Subject:Gotta give credit where credit is due

Posted by: sk

Date:12/16/2001 7:43:19 PM

One thing that's become very clear to me over the past few months is that there are a lot of audio editors out there. I've recently had the opportunity to play around with some of the more popular ones in addition to Sound Forge 5.0. I've posted some of my critiques of 5.0 on this site, so I think it's only fair to post positive feedback as well. After trying out Samplitude 6.0, Cool Edit Pro, and Steinberg Wavelab, I came to the overwhelming conclusion that Sound Forge is far more user friendly than any of the aforementioned products. Certainly for the purposes of wave mastering, and keeping the issue of multi-track recording separate. The ability to have the meters, transports, and all the necessary tool bars on screen at the same time as having a very useable waveform size to boot, is just not possible with any of the other programs with the possible exception of Cool Edit. But try to get any kind of coherent zoom with Cool Edit - like the kind you'd need to fill the screen with one single glitch - and if it's even possible, I couldn't figure out how to do it in a week's worth of attempts. Pound for pound, I think Sound Forge deserves a lot of credit for turning out a truly exceptional product. And can anyone who's worked with Sound Forge imagine an audio editor that offered Undo but no Redo? That's Cool Edit Pro and 2000. No re-do whatsoever. So hats off to SF and keep up the good work!
sk

Subject:RE: Gotta give credit where credit is due

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:12/17/2001 9:21:29 PM

Wow, sounds like you did the same study I did 4-5 years ago, when I decided on SF products over the rest. I still get a bad taste in my mouth, when I walk into a studio and have to use "Pro Tools" over my nice user friendly interface of Vegas Video!!! I still laugh at the guys using Master List to put a CD together as I drag and drop ID tracks with CD Architect likes there's no tomorrow.

Cheers,
Brian Franz

Subject:RE: Gotta give credit where credit is due

Reply by: kilroy

Date:12/17/2001 10:44:31 PM

So do I. And although I agree that SF 5.0 is a very capable and professional tool, I can't agree with your criticism of Samplitude and Cool Edit in the areas you mention. With both these programs you can zoom and edit right down to the sample, no problem at all. CoolEdit: highlite a section of audio or put the play cursor where you want to zoom and "zoom to selection" (the * key). Repeat to taste.
Samplitude: put the cursor up into the playback time margin at the top of the window, click left mouse button and drag down to zoom and left/right to scroll through the waveform at the same time. Very fast, very powerful.

Subject:RE: Gotta give credit where credit is due

Reply by: sk

Date:12/17/2001 11:46:16 PM

Thanks to both of you guys. Yeah, Red, I kinda had you pegged as an old SF softie from way back. (lol) And Kilroy, I just gave the zooming a try. Unless it was a typo in your post, the * key did nothing. But I was able to jockey back and forth between Cntrl+UpArrow and the 'zoom selection' magnifying button, and finally managed to get the same degree of magnification in CE as SF, but it took, I'd say, 3 times as long. And to my feel was nowhere near as intuitive as just 'laying on the old up/down arrow' like I can do in SF. But even though there may be some salvation for Cool Edit and the zooming, there is NONE, as far as I'm concerned, with regard to it not offering a 're-do' function. That's just flat out inexcusable for even an average program these days. And from the feedback on their forum, they have no plans to introduce re-do in the next release, 2.0, whenever that's going to be.

Samplitude at least does have that capacity, and there's no doubt that it's a full bore audio editing program, I'll give it that much. (With regard to Samp's undo/redo, the default if set to 'unlimited'; lol.) But there simply comes a time when playing with all the different programs and trying to 'get the best out of each one' just gets old; kinda losing the forest for the trees, if you know what I mean. I got into this hobby(?) to enjoy the music more; not to become a sound engineer. And SF just seems to me to be the most workable program I've tried in a 'total, one-stop-shopping' sense, with relatively few compromises.

