Sonar/Sound Forge Users questions

Kevin,
I've just added Sound Forge to my arsenal. I guess I felt that Sonar was just a little short of features when It came to mastering the audio files. Its great for pulling all the audio components of a production together and even editing audio on a large scale just some finer points missing.
Then of course with Sound Forge you get a whole slew of extra VST's (that you can use in Sonar) and then there's CD Architect (worth the price alone for this).
Sorry if my post sounds a bit vague...I'm only now just starting to use SF myself, so I'm no authority. The integration with Soanr is pretty tight with no need to export and import files from one to the other.

The two main things I use it for is clip editing and mastering. For example if I want to take some pick clicks out of an acuostic guitar track or a glitch out of a composite edit (after the bounce) I can just select the clip and select Sound Forge from the tools menu. The clip will open in SoundForge I can use the pencil, smooth/enhance process, volume adjust, even pitch bend to edit a selection in the clip. When I save and exit SoundForge Sonar will ask if I want to import the new version to replace the clip I have and I click Yes, Sonar will rebuild the wavform and it's done.

Here is the cool part, If I make a selection in the clip inside Sonar when I open the clip in SoundForge the same selection is in SoundForge and it's zoomed in and centered in right to that spot !! It's magic.

I also use SoundForge when I need a plugin to be applied to just a selection within a clip. For example I might need Autotune to fix one word or phrase but leave the rest of the clip alone. So I can open the clip in SoundForge and apply Autotune to that section. You can even use Acoustic Mirror to process a clip from mono to stereo with room simulation and when it returns to Sonar it automatically converts to a stereo track. SoundForge integrates with Sonar so well I almost forget they are different programs.

For mastering I use the hard limit and normalize some to maximize loudness without compression, trim the ends and perfect the fade at the end of the song, and to do my resample and bit reduction with dither at the very last.

SoundForge also reads and writes almost every file format ever made even ones from antique computers that are no longer in use and other operating systems. It's a real roseta stone. Oh, and it's a loop editor also, after all Acid is from the same vendor.

I've been using SoundForge since version 2 a very long time ago before anyone dreamed of doing multi-track on a computer I can't imagine being without it now.

SoundForge replaced my DAT machine years ago and Sonar replaced my ADAT decks... and almost everything in my rack except my peramps and headphone amp.

RIGHT ON, FRANK!!! I WATCH FOR YOUR POSTS AND LEARN A LOT FROM YOU. THANKS!!!! I'M IN THE DALLS AREA, BY THE WAY.

I AM LOOKING AT UPGRADING FROM PE4 TO PE5. I SAW WHERE IT REQUIRES WINDOWS XP 64. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FIND OUT WHAT MINE IS??? I HAVE WINDOWS XP HOME SERV. PACK 2, 2002. ANY HELP DEFINITLY APPRECIATED.

ORIGINAL: chaplainbob

RIGHT ON, FRANK!!! I WATCH FOR YOUR POSTS AND LEARN A LOT FROM YOU. THANKS!!!! I'M IN THE DALLS AREA, BY THE WAY.

I AM LOOKING AT UPGRADING FROM PE4 TO PE5. I SAW WHERE IT REQUIRES WINDOWS XP 64. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FIND OUT WHAT MINE IS??? I HAVE WINDOWS XP HOME SERV. PACK 2, 2002. ANY HELP DEFINITLY APPRECIATED.

First turn off the caps lock, you are shouting. And no, PE5 does not require any special version of XP. There is a special version of the software included that will work on the new 64bit OS but it is in no way required. Don't worry about 64bit for now, it's going to be a while before all the sound card drivers and other tools are 64bit. Maybe by the time PE6 or PE7 is out it will be time to make the jump.

What you have will work perfect.

ORIGINAL: ohhey

There is just too many uses for Sound Forge to even cover here... we would be typing for a week..

I just wish I could 'natively' use the mouse scroll in Sonar to zoom in/out.

