Subject:SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Posted by: jeffjams

Date:1/19/2008 4:13:53 PM

Hello-o-o, Sony!

1. Let's start with the "bugly":

I just loaded SF9d. In all the years I've used Sound Forge, I've never seen this bug before.

Many of the tool and process windows don't size properly and cut of some of the bottom graphics. In one of my most-used, the Graphic Fade, most of the bottom of the "Reset Envelope" button is cut off.

I also saw this in the amplitude modulation, distortion, chorus, pitch bend and shift, time stretch, normalize, all three EQ's and the mix/replace. There may be others.


2. Here's a "good" thing (trying to keep some balance here):

Thanks, Sony, for adding back the ability to read start and end times of a selection being pasted onto another file. It is a big help in my game sound design work to know precisely to the millisecond where to drop in a clip during a quick paste/mix.


Now for the...well...not-so-good:

3. Speaking of mixes, I, like others on this forum, could really use the old classic crossfade that used to be in Sound Forge.


4. Sony, while you're working on fixing the Mix/Replace function, could you also bring back the option to affect the entire destination file? I know we discussed this last July in my post, "20 Things..." If it's coming in SF10, that would be fine.


5. Is there anyone out there who uses fade in/out at the edges of a selected area of a file being time-compressed? First, these things throw in all kinds of noisy artifacts I didn't have to deal with in SF7 or earlier. I have to set the fade times to 0 to eliminate the unwanted noises.

Second, to have to click on the "more" button every time to set those fade times is quite a time-waster over a lot of production.

Let me illustrate -- I do a lot of seasonal TV voiceovers for a client who always writes way too much copy. When I have to compress these spots down, sometimes to 85%, I've found that compressing 5- to 10-second sections of the audio give me slightly cleaner results than trying to compress the entire 30-second spot. Sometimes, I will use different percentages throughout the track.

If only I didn't have to deal with the fade curves each time, or if SF would remember what I did in the previous edit, OR if the "more" box would at least remain open.

But, alas, I can now do this function almost as fast in Slo Tools!

Before you suggest this, let me tell you that grabbing those edges with the curser rarely brings the time down to zero.

May we PLEASE have an option to turn off, or set to zero at the click of a button, the Fade In and Fade Out's?

In the interest of fairness, I have found the fades to be helful in some
processes, like volume changes. But even in Wave Hammer, where I want to use different thresholds through a single file, if I don't watch those darn fades I get unintended spikes in the audio level.


6. I was going to leave it at number 5, but that got me to thinking about "zero crossings" and the snapping function in SF9. Sony, I know you guys made some improvements with version 9c, but I still really miss the way the curser snapped to those crossings in earlier versions of SF.

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: Kennymusicman

Date:1/19/2008 4:57:20 PM

1) - My windows are sized fine.
2)
3) Options, preferences, editing - auto crossfade mix with selection (rreally - take a look!!)
4) ?
5) I can fade in/out just fine - not quite sure what you are about
5.5) You can set your default fades to be what you want - for example mine are set to 0.
6) Options, preference, editing - set up your zero crossing settings to your hearts content!

Hope that helps

Ken

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: Grazie

Date:1/19/2008 11:49:46 PM

Windows sized perfectly here.

As to the rest - thanks Ken for the pointers!

Grazie

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: porkjelly

Date:1/20/2008 12:20:18 PM

Batch Processing has froze up on me a few times on 9.0d.

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: jeffjams

Date:1/20/2008 1:16:04 PM

1- Perhaps it's something at my end, but many of the process windows cut off the bottoms a bit. It's something I've never seen before.

3- Perhaps I'm not used to it enough yet -- the old method was faster for me to use.

4- Here I'm referring to the old button: "Apply destination volume to overlapping area only." With that function clicked off, you could take a small selection from one file, drag it into a much larger destination and change the gain of the entire destination. Sony took that function out due to new-user confusion, but it drives me crazy without it in my sound design work.

5- Thanks for reminding me that I needed to hold down Ctrl+Shift while selection Options->Preferences to get into the program's internal settings. I did find the defaults...and it looks like I'm good-to-go there.

6- I'm just grousing about the newer "soft snap" function, similar to that in Vegas. In the old SF, I could zoom in, select and slightly move an edge, let go and the edge would just magically hit the next zero crossing.

Now, in order to get the same behavior, you have to use keystrokes to get "Extend to Next Zero" or "Extend Edge to Next Zero." It's an extra step, which I'm not used to and find a little less efficient.

Ken, thanks for your help, especially in jogging my memory regarding default settings.

Jeff

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: Buckskin

Date:1/21/2008 3:00:25 PM

YAY! They brought back the loop tuner window!!!!!

Downloading now.

Thanks Sony!!!! :D

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: ForumAdmin

Date:1/22/2008 10:44:56 AM

1) Anything unusual with respect to fonts or themes on your system? Are you running XP SP2 or something else:

3) With the new options in 9.0d, drags and/or pastes into selections will behave just like the Crossfade tool did.

4) Noted.

5) You don't have to go into internal prefs to save the current fades as the defaults. Just right click in the "More..." section of the dialog and select "Save Fade Values".

6) Noted, but that's kinda the point. If you remain zoomed out, you'll remain on zero crossings (and can just use key commands to incrementally change the selection if desired). If you make the effort to zoom in, it stands to reason that you probably want finer control, hence the soft snap.


J.

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: porkjelly

Date:1/22/2008 2:45:11 PM

New one today. I double-clicked on the SF9 icon and nothing happened. Clicked on it two more times and still nothing. Had to reboot to get the program to open.

