6 more things I wish Sony would fix in SF9 -Sound Forge - PC

Subject:6 more things I wish Sony would fix in SF9 Posted by: jeffjams Date:7/17/2007 12:32:46 PM I had hoped to finish elaborating on two or three remaining issues in my previous thread, "20 things I wish Sony would fix in SF9." And I will try to finish that before I'm on the road for awhile. However, after intensive editing over the weekend, I came up with these new issues: 1. Pitch shift...does not work at all below 100 milliseconds in SF9. At slightly above 100ms it'll sort of handle downward pitches. But I have to be somewhere around 120ms and up in length for it to start doing some upward pitch shifting. I discovered this while working with a sound effect that's 87ms in length. I had to bring up SF7 to finish the edit -- SF7 did the job with no problems. Then, to my horror, I discovered that nothing else seems to work below 100ms, either. I discovered this when Waves' L3 wouldn't work. Neither did the Sony multi-band processor, paragraphic EQ -- I tried a bunch of processes. Two different sound cards, one ASIO, the other Classic Wave Driver...that didn't make a difference either. As is stands right now, with SF9, I cannot effect little beeps, blips, "chinks" and "chunks." 3. When pasting a selection from one sound file into another, the destination file used to show the time position of the leading edge of the source file. Not so in SF9. This may seem trivial, but knowing precisely where the source file's gonna land when you let go of the mouse key can be a useful in game sound design. Please bring this one back. 4. Mix/replace...a possible bug...whenever I drag a selection from the source to the end of the destination file while using the Shift key, then double-click to expand the selection to include the entire new area, the right carrot will only extend about 1.5 seconds into the newly added area...sometimes no further than the original destination material. This means that I cannot play, in loop mode, the entire length of the newly expanded file before saving it. Enlighten me, please, someone, if there is something I have yet to learn in this situation. While I'm talking about Mix/replace...when dragging from the source to anywhere in the destination file while using the Shift key, then, even after deleting (Ctrl-Z) that change, the region markers placed in the destination file by the source material no longer expand beyond the length of the original edit. One must either redo the mix/replace, using the dialogue window, or exit and reload the file to get this problem to go away. Now, why would I Shift+drag to do a paste/mix in SF9. It's an old habit formed from the "classic behavior" of earlier versions of Sound Forge. PLUS, I remain hopeful that Sony will address the issues I brought up in Items 7 and 8 in my thread, "20 things I wish Sony would fix in SF9." 5. Batch process...in previous versions, I could add mono wave files that I wanted to convert to mono MP3's, set the file type to MP3, 128kbs and, voila! I would get mono MP3's. In SF9, I have to go two more steps than I used to -- "custom" and "mono." Earlier versions used to automatically detect whether I was feeding it a mono or stereo wave file. How come this is different? It's more time-consuming. 6. Batch process...I totally agree with other complaints that having to remove one file at a time from a job-in-progress is absolutely awful!! Please bring back the ability to select numerous files for deleting from a job. Thanks.
Subject:RE: 6 more things I wish Sony would fix in SF Reply by: ForumAdmin Date:7/18/2007 7:33:48 AM 1) In general, I expect this is a preview issue only and that the effect processes correctly. For the time being, if you are working on very short selections and this occurs, you might try unchecking the "Real-time" checkbox. For the Pitch Shift and Time Stretch plug-ins in particular, the accuracy somewhat depends on the granularity of the current mode. I'm well aware of that shortcoming and we will be addressing it in future versions. For very short sounds, you may want to try Pitch Bend instead. 2) What, no 2?! 3) Fixed this yesterday. 4) I see it. There is some funkiness here when bypassing the dialog and inserting data at the end. Will get it fixed up. 5) Earlier versions also did not allow most format changes as part of the save (this is not new to 9.0, fwiw). If you get in the habit of using batch jobs, you only have to do this once. 6) Noted and already in the bug database. J.
Subject:RE: 6 more things I wish Sony would fix in SF Reply by: jeffjams Date:7/18/2007 12:37:33 PM Sorry about the miscount. Probably because I was thinking of an item I took back off the list -- a serious crashing with multiple files (10 or more) open during my weekend editing. I kept getting "exception has occured" error messages. I saved the details from one of those, if anyone needs the information. However, I have not been able to duplicate this since I re-installed SF9 on Tuesday. THAT was due to the program hanging at "initializing audio engine." Thinking that might have been due to a switch from my M-Audio FW410 I/O to my Digi002, I disconnected everything but my mouse. No luck. So I re-installed. Time will tell if the re-install flushed out the multiple-file-crash problem as well. Meanwhile, thanks for your response. I think I can cross everything else off this list and let it slowly sink down into the abyss:)

I had hoped to finish elaborating on two or three remaining issues in my previous thread, "20 things I wish Sony would fix in SF9." And I will try to finish that before I'm on the road for awhile.

However, after intensive editing over the weekend, I came up with these new issues:

1. Pitch shift...does not work at all below 100 milliseconds in SF9. At slightly above 100ms it'll sort of handle downward pitches. But I have to be somewhere around 120ms and up in length for it to start doing some upward pitch shifting. I discovered this while working with a sound effect that's 87ms in length. I had to bring up SF7 to finish the edit -- SF7 did the job with no problems.

Then, to my horror, I discovered that nothing else seems to work below 100ms, either. I discovered this when Waves' L3 wouldn't work. Neither did the Sony multi-band processor, paragraphic EQ -- I tried a bunch of processes. Two different sound cards, one ASIO, the other Classic Wave Driver...that didn't make a difference either.

As is stands right now, with SF9, I cannot effect little beeps, blips, "chinks" and "chunks."

3. When pasting a selection from one sound file into another, the destination file used to show the time position of the leading edge of the source file. Not so in SF9.

This may seem trivial, but knowing precisely where the source file's gonna land when you let go of the mouse key can be a useful in game sound design. Please bring this one back.

4. Mix/replace...a possible bug...whenever I drag a selection from the source to the end of the destination file while using the Shift key, then double-click to expand the selection to include the entire new area, the right carrot will only extend about 1.5 seconds into the newly added area...sometimes no further than the original destination material. This means that I cannot play, in loop mode, the entire length of the newly expanded file before saving it.

Enlighten me, please, someone, if there is something I have yet to learn in this situation.

While I'm talking about Mix/replace...when dragging from the source to anywhere in the destination file while using the Shift key, then, even after deleting (Ctrl-Z) that change, the region markers placed in the destination file by the source material no longer expand beyond the length of the original edit. One must either redo the mix/replace, using the dialogue window, or exit and reload the file to get this problem to go away.

Now, why would I Shift+drag to do a paste/mix in SF9. It's an old habit formed from the "classic behavior" of earlier versions of Sound Forge. PLUS, I remain hopeful that Sony will address the issues I brought up in Items 7 and 8 in my thread, "20 things I wish Sony would fix in SF9."

5. Batch process...in previous versions, I could add mono wave files that I wanted to convert to mono MP3's, set the file type to MP3, 128kbs and, voila! I would get mono MP3's. In SF9, I have to go two more steps than I used to -- "custom" and "mono." Earlier versions used to automatically detect whether I was feeding it a mono or stereo wave file. How come this is different? It's more time-consuming.

6. Batch process...I totally agree with other complaints that having to remove one file at a time from a job-in-progress is absolutely awful!!

Please bring back the ability to select numerous files for deleting from a job.

Thanks.