-D

Sound Forge is one of the most incredible audio editing tools out there. It is as simple to use even for beginners, as it is deep and powerful for even the most demanding and critical professionals.
If I was ever forced to choose only one audio app, it would definitely be Sound Forge
It will also run perfectly on even the most modest computers, happily recording stereo (or mono) audio files, never skipping a beat until you run out of hard drive space.
That could be sooner than you think too, because Sound Forge automatically makes a “recovery” version of what’s loaded or recorded into it so you will lose nothing in the event of a crash or power failure.
Until you hit the “save” button, you will have two copies, one in memory and one in a temp audio data file folder.
I LOVE Sound Forge for anything from recording live music like band practices, to using it’s “Remote Record” function which is great for making quick and easy real-time recordings of Sonar multi track sessions where DXi’s are running. Much quicker than bouncing them down to audio tracks for quick reference mixes, and saves lots of hard drive space.
Sound Forge 8 is now capable of supporting and recording at 32 bit and Remote Record, records exactly what you hear from your monitors.

I could write a book on the power and usefulness and power of the “Acoustic Mirror” plug in alone, the poor man’s convolution reverb.
Convolution Reverb plug ins typically cost 2x to 3x more than a full version of Sound Forge, Acoustic Mirror is only one of the many useful plug ins included for sound editing and mastering, it hooks up to and shares all but the most specialized proprietary 3rd party plug ins in both DX and VST.
Not only does Sony offer a massive library 100’s of free “impulses” of room sounds for Acoustic Mirror anywhere from bathrooms, train stations, to state of the art concert halls, they have a very comprehensive collection of microphone impulses ranging from vintage to modern hybrids that can realistically turn an inexpensive Shure SM 57 into a KSM- 32 large diaphragm condenser or even the sound of a Telefunkin U-47 with incredible accuracy.
They also offer a wide range of very unnatural sound impulses like analog synthesizer sounds that can be applied to audio files as an effects plug in, such as a vintage Roland Juno 106 mixed and applied to the human voice, a MUST have for sound shapers.
And as an added bonus, you can even record and create your own impulses of your favorite room sounds to create and expand on reverbs, guitar amp simulations, to the radical like food processor or skill saw impulses.

Other very cool functions and goodies exclusive to Sound Forge 8.

1. Wave Hammer; mastering grade compressor/limiter/expander
2. Extensive support for reading and saving audio and video formats, which can all be customized and saved as user definable presets.
3. Version 8 is now capable of converting animated .gif files and .swr (flash movies) into standard video formats to be used in video editing apps. i.e. Sony Vegas, Pinnacle Liquid, Adobe Premier, etc.
4. Intergraded batch converter; can run in the background and be set to task to convert and render multiple formatting and cross platforming tasks at once.
5. CD Architect 5.2; Red Book CD authoring for dummies. It’ll actually warn you ahead of time before burning if and what mistakes you have made.
This is by no means a “lite” version of professional CD authoring software. In fact it is more powerful than the stand alone version of CD-A 5.0 I bought a few years back, as it now supports CD text editing.
It makes perfect Red Book spec CD image files for glass mastering, and perfect Red Book spec CDR’s you can burn yourself that sound exactly the way YOU authored them to. (Which may or may not be a good thing, hee, hee.) Most artists aren’t very good at mastering their own work.

Another longtime SONAR/Sound Forge user here, as well. I was quite pleased to find out that I could preview SONAR's 64-bit(IEEE Float) stereo wave file renders, directly from the Explorer view, in SF and then simply drag & drop them straight into the SF workspace, as 64-bit files. Where you can do further analysis & editing. You can also bit-convert to & from 64-bit.

