9 hours of live music lost... -Sound Forge - PC - MAGIX Community Forums Archive

Subject:9 hours of live music lost... Posted by: camper Date:12/31/2013 11:43:37 PM I just used Sound Forge 9 to record nine hours of live music. At the end of the nine hours, I tried to save the music, and I was greeted by an error that said all was lost. WTF!!!!! If I cannot rely upon Sound Forge to be reliable when I record music, what is the reason I should use it? Anyone have any recommendations for a more reliable product?
Subject:RE: 9 hours of live music lost... Reply by: jackn2mpu Date:1/1/2014 6:12:08 AM Well you could start off by giving us less information ;( What is your system setup? Windows version, etc. What file format were you using? Certain file formats have a max length and length of the file depends on what bit rate and sample depth you were using. Lastly Soundforge is really not what you should be using to record music even though it can be used for that purpose. It's more of a file editor. A purpose-coded daw is what you should have been using. On windows there's a whole bunch - Sonar, Cubase, Reaper (I really don't consider Acid to be daw software). Jack
Subject:RE: 9 hours of live music lost... Reply by: Steve Grisetti Date:1/1/2014 9:04:14 AM And of course don't forget that if you were recording as a 32-bit WAV file rather than a W64 file, there is a file size limit and you likely exceeded. Which definitely falls in the category of pilot error.
Subject:RE: 9 hours of live music lost... Reply by: Chienworks Date:1/1/2014 10:56:53 AM Camper, when you start up Sound Forge it may prompt you that there's old temp files available and ask if you want to recover them. If so, please do! This might be the recording still in the temp buffer and salvageable. Saving the long file as .W64 or .PCA or even a very high-bitrate MP3, or basically anything other than 32 bit WAV would have avoided the problem. Sound Forge is my usual go-to for audio recording. It's perfectly acceptable and functional for that. That being said, recording 9 hours live in one shot without a backup in place is a very risky thing. Anything that goes 'blip' kills the whole process and you've potentially lost everything. I don't know the details of the event, but when i record something that long i tend to stop and save what i've got whenever possible, at least once an hour if not more often, then start a new recording. Unfortunately this is one area where Sound Forge can be lacking because if you're not careful to save to the same physical drive as the recording temp drive the saves can take too long. Vegas does have the nice feature that the file is saved as you record, and cutting off one file and starting another is a very quick process. If i was being paid to record a 9 hour session i'd have at least two PCs going simultaneously recording in parallel, and alternating/rotating the break/restart between them so that whatever one might miss, the other covers. Heck, i'd probably bring along the ol' Tascam 122 mkII and some other deck as well and be running analog recordings too for safety. Something i dearly wish Sound Forge would steal from VidCap is the ability to roll over seamlessly into sequential files when a certain duration or file size has been reached. Kinda boggles my mind that this hasn't ever been implemented.

Subject:9 hours of live music lost...

Posted by: camper

Date:12/31/2013 11:43:37 PM

I just used Sound Forge 9 to record nine hours of live music. At the end of the nine hours, I tried to save the music, and I was greeted by an error that said all was lost.

WTF!!!!!

If I cannot rely upon Sound Forge to be reliable when I record music, what is the reason I should use it?

Anyone have any recommendations for a more reliable product?

Subject:RE: 9 hours of live music lost...

Reply by: jackn2mpu

Date:1/1/2014 6:12:08 AM

Well you could start off by giving us less information ;(

What is your system setup? Windows version, etc. What file format were you using? Certain file formats have a max length and length of the file depends on what bit rate and sample depth you were using.

Lastly Soundforge is really not what you should be using to record music even though it can be used for that purpose. It's more of a file editor. A purpose-coded daw is what you should have been using. On windows there's a whole bunch - Sonar, Cubase, Reaper (I really don't consider Acid to be daw software).

Jack

Subject:RE: 9 hours of live music lost...

Reply by: Steve Grisetti

Date:1/1/2014 9:04:14 AM

And of course don't forget that if you were recording as a 32-bit WAV file rather than a W64 file, there is a file size limit and you likely exceeded.

Which definitely falls in the category of pilot error.

Subject:RE: 9 hours of live music lost...

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:1/1/2014 10:56:53 AM

Camper, when you start up Sound Forge it may prompt you that there's old temp files available and ask if you want to recover them. If so, please do! This might be the recording still in the temp buffer and salvageable. Saving the long file as .W64 or .PCA or even a very high-bitrate MP3, or basically anything other than 32 bit WAV would have avoided the problem.

Sound Forge is my usual go-to for audio recording. It's perfectly acceptable and functional for that.

That being said, recording 9 hours live in one shot without a backup in place is a very risky thing. Anything that goes 'blip' kills the whole process and you've potentially lost everything. I don't know the details of the event, but when i record something that long i tend to stop and save what i've got whenever possible, at least once an hour if not more often, then start a new recording. Unfortunately this is one area where Sound Forge can be lacking because if you're not careful to save to the same physical drive as the recording temp drive the saves can take too long. Vegas does have the nice feature that the file is saved as you record, and cutting off one file and starting another is a very quick process.

If i was being paid to record a 9 hour session i'd have at least two PCs going simultaneously recording in parallel, and alternating/rotating the break/restart between them so that whatever one might miss, the other covers. Heck, i'd probably bring along the ol' Tascam 122 mkII and some other deck as well and be running analog recordings too for safety.

Something i dearly wish Sound Forge would steal from VidCap is the ability to roll over seamlessly into sequential files when a certain duration or file size has been reached. Kinda boggles my mind that this hasn't ever been implemented.