sound Forge 8 is $229.95. Unless you got an email that gives you a lower price, that is probably what you’ll pay.

The upgrade for the full version of Sound Forge is $149 on the upgrade page but I got an email from Sony with a link for $99 before April 15. Perhaps registered Sound Forge Audio Studio customers got a similar deal with a better price than the upgrade pages is showing. I don’t know. It pays to register with full information!

~jr

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: Illogical

Date:4/4/2005 10:07:18 AM

"One thing though... I bought the Studio version 2 years ago for 60 bucks and now I can upgrade to SF8 for 150 bucks.
Right now, you got studio for 70 bucks, and that should allow you to get SF8 before april 15th for 150 bucks...

You do the maths... ; )"

Yeah, well, that's great, but it still means the real version is the only way to go and the $70 version is just a commercial (or a rebate coupon in your case). Sony's advertising the pro version at $399 on AcidPlanet, so if this roundabout way of getting it is cheaper, all I can assume is that Sony really loves paperwork and making their customers work twice as hard to buy their products. The more hoops the better, what a motto...

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:4/6/2005 11:01:23 AM

Sorry, me again, another thing I don't understand about Sound Forge is what is the point of recording in it. I understand you are supposed to be able to better edit the sound, but since it only works with one track at a time, you can't even have a backing track going to sing or play along with. Am I right there? I know there's probably a metronome, but that'll only take ya so far, and isn't likely to inspire any brilliant performance.

That would depend on how much you like toying with audio and what you have in your mind vs. how you manifest it in Sound Forge. It would also depend on how much control you want over your samples.

Sound Forge also makes a nice tool to use when you have un-ACIDized samples that you want to ACIDize. While it's true you can take un-ACIDized samples and have ACID analyze them properly, there's no guarantee this will happen every time. If you know what you want, Sound Forge will help you ACIDize it with the proper info so that ACID won't get funny with it.

Sound Forge 8 now includes CD Architect 5, which is, by far, way more powerful for those looking for complete control over their CD burning/mastering tasks. (Sound Forge will also let you export an open project or projects right into CD Architect.)

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
Buy Instant ACID by JohnnyRoy and mD!
mD at ACIDplanet

Subject:RE: What Can Sound Forge do that ACID Can't?

Reply by: FuTz

Date:4/7/2005 10:40:26 PM

Concerning the rebates...
guys, it's a classic at Sonic Foundry. I just checked again, remembering the same situation in the past.
I got SF Studio and can upgrade to SF8 for $150. I confirm, even if it's not listed as so on the site, since I'm registered, I get the rebate form via e-mail.

Go figure...


PS: do any of you use Accoustic Mirror impulses ? Is it really worth it? (Let's say I just have an SM-58 mic for example) ?

Subject:Impulse thingie

Reply by: tascolas

Date:4/10/2005 8:34:36 PM

Acoustic mirror impulses rock - AM used to be heavy on the cpu in p3 days ... not anymore ... If i remember correctly and nothing has changed u will find lots of Am reverb impulses on the SF cd -cheers

Subject:RE: Impulse thingie

Reply by: FuTz

Date:4/10/2005 9:53:03 PM

Think they're all downloadable if you got the app. Probably for those who buy on-line, which I'm gonna do if I buy SoundForge...
: )

Subject:RE: Impulse thingie

Reply by: FuTz

Date:4/13/2005 9:12:02 AM

Now I learn that you can also use Accoustic Mirror within Vegas. But how ? You simply put the files (RIFF files?) into the plugins folder? I'm asking because I also learned that there are free downloadable impulses on the net and would like to try before getting more into that ...

Subject:RE: Impulse thingie

Reply by: Illogical

Date:4/13/2005 12:18:09 PM

yeah, whatever happened to my acoustic mirror and wave hammer plug-ins? I did an upgrade of 4.0 to the Sony version (f or g) and my wave hammer and acoustic mirror plug-ins were chopped out of it. They came with the Sonic Foundry version I bought, can I get them back?

Subject:RE: Impulse thingie

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:4/13/2005 12:49:51 PM

I thought Acoustic Mirror and Wave Hammer only shipped with Sound Forge. I don’t remember them being part of ACID but I have so much stuff on my PC now that who knows where it originally came from.

~jr

Subject:RE: Impulse thingie

Reply by: FuTz

Date:4/13/2005 3:43:56 PM

Well, I asked on the Vegas forum and:
-you can *obtain* Accoustic Morror *only* if you got Sound Forge (obviously, 'cause I got the Studio version and can't have AM)
-you can *use* Accoustic Mirror with Vegas too. (but HOW ? )