|
Subject:Beta 6 First Impressions
Posted by: Rednroll
Date:4/8/2002 12:27:54 AM
Well, finally got it installed, a little painful and didn't have a choice of where it threw it...(on my C: drive where I never install any programs BTW!!!) I know this is still a beta, but since it's a public beta I'm assuming it's near release. 1. I can't dock my windows like my peak meter, Time Display, and Regions list on the top anymore like I could with previous releases. This is where I like them on the top where I'm use to looking for the past 4 years...I hope this is just because it's in Beta stage. 2. Took me a little getting use to, but I love where you put the plugin chainer and I love the fact that I can do an A/B with the play button and the Play/insert chainer button. I think it would be nice if this Play/insert button was available without having to click on the "insert" button first and have to have a plugin in the middle of my screen. (ie just make it available without having to bring the plugins up...I know they're there I don't have to see them to know they're working, I have ears). 3. Simple Synthesis: Is there a reason why this has to be limited to 60 Seconds that I can generate a sinewave? Sometimes I make test CD's that are 74 Minutes long, this is a lot of repeats, when I should be able to do this in one step. 4. Open up the Record window and try to use the FF and REW keys. Are these suppose to do something different than the Rew to Start and FF to End keys, because they don't? Would be nice if I could hit play and have them function as a REW or FF key normally does. Not sure what these buttons are for, they function the same in SF 5.0 also, basically pretty useless just like the Frequency Analyzer that hasn't changed in 4 years. Goto Sound Technology Inc's website and see how a real frequency analyzer works. 5. Where's a VU meter!!!??? Sound Forge is suppose to be a mastering program and people are always asking how to make songs equal in Volume. This can't be properly done without an accurate VU meter. It would actually be nice to maybe see a DX plugin, which was nothing but a VU meter, which would work perfectly being able to insert them anywhere in the plugin chainer. Steinberg's Wavelab noticed the need for a VU meter, I've been screaming for this since SF 4.0, why does Sonic Foundry find this unnecessary for a mastering program? Obviously someone at Steinberg must have done some mastering before. 6. It seems like all the looks of SF programs are trying to coincide. How about giving Sound Forge the ability to change the background color of the Time display like in Vegas? This is the ugliest clock I've ever seen and is hard to see with a grey workspace and a grey background to the clock. 7. Congratulations on changing all the buttons so they're not raised any longer, Sound Forge now almost looks Identical to Wavelab, if that was the intention, can you include the VU meter and the entire waveform view above the main view also? 8. It would be nice if you could actually do editing like in a 4 track fashion of being able to slide 2 files on top of each other and do some crossfades. The mix function is ok, but falls far short of Wavelabs audio montage ability. So this is Sound Forge 6.0? Looks a lot like what Sound Forge 5.0g should have looked like. Regards, Rednroll |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: SHTUNOT
Date:4/8/2002 2:08:16 AM
5. Where's a VU meter!!!??? Sound Forge is suppose to be a mastering program and people are always asking how to make songs equal in Volume. This can't be properly done without an accurate VU meter. It would actually be nice to maybe see a DX plugin, which was nothing but a VU meter, which would work perfectly being able to insert them anywhere in the plugin chainer. www.pspaudioware.com It's attached to the VintageWarmer plugin but you could download it for FREE just to be used as such[and it's DX]...enjoy! |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: MyST
Date:4/8/2002 5:59:45 AM
Hey Red; Can you finally remove vocals with version 6? ;) I heard they were working on that "garment remover" you were asking for, but I think that's for VV3's next update. Later. |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: CDM
Date:4/8/2002 10:20:48 AM
Brian - do you mean you can't float your windows wherever you want anymore because they dock when you move them too close to a "dock-area"? If so, I found as a workaround that you can float it nearby and then resize it to be where you want it and then it won't dock. Maybe there could be a control key for docking, like ctrl-drag, which would govern whether you want to dock the windows or not. |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: CDM
Date:4/8/2002 10:24:28 AM