Wow, thanks Bill, that's goods new to me because I haven't upgraded to Sonar 5 PE yet. I have too many collaboration projects going on, and have always been busy and reluctant to install new apps until a patch or two have been released.
Nobody issues backwards compatible apps, so until all my jam buds catch up or I get a can't refuse deal to upgrade, I may skip over a version or two.
I also have and used the Waves Diamond Bundle plug in suite with a full version of the IR-1 convolution reverb, so the only real usable advantage to Sonar 5 PE would be the Roland V Vocal plug in.
I'm still dragging my feet building a 64 bit computer because there isn't a stable 64 bit OS, I have my eye on an A-Bit AMD duel core MOBO combo which was just reduced to around $500, so I'm starting to cave in.
Windows 2000 Pro can be configured to run duel core CPU's as two seperate 32 bit CPU's on one MOBO, which is quite interesting all in itself being able to process with both core sides perculating away at over 2 g/hz.
I really am quite happy with the sonic over kill of a 32 bit sound engine.
Sometimes I think I'm the only one left who is still happy with a great mix at 16/44.1 CD sound quality.
Not always impressed with ultra high bit sound quality, I am ultimately impressed with good sounding low bit streams for Internet content. I don’t believe anything compares to Sound Forge for that task.
Please check out this example, a very dial up friendly 48 k/bs stream http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=528434&t=4882
This sounds shockingly close to the original .wav and is a VERY skinny little .wma.
In all fairness I feel it is also important to note that the Waves Q-10 Paragraphic 10 band mastering EQ was also used. With a bit more work and TLC, this sound Q can be achieved with Sound Forge’s plug ins, the Q-10 is my favorite.


I was using Wavelab for quite a while for video surround sound mixing and editing and found it to be very good at multi channel tasks though a tad less powerful and cumbersome than Sound Forge for editing standard mono and stereo files.
This is mainly because Sound Forge uses a standard Windows interface, and Wavelab does not which creates a higher learning curve all in itself.
However, that is the only complaint I have with Wavelab, which is indeed an excellent app. well worth trying.
The only reasons I no longer use it are I also use Sony Vegas 6 + DVD Architect which has unlimited video and audio track support, and combined Sonar 4 PE’s support for surround sound mixing, Wavelab just takes up hard drive space.

Interesting to note, at the same time when Sony bought Sonic Foundry, their multi media nemesis Pinnacle appropriated Steinberg.
Shortly after between my jump from Sonic Foundry Vegas 4 to Sony Vegas 6, I lost support for direct input my PCI Pinnacle capture card. It refuses to hook up.
Not a very big deal just a strange coincidence. Vegas is an excellent and very powerful video mixing and editing app and typically not used for capturing.
I really love the support and integration Cakewalk and Sony software have for and with each other, and ultimately delighted that Sonar supports Edirol and Roland as much as to create the TSS-1.
I’ve always used Roland and had studied and learned Midi sequencing on the Roland MC-500 in the mid 80’s, and still have and use it today on occasion.

Which brings to mind another favorite unmentioned use for Sound Forge. “MIDI SYNC”!
Hard to believe I forgot to mention that. Not only is that the quickest and easiest way to turn Midi tracks into ACIDâ„¢ audio loops, you have full hands on control over CC parameter and PG if you like as Sound Forge records your Midi tracks into sample accurate audio tracks based on the tempo of the MIDI time clock. It does SEMPTE too..
Making ACID™ Loops doesn’t get any easier than that, not even with ACID Pro.


Here is a comparison test for anyone interested http://www.computervideo.net/nov04-5.html slightly out dated between the current Wavelab 5 and older Sound Forge 7, but still informative.

I know from the MPC in your profile and other threads that you do hip hop.

NOTHING is faster for ripping a song off a CD and slicing out the samples than SoundForge. And there are 'batch convert' features which are enormously useful, too.

ORIGINAL: kb420
Do any of you use Scott Garrigus's book Sound Forge 8 Power? I just bought it to look through before I actually buy the program. Is it a good reference/instructional tool for SF?