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: peahicks

Date:1/23/2008 4:35:03 PM

***6) Noted, but that's kinda the point. If you remain zoomed out, you'll remain on zero crossings (and can just use key commands to incrementally change the selection if desired). If you make the effort to zoom in, it stands to reason that you probably want finer control, hence the soft snap.***

this is not how i actually work. i vastly prefer the old style of zero snap, even when zoomed in, because the main reason i zoom in is to be able to see more precisely where my edit points are. i still want the convenience/speed of how the old snapping used to work, instead of having to guide the cursor to each end of the selection. can't we just have this as a preferences option? ie, soft-snap, or old-style snap?

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: GenJerDan

Date:1/23/2008 6:45:56 PM

Many of the tool and process windows don't size properly and cut of some of the bottom graphics. In one of my most-used, the Graphic Fade, most of the bottom of the "Reset Envelope" button is cut off.


You'll see this a lot if you have "large" or "extra large" fonts set on the system. Windows is a pita to program for in that respect, and a lot of times the programmer doesn't get it quite right. (In my case, I've yet to get it right when I write programs. :^( )

If you don't have the fonts set like that...no idea.

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: jeffjams

Date:1/25/2008 11:59:56 AM

Thanks for confirming my hunch. I had to get a new laptop last fall. The default fonts appear much smaller on an HP compared to my old Toshiba (getting a little older doesn't help, either:).

So, yes, I've played with upping the font size a notch. But the question remains -- why did I not see this in SF9c?

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: ForumAdmin

Date:1/25/2008 12:35:47 PM

I tried several font size changes via DPI settings, theme settings, and changing explicit Windows elements, and still could not reproduce the issue.

Can you specify exactly what you've changed? Are you using Windows Blinds or some other shell-related tool? I'd be particularly interested in whether you've changed the MS Shell Dlg mapping in the registry.

J.

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: jeffjams

Date:1/26/2008 9:30:59 AM

1. Here is the path I took: Control Panel, Display, Settings, Advanced, General, DPI Setting. There I selected "custom setting" which brings up a box, "custom DPI setting." That box has choices of 100%, 125%, 150% and so on. I manually typed in 135% (125% just didn't seem to change anything, 150% was too much).

Apparently, it is the custom setting that SF9d does not like. I tried 125% and 150%...the windows in SF resized properly. When I went back to 135%, the sizing problem came back. Again, I did not see this in version 9c. Not a huge problem for me, and I certainly understand if it's more a Windows bugaboo (like firewire issues).

By the way, my recently-aquired HP is equipped with an nVIDIA Quadro FX 1500 M video card.

2. NOW...I have broken something else in the process of switching graphics. I don't know if this has anything to do with font size settings...and I haven't seen this problem since I was using a Dell desktop running SF7 a few years ago.

Suddenly, in the multiband processor, the graphics on the THRESHOLD sliders in many of my custom settings have turned red and I can no longer adjust the threshold. It remains stuck on "inf." This, for me, is a much bigger problem. Any suggestions here?

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: Timbre4Gear

Date:1/26/2008 9:25:41 PM

Nice questions and moderation here! Little slower over there in the ACID section; but I managed to solve one of the two problems.

1. I use the word 'behavior' with software quite often; SF9.0 definitely feels different. There must be some defaults set that are contrary to my comfor level. The editing selection feel and the extra steps introduced to define the editing portion of the timeline feels torturously vague compared to all previous versions to me.

If this can be alleviated by adjusting or un-checking I would be most grateful to know what it is! (I'm a Shift + Rt Arrow kinda guy)

2. What caused me to drop by was this bizarre experience; Working on a soundtrack with a quiet introduction, I decided to roll off some low freq to minimize some source hum/IM noise.
a) I select the 52 sec area
b) Go to Process, EQ, Select Graphic, [Sys} Roll-off frequencies below 120 Hz preset
c) Dial it down to about 65 Hz
d) Click on Preview and hear.... Tones overlayed on my audio! Every 2 seconds a different BEEP will sound in the selected area. Below the selection area it says "Graphic EQ - DEMO". Did I lose the licensed version?

Please try your Graphic EQ feature and see if you get beeped at.

OT - Trying to license my Batch Converter on PC#2 and the on-line registration tool won't cooperate. Product must be too old but I use it.(Downloaded bundled version, tried SF5.0 Serial # and no dice)

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: Kennymusicman

Date:1/27/2008 5:37:08 AM

2) Look out for 9e very soon

RE batch converter - it has its own serial number, not the SF5. What's wrong with the one included in SF9 ?

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: ForumAdmin

Date:1/29/2008 9:55:08 AM

The dialog size issue with custom DPI settings will be resolved in 9.0e.

In the meantime, if you are cut off from a control, you can always:
a) Temporarily revert to a standard DPI setting that works.
b) Navigate to the desired control with the Tab key and adjust with the arrow keys and/or Page Up/Down. If it is one of our faders, you can also just click on the guide until the thumb gets back in view.

J.

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: kbruff

Date:1/30/2008 4:17:19 AM

what about the performance of UAD card with 9.0d/(e) -- In 9.0C it did not work correctly, it would cause a crash, there was some strange work around but I did not do it, since 8.0D continues to be very stable and supports my UAD Card with ease.

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: ForumAdmin

Date:1/30/2008 8:16:25 AM

Yes, 9.0d includes fixes specific to UAD-1 plug-ins.

J.

Subject:RE: SF9d -- the good, the bad and the bugly.

Reply by: kbruff

Date:1/30/2008 9:22:44 AM

lovely