p.s. Brian - why do you want VU meters? I master all the time without them. In fact, I've never mastered with them... What makes you think VU meters are more accurate, especially when simulated by a computer? If you think Noise Gates are useless in the digital world, I'm surprised you want VU meters anymore! Just curious. Not asking for a rant. <g> |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: CDM
Date:4/8/2002 10:26:55 AM
I just downloaded the PSP vintage VU meters - totally useless unless you have a supercomputer. what's the point????? |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: CDM
Date:4/8/2002 10:58:21 AM
hot diggity! I just learned that holding ctrl while dragging the undocked windows keeps them undocked. Is that what you wanted Brian? |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: Noprn
Date:4/8/2002 12:27:21 PM
Does anyone know if you can do crossfades between regions in the playlists? It'd be nice if you're doing some simple edits and want to smooth things out a little bit. I too am having trouble getting the Beta version installed. |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: CDM
Date:4/8/2002 1:00:55 PM
nope - I wish there were, but there never has been nor does it look like there ever will be. You need something like Vegas for that. |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: Rednroll
Date:4/8/2002 6:03:44 PM
I want VU meters, because VU meters simulate the way you perceive loudness. Your ears perceive loudness on an average level. Exactly the same way a VU meter works. Everyone knows that something Normalized to 0 dB using peak level detection doesn't always sound the same loudness, yet will still read 0dB on a peak meter. Peak meters are good when you are trying to not go over 0dB in the digital domain, but aren't any good when trying to match volume levels. If you use a VU meter, it takes a lot of the quess work out of mastering making sure that all song levels are the same. You find a setting that works for your material the best on a VU meter and then start adding compression to each of your songs until it reaches that level. If all your songs on your album, have the same VU level, then they are at the same loudness level also. A lot of people suggest to use RMS normalizing to make songs sound the same loudness.....well that's another one of those 1 button mastering tools, because it makes the songs the same RMS level....exactly how a VU meter works...VU meters give you the RMS level and you have more control of what plugins and multiband compressors that you want to use in achieving that RMS level. Do you see the use for it now? The VU meter should be very accurate though, at least to a .5 dB accuracy. I learned this technique from a Motown mastering engineer, who taught me the real use of a VU meter for mastering and demonstrated to me how motown got their trademark sound in their hay day from using the VU meter. As far as being able to dock the windows, before I would Dock the peak meter,the regions list and my Time Display to the top of the work area (ie just below the Transport). Now I can't dock them there. If I drag the Peak meter to the top it just stays vertical. Before it use to turn horizontal and then dock itself just under the transport. I'm use to looking at my DAT player VU's in the horizontal position and that's how I like to see it in Sound Forge also, so I can look at ALL my meters and they are bouncing in syncronicity. Now if I want it to be horizontal I have to Dock it on the bottom of the work area or leave it vertical and then I have some meters bouncing horizontal while others bounce vertical. So either I have to turn my DAT Recorder on it's side or bitch about not having the ability to put my peak meter horizontal anymore. |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: CDM
Date:4/8/2002 6:24:21 PM
I guess I see your point about the VU meters, but my point is that I wouldn't really trust screen redraws nor my eyes as much as I would trust my ears. When I master, I try to explain to my client that while I can normalize and maximize the hell out of everything, that doesn't mean that all of the songs are going to "sound" the same level because of the various instrumentation, openness of the mix, etc. That's why a balad that doesn't hit anywhere near 0dB still sounds (is perceived to be) as loud as a song that's pinned. So basically, I tend to find the track that is lowest sounding, adjust that to where I think it sounds good (as loud as it can be, as good as it can be) and then adjust the others accordingly. This is the "level matching" part of mastering, as I like to call it. I guess I just don't really see what the VU meters could tell me that my own ears can't. See a peak meter is all I need just to know I'm not going over 0dB. am I missing something here Brian? Maybe if I had started mastering in the analog domain, I might understand better. Anyway, did you download that free plugin? |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: Rednroll