I bought his Sound Forge 5 Power book, back in 2001, when I first purchased SF 5.0. It was very helpful for me when I first starting using Sound Forge. I am not familiar with his latest SF8 though. When I later upgraded to SF7, I bought a (2) DVD disk set, with (4) hours of video tutorial's, by Jeffery Fisher. I actually got more out of it than the SF Power book. For me, I like being able to see and hear how something is done than just reading about it. I seem to retain it better. Anyway, they are blowing them out, at a reduced price, since SF8 came out. But all of the material, even though it is geared toward SF7 is relevant to SF8.

Sound Forge: Professional Power Tools for Editing Audio

Greg:

I've posted to a bunch of threads on this subject - SF is the tool I know - I get a lot done with it very quickly and it is the stereo tool I use to teach in my Sound Design class. Of all of the software I use professionally - it is the most flakey - today I was preparing examples of dither and noise shaping SF hung seven times on a very very stable Dell Optiplex 270. I run Premire, Sonar, Photshop and tons of other software packages on this Dell - the only two programs that have regular problems are CD Architect and Sound Forge - I guess I've just grown to accept the problems - here's one of my favorites that seems linked to VRAM and 24 bit files longer than 10 minutes in SF - If I open a 24bit file that is longer that 600 seconds and scroll out the max (not IN to max but OUT to max) the wave form dissapears in the data display - it looks like a blank file - the data plays fine - but the data window is blank - the data window eventually shows up if I open and close some apps and just jostle VRAM around a bit - weird work around but I've had tons of trouble with these Sony products - I just wish I ddin't know them so well.

-D

ORIGINAL: DonM

Greg:

I've posted to a bunch of threads on this subject - SF is the tool I know - I get a lot done with it very quickly and it is the stereo tool I use to teach in my Sound Design class. Of all of the software I use professionally - it is the most flakey - today I was preparing examples of dither and noise shaping SF hung seven times on a very very stable Dell Optiplex 270. I run Premire, Sonar, Photshop and tons of other software packages on this Dell - the only two programs that have regular problems are CD Architect and Sound Forge - I guess I've just grown to accept the problems - here's one of my favorites that seems linked to VRAM and 24 bit files longer than 10 minutes in SF - If I open a 24bit file that is longer that 600 seconds and scroll out the max (not IN to max but OUT to max) the wave form dissapears in the data display - it looks like a blank file - the data plays fine - but the data window is blank - the data window eventually shows up if I open and close some apps and just jostle VRAM around a bit - weird work around but I've had tons of trouble with these Sony products - I just wish I ddin't know them so well.

-D

WOW, that's a little discenrning. How is their tech support?

Don,
The only times I have seen or heard of that happening with Sony apps was when they were installed in a directory behind another partition other than “C” drive, or when someone tried to hide .SKF by Windows configuration.
By doing so any number of problems can occur, from very strange to mild, stability suffers in some way.
I know how they can clutter up a folder, but the .SKF files contain peak data for the sound files and must be in the same folder as the sound file for smooth operation.
It’s actually safer to delete .SKF than to hide or move them out of the same folder. That will only cause SF to rebuild them upon loading and of course slowing loading time down, but they will be back again.

Whether or not if this is your case or situation, something had corrupted your Sony apps, and I would strongly recommend completely uninstalling them, run defrag, than reinstalling.
Don’t bother choosing the repair tool the uninstaller will offer you, it won’t work for problems like this.

I had a strange corruption problem with Sound Forge’s plug in preset manager a while back after installing an early Adobe version of Cool Edit Pro (Audition I think?) to try out, I ended up having to reinstall both Sound Forge and ACID Pro, than all worked fine until I uninstalled the Cool Edit Pro! Grrrr, I ended up having to reinstall both Sound Forge and ACID Pro AGAIN!!
Could be Adobe and Sony don’t play well together on the same system?

ORIGINAL: Steev

You can download a .pdf file of the user’s manual for Sound Forge at the Sony Media updates site.
You can get there by opening SF Click on Help > Sony on the Web> Latest updates.
Once there click on the version of Sound Forge you are using and the manual will be listed as a download.

