Which Wave Editor

I'm in a position where I need to get a .wav editor (for obvious reasons to forum members). I'd like to know the advatages or disadvantages to Soundforge 8 vs. Adobe Audition.

Seems to me that Soundforge is 2 track: at least I could not find anything that stated different whereas Audition1.5 is multitrack. If this is true is this a disadvantage? Is one easier than the other? Not realy interested in a Logic learning curve.

What else might I consider?

Yes, I'd second that. For me nothing comes clsoe to Adobe Audition, especially for its battery of noise reduction tools, including its awesome spectral editing. For me it is more intuitive, heavyweight and powerful than Sound Forge .... but others on this forum swear by Sound Forge.

That said, Adobe Audition has separate views ... for wave editing you wouldn't use Multitrack, you'd use Wave Edit view which is a simple stereo view (or mono, depending on the track being edited). IMHO, Audition's Multitrack recording is awful, but if you've got Sonar you'll never need to use that view.

I suspect that both products may have complementary strengths and weaknesses, so it depends really on what exactly you need to do with it.

Demo both and see for yourself.

Well.... You can always download the demos of the wave editors you are interested in and see which one works best for you.

For me, it is Sound Forge. But the others are viable wave editing programs as well.

excuse my ignorance,
but why would one need a wave editor?

I can zoom down to the sample right in the main Sonar view..
cut / fade / reverse / whatever...

Then I just bounce to clip and pull it outta my audio folder..

Please let me know what I'm missing!

Thanks,
Tomek.

ORIGINAL: tomek

excuse my ignorance,
but why would one need a wave editor?

I can zoom down to the sample right in the main Sonar view..
cut / fade / reverse / whatever...

Then I just bounce to clip and pull it outta my audio folder..

Please let me know what I'm missing!

Thanks,
Tomek.

there are several reasons why i use an audio editor outside of
Sonar.

1. Accurate statistics and spectral analysis. These tools let you gauge how close to
"specs" your mix is. Looking at a spectral graph lets you fight the battle of the
bulge and statistics (like RMS) make sure your volumes are in-line with what
a mixing and mastering engineer would expect.

2. Fine-grain editing. I'll give you a real world example .. i just finished a
project which was tracked on an ADC that had a problem .. every 20 seconds of
so, a one sample spike would appear in the .wav file. While i tried to use click
and pop removal tools, they didn't quite do the job ... so i zoomed in super close
so i could see the offending samples, and pulled them down to be inline with the
previous and next sample. it's indistinguishable. the "pencil" tool in audio
editing software lets you draw out problems ... very difficult to do in Sonar unless
you get lucky with fades or cut/paste.
Audio editors tend to have better
and more precise editing functions (like markers, regions, selection, trimming,
scrubbing) etc. For example, if i want to express a selection from sample
10040 to 100060 in Sonar, how would i do that? sometimes this fine-grain
is necessary.

3. Audio manipulation tools. Audio editors come with a wide variety of (usually)
high-quality manipulation and editing tools which give you a tool belt of Fx to
correct many common audio problems. While Sonar has some reasonable tools,
other editors provide more control over audio editing tasks (e.g., normalization).
Being able to treat multi-channel audio (stereo, 5.1 etc) either as a composite
or individual tracks (as if split) is also a big time saver. Wave files also contain
a lot of additional information for either acidization and or production codes which
these tools let you edit directly.

4. Support and editing of many formats ... most audio editors can read just about
anything and export to just about anything. The translators are also usually a
cut above the DAW equivalents. The SoundForge MP3 encoder is amazingly
fast .. and allows for watermarking in many formats (which is increasingly
important).

5. Automation and integration with burning software. Some editors provide
batching and scripting. You usually assemble and apply fades for
a project, provide MP3s for reference, and then stage all the .wav files suitable
for CD burning software. This can be a time consuming process ... but if you
use batching and scripting .. you can automate much of the tedium and just
run the script.

6. They do what they do .... this may seem silly .. but the audio editor is aimed at
a particular task ... so there's no wading through the soft synthesizers and midi editor
commands to get at the functionality .. it really only does one thing.

Hope that helps,
jeff
ps: i lived without one for quite a while .. until i had some problems i couldn't fix
any other (or non-cheesy way). perhaps Sonar will enhance it's audio editing features
in some future release and make it less likely. however, the integration with
tools such as SoundForge is actually pretty good (under the tools menu).

ORIGINAL: Sabicas

My roommate gave me her old copy of Cool Edit Pro, but I haven't used it much as I have been learning Sonar for about three weeks now. I know that CEP is now Adobe Audition. My question is, the features you Audition users love..........do they exist, or rather, are they as good in CEP? Or are they new additions/improvements.

Most of the editing features of Cool Edit Pro are effectively the same as Adobe Audition 1.5. The big one thta comes to mind that didn't come in until AA 1.5 though is the spectral editor. It has the other noise reduction tools though.

ORIGINAL: jmarkham
perhaps Sonar will enhance it's audio editing features
in some future release

I doubt it and in fact I hope not. Most serious users of Sonar already use Adobe Audition, Sound Forge or Wavelab - our editor of nchoice and like you say, it integrates well. Personally I'd rather the research and development went in areas to improve the interface and workflow, things like a proper macro facility, renaming inputs, fully customisable console view, etc.