Date:4/8/2002 6:57:59 PM
Nope, haven't downloaded it yet, thanks for the link, I will try it out and tell you what I think. Having your ears as the last judgement call goes without saying. It's always good to have reinforcing tools to go along with what your ears are hearing. Unless you've never worked a long session and have never had fatiqued ears? Just like I use a spectral analyzer for EQing, of course my ears are the final judge as to where I finally set the EQ dials, but the analyzer helps when I can see what I'm hearing. Just like a VU meter allows me to see the levels I'm hearing. I too also do the weakest link as far as loudness and then lower the rest accordingly. I found that I now do less of that with the use of a VU meter while adding multi-band compression and EQ, and am able to get the maximum level out of all the material. I've been using a cassette deck record enabled with actual VU meters currrently as my VU's, but would like Sound Forge to recognize the need for this. I'm sure, you can verify that most clients perceive louder is better in a lot of cases. And louder without over compression is even better. So when you have to reduce the levels to match, you're really taking away some of the perceived quality of your mastering. I'm not willing to sacrafice that in my mastering. I always feel my clients walked away with the loudest mastering job, while still keeping the integrity and impact of the song. I don't feel that way when I have to reduce a song from 0dB peak to make them match in level. red |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: Angels
Date:4/8/2002 9:10:24 PM
Since you seem to know about Wavelab, can you tell me 'bout this: "8. It would be nice if you could actually do editing like in a 4 track fashion of being able to slide 2 files on top of each other and do some crossfades. The mix function is ok, but falls far short of Wavelabs audio montage ability." Is it possible with wavelab to have multiple superimposed files where each file maintains a separate undo history? That would be such a time saver for me; I often make composite sounds where I experiment with each of the elements separately. Thanks, S |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: VU-1
Date:4/8/2002 11:43:49 PM
Hey everyone- Got to chime in on the VU meter issue: I have the PSP Vintage Meters & also the PSP Vintage Warmer (I highly recommend the PSP VW!). However, I do not use the VMeter and I mostly only use the 'gain reduction' feature of the meters on the VWarmer. I would rather save my CPU power for processing plugs than for metering plugs - especially since these are not as fast & reliable as real VUs. I use REAL VU meters for every mastering job I do. I feed them a signal from an aux send on my mixer so the level remains constant according to program material and does not depend upon listening volume. I have a 1kHz tone stored on one of my HDs & also on my mastering reference CD-R which is a compilation of great-sounding commercially released songs from major artists. The level of the tone is arbitrary and is strictly a reference point. I have adjusted all inputs to my mixer to match using this same reference tone so that I know that whatever source I am listening to, it is the same as all the others. Each aux send is adjusted so that the VUs read '0' for unity gain on the incoming channel. This gives me the ability to accurately compare volume levels between any source material input to the mixer. I can play a tune from the Ref. CD & A/B it against a song I am mastering on my DAW by simply muting/unmuting sources (the aux sends are set to Post). I use the Scan function in the Normalize process to find out where I stand numerically in the RMS (loudness) stats of a song I am mastering. I wouldn't trade my VUs for any other piece of gear - well, almost. Point is...digital peak meters give instantaneous readings of levels and are great for comparing peak levels & are essential for maximizing digital levels without clipping. Peak meters, however, tell us very little about average (RMS) levels. As whas stated in an earlier post, VU meters display signal levels in like manner to the way our ears respond to audio waves. The VU meter is an 'average' meter. Being a mechanical instrument, it cannot respond immediately to an audio signal - neither can our ears. Another benefit of using VUs is that they are very good at displaying the average dynamic range of a song. Most types of music (excluding Classical) display an average dynamic range of about 6-10dB. It is difficult, at best, to read this on peak meters but is a natural quality of VUs. I use this feature to help when adding compression in the final mastering stages. Each type of meter provides a specific & useful element to mastering. The best scenario is to use them both. I, personally, have to say that I would rather not have them implemented into SF. I would much rather use the real thing. Jeff Lowes On-Track Recording BTW - MAJOR kudos to Sonic Foundry for FINALLY bringing Sound Forge out of the dark ages (making it a NON-DESTRUCTIVE editor)!!!!!!!!!!! I also like the less candy-ish look than 5.0 had. I much like the 'bypass' function on the plug-in chainer - been waiting for that one too. I'll keep diving into 6.0 to see what else I can find. |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: Rednroll