Granted, every program has its strengths, along with its loyal adherents. (I swear there's a guy in the SEK'd forum at AudioForums who's had a damn near religious experience with Samplitude. I bet if you ask him he'd credit Samplitude with being able to solve everything from tape noise to herpes.) For example, I really like the way the meters in Cool Edit can be set to 'let go' of the peaks and not just stay at the peak long after the rest of the song has settled down. It's more of a dynamic peak hold, which I'd like to see incorporated into SF. And I also like how the meters are able to get really thin and tucked away into the 'frame' of the waveform window, so that it's totally visible and functional, but also totally out of the way, using up nearly zero screen real estate in the process. SF does dock and get out of the way pretty well too, it just doesn't get quite as thin. But those are relatively very minor things. I think the 'crash recovery' in SF is pure genius; you only have to need it once to know just how valuable it is.

And by the same token other aspects of SF have some variance to them. Like the wavering support for CD architecture. And I also remember the very first time I opened up the options in SF - I closed it right back up, said "No thanks", and didn't open it again for a couple of weeks. (I'd just never seen that many options on any program before - SF was the first audio editor I'd ever tried. And virtually every audio editing options menu is equally as daunting if you're not used to the complexity of available options in this type of program.)(And actually, the version of SF I used first was 4.5). But then I tried it again, and found the help system to be just that - EXTREMELY helpful. I remember saying to someone: "It's not like other help menus where you click on help and you get everything thrown at you; when you click on help in SF it pops up just the help you need for that particular area." (And they often threw in suggestions for what settings were most likely to give good results as well.) And that absolutely helped me learn SF 4.5 very quickly. Funny, though. The first time I opened help in 5.0, it had changed. It was more along the lines of throwing a whole bunch of stuff at you and asking: "What do you want to do... with...?" Really very funny. I think if 4.5 had been set up like that I never would have bothered to learn it. It would have been my loss, because I really like SF the best. But it goes to show how even within the same product, variations come in that feel one way to some people and another way to others, and that affects different people's experiences with different programs. (I wonder why they tinkered with something so well organized in the first place. But at least I was able to get most of the stuff tucked away first. So much so, that I kept hitting "C" to center the waveform in 5.0 but sure wasn't getting the same result as in 4.5. Even the help menu kept insisting the "C" would center it. Til I figured out that the backslash or the period had replaced "C" in 5.0.) But again, that's relatively minor stuff. The main point of my post was/in that after experimenting with just about every established audio editor around, I found/find SF to be - for me - the best of all possible worlds. And hopefully they'll choose to continue to go forward with helpful improvements/augmentations for many years to come.
Good tunes, all.
sk

Subject:RE: Gotta give credit where credit is due

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:12/18/2001 11:05:43 AM

Good point on the Help change from 4.5 to 5.0. I hadn't noticed this difference until I tried to answer a post in this forum, and really wondered while I was posting "why everyone is so lazy to look at the help menu". 4.5 was a much better option than 5.0, it was easy to find a "Quick Start". Now I try to point people to the Quick start in 5.0 and I really have a hard time finding one. I'm glad I learned on 4.0 and 4.5, because I find it a lot harder to find answers in the 5.0 help menu. 4.5 had a nice quickstart to guide you through step by step to set your PC up to record and playback audio, and basic editing proceedures to get you off and running. I don't need this anymore, but I'm having a hard time seeing anything like this in the 5.0 help.

Subject:RE: Gotta give credit where credit is due

Reply by: sk

Date:12/18/2001 3:54:20 PM

Yeah, Red. I can only surmise that from the feedback SF got, they decided to change the help format. I know at times I assess/judge certain events/situations without all the facts and that's an unwise approach to take. So not knowing all the facts surrounding the change it's really hard to say. But from this one user's perspective, it was a change that did not benefit me and just appears to be one of those 'changes for change sake' that end up benefitting no one. I do know that I have one style of learning and that there are many other styles. But the help system in 4.5 was so seamless and genuinely helpful that I have a hard time imagining what particular benefit can be derived from the current setup. But the way these things go sometimes it might end up that in the next incarnation SF will re-adopt the system it used in 4.5. I feel fortunate, as you yourself described, to have gotten the bulk of the learning curve under my belt with 4.5. The program logistics are not that much different; the key was getting it to 24 bit, which is obviously advantageous. But that's another function of these forums; to air out our views, pro and con.
Take care, Red.

sk