To edit a track in Sonar with Sound Forge, click on the track to select it. Hit the “Tools” button on Sonar’s tool bar, than select Sound Forge.
Sonar will open Sound Forge and export the track as a .wav into it for editing.
As soon as you hit “save” in Sound Forge it will apply your edit changes directly to the original tracks file in Sonar audio data folder.
Saving in Sound Forge as opposed to Sonar clears system memory as well as the mirrored “Recovery” back up file Sound Forge creates in the event of a computer freeze or crash.

By default Sound Forge clears the Undo history as soon as you hit ‘save’.
To avoid permanent or destructive editing to the sound file, it’s very important to configure Sound Forge to allow “Undos” past saving.
You cannot undo any edit changes made in Sound Forge from Sonar, but you can by sending the track back to Sound Forge.
To do this, open Sound Forge click on “Options” on the tool bar and choose Preferences. The General tab should be selected. Check the box for “Allow Undo past Save”.
This will force Sound Forge to keep the undo history in meta data so if for some reason you don’t like your editing later on down the road you can always bring the sound file back to it’s original state.

thanks about the manual. but my point was that for the money, it seems like they should print the manual instead of PDF. I guess I am a dinasaur.

Anyway, thanks also for the rundown on how it works with Sonar. This helps a lot.

Yes you should absolutely have a user's manual included shipped to you even with a download purchase of Sound Forge as it is such a very deep and powerful sound editor, a new user couldn't possibly understand what and all it can do.
The tech support at Sony is on the bad side of horrible, a down hill slide since Sony took over, that is why I mentioned reinstalling, as that is all you will get out of them anyway. There is a general aura of apathy. Believe me, it’s useless to complain about Dave Hill. Fact of the matter is, sad to say, more times than not they ignore legitimate requests for tech support, and could take weeks to reply with an answer to basic and simple questions.
All the good guys gave up and left, and now you got into to with Dave consider yourself very low on the food chain.
Never really had any dealings with Sony support myself for help, I have read some horror stories in the forums.
I too had been banned from the ACID Planet Music and Video Tech forums several times. I still do help many users of Sound Forge, ACID, and Vegas, though now a days through personal email contact. It’s nearly impossible to communicate any real solutions in the forums without flame wars and political debates, and it gets rather tedious.
I've been a member of ACID Planet for years and have many fans, friends and collaborators there, and there is tons of fun to be had as long as I stay out of the forums where I continuously get in trouble with my sense of humor and ragging on ACID Pro’s laughably horrendous MIDI support, and I use the word ‘support’ very loosely.
I’ve always made my opinion ultimately clear that ACID Pro had topped out with version 4, and if anyone wants to seriously consider a trip into the world of MIDI, stop wasting time with ACID Pro and go directly to Cakewalk, because even the cheapest skinniest Cakewalk MIDI sequencer will beat ACID Pro 5 to death in short order, and that is the God's honest truth.
I don’t believe anything can compete with ACID Pro as a loop based audio sequencer/editor for ease of use and powerful editing, and Sony no longer provides a hard copy user’s manual for that or Vegas either.
I was pretty angry about having to go through a couple ink cartridges printing out the manual for Vegas, which contrary to popular hype is not as easy for beginners as Sony would lead you to believe. I feel it has a steep learning which really requires a hard copy of the manual.
Well, now that the new ACID Pro 6 is about to (maybe) be released shortly, Sony pushed it back another month, which they boast as actually BEING a DAW, I plan on keeping my forum ban permenant, as I could imagine it will ever be as good as Sonar or Cubase, it would be mean of me, not to mention self destructive to even try to compare and argue the point.
My experience and money says the new and vastly improved and totally rebuilt from the ground up ACID Pro 6 audio/MIDI DAW is going to be a barking beta dawg for at least 6 months after it's release. And an expensive one too.
I think it will be cheaper for me to upgrade to Sonar 5 PE, I'm kinda intrigued by that Roland V-Vocal plug in... I'm a hugh fan of Roland.