Best
Geoff

I would consider getting Samplitude Studio 6 from Audiomidi for $99.
Not only does it do the regular wave editing tricks, but it is also handles multitrack audio. It has built-in noise reduction. Does both destructive and non-destructive editing. You can load in you final audio and use it to burn cds (along with cd text). If you want, you can later upgrade to Samplitude 8. I would also highly recommend Voxengo's Redunoise for broadband noise reduction, it costs $99.

s

ORIGINAL: glazfolk

ORIGINAL: ohhey

I use Sound Forge. It appears on the Tools menu and works great with Sonar. Here is the thing I like best. So you want to edit a clip.. you need to fix a click or pop or autotune just a word or two. All I have to do it select the section within the clip I want to work on, pull down the tools menu and select Sound Forge. The clip opens in Sound Forge and .. here is the best part.. THE SELECTION IS STILL THERE !! Woo Hoo ! And it's zoomed right in to that part of the clip you selected in Sonar. That saves a ton of hunting around for the spot you want to edit in a big clip. Gotta love it. It doesn't get any better then that.

Great tip Frank, thanks! I've just checked and, yes, this works with Adobe Audition too!

You know, I've been using CEP/AA with Pro Audio/Sonar for, what, something like 8 years and had never discovered that one. Thanks again. You've just made my day.

Best
Geoff

I have no idea how or why it works but it does.. I discovered it by accident.

Great tip Frank, thanks! I've just checked and, yes, this works with Adobe Audition too!

You know, I've been using CEP/AA with Pro Audio/Sonar for, what, something like 8 years and had never discovered that one. Thanks again. You've just made my day.

I have AA1.5 but all I have in my TOOLs menu is a greyed out "WaveStudio"... I'm guessing there is someplace I can change a reference folder but I can't find it... what did you do glazfolk to get Audition in the tools menu?

Jeff you rock!
Thanks a bunch for the detailed description (with examples) wow!

I do have spectrum analysis w/ 3rd party tools,
but I could really see a use for the pencil tool!

There were many times when cutting out the spike would not sound that good.
I'm sure the pencil tool would have come in handy then!

Also,
I have notice at my friends house that the MP3 creating in SF is super fast!
For now I use lame, and it's command prompt...

Take it easy!
Tomek.

Quick not-so-obvious-but-probably-is-so question..

When editing out the "pop" and "click" on the tinyest ov levels...

Do you simply just cut of the top tips to level it off with the rest? Because isn't there other "good" audio information at the same exact "slice of time" or are you zoomin in so friggin' close that you take out the whole entire vertical range of audio information to leave a literal empty space, no matter how tiny?

Thanks, and I hope that I asked this in the way that I 'm trying to express what I'm thinking...

- Paul

When editing out the "pop" and "click" on the tinyest ov levels...

Do you simply just cut of the top tips to level it off with the rest? Because isn't there other "good" audio information at the same exact "slice of time" or are you zoomin in so friggin' close that you take out the whole entire vertical range of audio information to leave a literal empty space, no matter how tiny?

What I do is ZOOM right in to the sample level and clip at the zero dB cross points
closest the the "click" or "pop" it's best to clip at the zero dB line to avoid added clicks and pops. Sometimes you just can't avoid the artifacts this procedure add,
and that's why a pencil tool would come in handy..

Tomek.

ORIGINAL: PaulGreblick

Quick not-so-obvious-but-probably-is-so question..

When editing out the "pop" and "click" on the tinyest ov levels...

Do you simply just cut of the top tips to level it off with the rest? Because isn't there other "good" audio information at the same exact "slice of time" or are you zoomin in so friggin' close that you take out the whole entire vertical range of audio information to leave a literal empty space, no matter how tiny?

Thanks, and I hope that I asked this in the way that I 'm trying to express what I'm thinking...

- Paul

No, never do that. You zoom in (and up if needed) find the glitch and draw in the curve of the wav with the pencil tool. It's science fiction man you can hand draw the waveform like it should have been, when you get good it's un-detectable. In sound forge you can zoom in and out like in Sonar and you can zoom the wav up if needed to see more detail, the wavform looks bigger like when you normalize but don't really get louder it's just the display. If you are working on low volume stuff you may need to do that. You can also zoom in to the sample level and move one sample at a time up or down like a node on an envelope. Like I said.. no limits.

You can do forensic level editing if you need to. I've done entire song from old 45 records that way hand drawing out the noise and clicks. It took about two weeks to do one song but I learned a lot about fixing stuff. The smooth side of the Smooth/Enhance process is very handy for reducing distortion type suff and the Enhance side is an aural exciter like an Aphex. Between that, select and adjust volume, copy and paste (overwrite), and the pencil tool, there is almost nothing you can't fix.

ORIGINAL: Rednroll

One additional note, I have seen some vendors selling a package of Sound Forge with the Sony noise reduction plugin included. If you can find one of those deals I would go for it, thus you'ld be getting Sound Forge, CD Architect and the Noise Reduction plugin. That's the combination of tools that I have for wave editing and I find there's not much that I can't do.

Until tomorrow, this vendor is blowing out the whole package for $259, including free shipping: http://www.digitraxx.com/s_soundforge.html

Thanks for the replies - I guess I'm trying to think about this in ways that make sense that aren't destructive to the underlying song or musical material.

I'll give it a try as I have Sound Forge but I'm waiting on a new high-end PC that I ordered from PC Audio Labs because my Dell P4 2.66G ain't cuttin git anymore...

Thanks, again...

Oh, and when doing something like normalizing, bring up the overall gain...what the heck is added that isn't "false material" like aritfacts, etc to give the extra "boost" or is just a "smoke and mirrors" thing that brings up the noise floor, too?

I mean, I've been reading some of the EQ tips here and the point of EQing isn't to boost as much as cut as to not add these "dag-blasted artifacts" which makes sense, because you can't add what's not there...but in the wae editora that we are talking about here - is level boosting along the same lines of "don't do because..."

You know what I mean?

Thanks, again,

- Paul