Date:4/9/2002 1:54:26 AM
About Wavelab audio Montage....Yes, you can overlap songs, creating many individual tracks, like a multitrack editor. You can even route the tracks to a plugins section. You can slide events around freely, on top of each other, adding cross fades and etc. You can add volume envelopes to the events. After you're finished editing and sliding tracks around you can add track markers and burn everything directly to a CD. And it's all a non-destructive type of process. Wavelab has had this ability way before Sound Forge 5.0 was even developed. Sound Forge use to have this similar type of editing ability, It was called CD architect. It let you freely slide audio clips on top of each other as you wished. So instead of moving forward, SF took 2 steps back and discontinued CD architect, but never added this type of functionality to Sound Forge. If they didn't develope Vegas, I would have dropped Sound Forge a couple years back and learned how to master in Wavelab. Luckily, Vegas has moved forward in development while Sound Forge has done nothing but fall far behind the competition. Thanks, for the further explanation of the need for a VU meter in the world of Digital editing Jeff. Keep digging into SF6. I dug into it and found a few cool features that should have been there 2 years ago. Thank you SF, for allowing me to get rid of those ridiculous Express FX's in the FX Manager window,that keep getting installed everytime I upgrade. Couldn't stand when plugins I used on a regular basis kept disappearing in my Sound Forge menus, because the menus where full and they got replaced by the EXPRESS FX's. Please put this on your installer, to give the option NOT to install the Express FX's. Isn't this a simple request? Seems like you could add this option when you're fixing the installer, so that it actually installs (ie IE 4.0 stopper). rednroll |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: CDM
Date:4/9/2002 10:25:20 AM
Jeff - thanks for the further explanation. That's very interesting and is something I might keep in mind for the future. Mastering is not what I was trained to do initially - it is something I have taught myself after years of editing, mixing and recording. I don't by any means consider myself to be a "mastering engineer" but I do do some mastering for people who don't want to spend $350/hr. at Sterling Sound and I think I do a pretty good job and I trust my ears. There's always more to learn and I'm happy to have knowledgeable people like yourself and the ever-cranky and sometimes holier-than-thou Brian (no offense Brian! <g>) in this forum. Brian - what is the spectrum analyser you use again? thanks, cdm |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: jgalt
Date:4/9/2002 10:30:15 AM
This will probably turn out to be a "Duh?" question but I don't see any way of downloading this so-called Public Beta of SF 6.0. I poked around the web site but didn't find anything. Would someone please point the way for a blind beggar? |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: VU-1
Date:4/9/2002 10:44:32 AM
Jgalt - The link came in an e-mail. Call SF & have them send it to you. Charlesem - I think Rednroll uses one of the Sound Technology RTAs. I have the demo of their SpectrPlus RTA. Very cool. Very helpful for mastering. JL OTR |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: SonicRJH
Date:4/9/2002 11:07:03 AM
The Sound Forge 6.0 Public Beta and new Preset Manager can be downloaded from Sonic Foundry at: http://www.sonicfoundry.com/download/step2.asp?DID=257 |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: TJ
Date:4/9/2002 12:53:51 PM
Oops, sorry about leaving off the dock at the top. That was just an oversight. The final version will allow you to dock the meters, etc at the top of the window. TJ Sonic Foundry Developer. |
|
Subject:RE: Beta 6 First Impressions
Reply by: xgenei
Date:4/14/2002 2:36:35 AM
From the crude but it works school, I duplicate tracks to maintain a pre-(or mid) edit state for each. I use Video Vegas 3.0. It also has a trimmer window for rough cuts of media files before they go to the timeline. I am not sure about an undo here -- you might post in that forum. I still haven't mastered this guy but I am REALLY looking forward to dedicated a week to it. Important to note that no original file is altered regardless of the edits done. |