appropriate software for my needs? -Sound Forge - PC

Subject:appropriate software for my needs? Posted by: wynton Date:11/13/2006 7:41:14 AM This is a cross-post of a post I made at the Acid forum: I'm wondering whether I was sold the best Sony for my limited needs, which is merely to record my vinyl, clean it up and convert it to digital. More specifically, I assumed I just needed one program to: (1) record/capture the vinyl; (2) split up the tracks; and (3) do these tasks, while using a plugin - such as Sound Soap - to perform the clean up process. For these purposes, I was persuaded to purchase Acid Music Studio. But after purchasing, I realized that most of Acid Music Studio is directed to recording instruments or doing other tasks. Moreover, I have struggled to find simple instructions for the limited tasks I want to perform. When I just posted this question at the Acid forum, someone suggested that Sound Forge might be more appropriate. Is this correct? If so, which Sound Forge product is best for me? Thank you.
Subject:RE: appropriate software for my needs? Reply by: garrigus Date:11/13/2006 1:42:01 PM Hi Wynton, Yes, that's the type of task Sound Forge is suited for... but you could probably do it in ACID too, since it lets you edit audio and run plug-ins. I believe Sound Forge Studio will do the trick but you may want to check out the comparison chart here on the Sony site to see if it has all the features you need: http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/Products/showproduct.asp?PID=975&FeatureID=8365 And if you're interested, my Sound Forge 8 Power book will help you learn the software: www.garrigus.com Scott -- Scott R. Garrigus - Author of Cakewalk, Sound Forge 6, 7/8 and SONAR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Power books. Get Sonar 6 Power The Comprehensive Guide - Today! http://www.garrigus.com/ Publisher of DigiFreq. Win a free Smart Loops Sample Loops Collection and learn cool music technology tips and techniques by getting a FREE subscription to DigiFreq... over 20,000 readers can't be wrong! Go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/
Subject:RE: appropriate software for my needs? Reply by: BradlyMusic Date:11/14/2006 10:51:00 AM Wynton, I replied to your post in the Acid forum, but here it is again. Scott is right and has given you probably the most accurate advice so far. In my opinion to keep this a simple task like you mentioned you should probably stay with Acid. Sound Forge will make this entire proceedure more complex. Copied from Acid Forum reply: Acid Music Studio will do everything you need. Most people just prefer to do this type of work in Sound Forge, as you probably noticed from the replies. Acid Music Studio might even be a better recommendation for the price compared to Sound Forge Studio which is at the same price point. The reason is because Acid Music supports Disc-at-Once CD burning. Which means you can put CD track IDs at the beginning of each song and have the songs broken up according to the Vinyl. With Sound Forge, it only supports "Track-at-once" CD burning. Which means, that for each file you capture it only burns that file to the CD without track IDs. So to overcome the track-at-once burning limitation, you would additionally need to break the recording up into several smaller files. Track-at-once also puts 2 seconds of silence between each track when you burn the files to CD, which means it would sound unnatural if you where playing the entire album back in it's entirity, because you would hear Vinyl noise followed by complete silence at the end and beginning of each song. So going against what everyone else is recommending, Acid is actually the more simpler tool to get the job done. It just has a lot of other features that are not relevant to what you are trying to acomplish, where Sound Forge is more specialized in this type of task. Here's what you should do in Acid. 1. Plug your output from the turn table into your sound cards input. 2. Select your sound cards input to record from in Acid. 3. Record the audio, which will then be placed on to an audio track in Acid. 4. Place "Sound Soap" into that audio tracks insert, and make adjustments to remove unwanted noise. 5. Place CD tracks IDs, by hitting the "N" button on your keyboard at the beginning of each song. 6. Burn a "Disc-at-once" audio CD. Acid actually requires less steps, so it is a good recommendation for doing this more quickly and keeping it "simple" as you metioned. Sound Forge just gives you more sergical precision tools to work on the audio once you have it recorded and requires more steps to get it onto CD. If you have any questions, about doing any of the above steps that I outlined then just ask and we can point you in the right direction. Sound Forge is not necessarily the right tool, for this job. It's the more complex tool for this job. Acid is actually more right for this job in my opinion, because you don't need additional tools to get the Disc-at-once feature support, and you don't need to do a lot of additional work to get it onto CD and you don't have to worry about playback problems where the original recording would sound very unnatural. There are ways to overcome those items in Sound Forge, but it requires a lot of extra steps. So whoever sold you the Acid Studio, knew what they where talking about. The items 1&3 that you mentioned are pretty much done the same in Acid and Sound Forge. It's Item #2, that you will have a lot more work to accomplish in Sound Forge compared to doing it in Acid for the reasons I listed above.

Wynton, I replied to your post in the Acid forum, but here it is again. Scott is right and has given you probably the most accurate advice so far. In my opinion to keep this a simple task like you mentioned you should probably stay with Acid. Sound Forge will make this entire proceedure more complex.

Copied from Acid Forum reply:

Acid Music Studio will do everything you need. Most people just prefer to do this type of work in Sound Forge, as you probably noticed from the replies. Acid Music Studio might even be a better recommendation for the price compared to Sound Forge Studio which is at the same price point. The reason is because Acid Music supports Disc-at-Once CD burning. Which means you can put CD track IDs at the beginning of each song and have the songs broken up according to the Vinyl. With Sound Forge, it only supports "Track-at-once" CD burning. Which means, that for each file you capture it only burns that file to the CD without track IDs. So to overcome the track-at-once burning limitation, you would additionally need to break the recording up into several smaller files. Track-at-once also puts 2 seconds of silence between each track when you burn the files to CD, which means it would sound unnatural if you where playing the entire album back in it's entirity, because you would hear Vinyl noise followed by complete silence at the end and beginning of each song.

So going against what everyone else is recommending, Acid is actually the more simpler tool to get the job done. It just has a lot of other features that are not relevant to what you are trying to acomplish, where Sound Forge is more specialized in this type of task.

Here's what you should do in Acid.
1. Plug your output from the turn table into your sound cards input.
2. Select your sound cards input to record from in Acid.
3. Record the audio, which will then be placed on to an audio track in Acid.
4. Place "Sound Soap" into that audio tracks insert, and make adjustments to remove unwanted noise.
5. Place CD tracks IDs, by hitting the "N" button on your keyboard at the beginning of each song.
6. Burn a "Disc-at-once" audio CD.

Acid actually requires less steps, so it is a good recommendation for doing this more quickly and keeping it "simple" as you metioned. Sound Forge just gives you more sergical precision tools to work on the audio once you have it recorded and requires more steps to get it onto CD.

If you have any questions, about doing any of the above steps that I outlined then just ask and we can point you in the right direction. Sound Forge is not necessarily the right tool, for this job. It's the more complex tool for this job. Acid is actually more right for this job in my opinion, because you don't need additional tools to get the Disc-at-once feature support, and you don't need to do a lot of additional work to get it onto CD and you don't have to worry about playback problems where the original recording would sound very unnatural. There are ways to overcome those items in Sound Forge, but it requires a lot of extra steps. So whoever sold you the Acid Studio, knew what they where talking about.

The items 1&3 that you mentioned are pretty much done the same in Acid and Sound Forge. It's Item #2, that you will have a lot more work to accomplish in Sound Forge compared to doing it in Acid for the reasons I listed above.