Subject:Soundforge loop regions in Acid??

Posted by: Bibsta

Date:1/23/2002 5:53:45 AM

I have a load of samples that I don't want to "top and tail" to loop them - I would rather create a loop region in soundforge and use this to specify the loop portion of the sample in Acid - How do I do it, whatever I try it doesn't work - any ideas - surely as both applications are made by the same company this is possible??

Subject:RE: Soundforge loop regions in Acid??

Reply by: Rockitglider

Date:1/23/2002 11:06:36 PM

First select the audio file you want to make your loop from, and try to cut out a piece of audio that is close to being in time, Then right click anywhere in SF work space and select Paste to New. This opens the cut audio portion in a new window.
Then select edit>Select All, Then select Tools>Spectrum Analysis, Down at the bottom get the note C#1 or whatever shows up from Spec. Analysis.
Then select Special>Create Sample Loop, Fill in the correct settings for your audio and at the bottom select the note you got from Spec. Anal. And SMPTE Format set to Non-Drop 30fps Audio.
Then click OK.
Then Select View>Loop Tuner. This you have to read about in help file But what you have to do here is line up the start and end of your loop so it loops smooth. You can check your work here to see how your doing.
Then Click Acid Properties Tool, And select the correct settings for your file Example Loop C# and number of beats. Then click OK Then Click File>Save, Name it and Close it, then try it in Acid. Should loop perfectly.
If it plays too fast raise your number of beats.

I know it's alot to do but it makes perfect loops.

See ya

Subject:RE: Soundforge loop regions in Acid??

Reply by: Bibsta

Date:1/25/2002 7:49:08 AM

yes - i want to keep my samples complete and loop within the sample using regions as created with soundforge though - any ideas??

Subject:RE: Soundforge loop regions in Acid??

Reply by: SonicJG

Date:1/27/2002 1:43:54 PM

You can add that file into ACID, then select it in the chopper. From within the chopper, you can see/select the region, and insert it into the timeline pretty easily. Though you won't be able to just draw out the region loop in the timeline to repeat. To do that, you'd need to have the whole file be just one loop (i.e.--do a destructive edit on the original file so that your looping region becomes a whole file).

Depending on your needs, the chopper may well do exactly what you want though--no reason to do all that extra editing and have extra files on the HD if you don't need to.

Best,
Joel

Subject:RE: Soundforge loop regions in Acid??

Reply by: BeachDog

Date:2/1/2002 8:41:08 AM

Once you already have the regions created, use the Extract Regions command to create separate WAV files for use in ACID. This takes a couple clicks to do all the regions (or just the ones you select). I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for.

Beachdog

Subject:RE: Soundforge loop regions in Acid??

Reply by: Czyrxis

Date:2/9/2002 10:25:08 PM

If I'm understanding you correctly, you have sound files with a loop region somewhere in the middle of the Wav file. This basically means that you have three parts to your Wav file. You have the 'attack' portion that occurs before the loop region. You have the 'sustain' portion that is within the loop region. Finally, you have the 'decay' portion that occurs after the loop region.

The problem with this setup as far as Acid is concerned is that Acid is optimized to deal with Wav files that only contain the 'sustain' portion of the sound. The reason for this is because Acid performs automatic time expansion/compression to assure any given wav file will play at the same BPM as any other Wav file in a given project. This works best when it is the entire Wav file that is being looped.

What you want to occur with your sound file (I think) is for the 'attack' portion to be treated as a one-shot because time stretching/compressing will smear the attack thereby loosing the feel of the instrument. You want the 'sustain' portion to be treated as a loop since that is the part that is looping. Finally, you want the 'decay' portion to be treated as a one-shot to maintain the specified decay length of the given instrument. Unfortunately this can not be done perfectly within Acid in the way it is done with samplers and/or trackers and the like.

The most accurate way to do this (though not necessarily the most convenient) is to create three sound files from the original. One for the 'attack' (defined as a one-shot), one for the 'sustain' (defined as a loop), and one for the 'decay' (defined as a one-shot). It is then just a matter of placing the three files on three separate tracks in Acid and arranging them so that there aren't any noticeable gaps between the three files when played as a whole. If you want to try this method, I would suggest creating some overlap between the three files so that the 'attack' file also contains a little bit of the start of the 'sustain' file and the 'decay' file contains a little bit of the end of the 'sustain' file. Then, when you paint them into the Acid tracks, you can overlap the beginnings and endings of the Wav's and use envelopes to cross-fade smoothly between each part. The obvious problems with this method are the work required to split up the single Wav file into its component parts and the fact that it uses three tracks in Acid. It is; however, the most accurate way I can think of to do what you want.

Joel's suggestion of using the Chopper tool is a viable one as well, but it has the following drawbacks. First, since the entire file is being treated as a loop, both the attack and decay will be stretched/compressed to match the song tempo (not really an issue if the Wav file's calculated BPM is close or equal to the song's BPM, but will possibly sound strange if there is more than a 10 BPM difference or so). Second, as far as I know, Acid will not display the location of the loop points as Sound Forge does, thus you have to guess where they are within Chopper which isn't terribly difficult, but may require a lot of flipping between Acid and Sound Forge for location comparisons as well as some zooming within Chopper since it is unlikely the loop points will occur right on any beat in the Wav file.

I suppose a thid way to do this would be to use a MIDI track and some hardware/software sampler which recognizes the loop points. Thus you can trigger the sample with the MIDI file within Acid. I have not used MIDI with Acid as of yet though so I'm not sure how this works with final mixdown and all that.

This post was probably fairly confusing since it's mainly a bunch of possible work-arounds that I thought of off the cuff. If anyone has any questions about anything I've said, feel free to ask and I'll respond as soon as I can. If there was some way I could get my hands on the Wav file in question, I could probably whip up a quick acd-zip file to help explain what I'm trying to do.

- Trae Gunning