ORIGINAL: jmarkham
listen to Frank .. he turned me onto Soundforge .. and i'm eternally grateful ;-) now chant
"pencil tool .. pencil tool" ;-)
jeff

jeff (and Frank) -

I'd be really grateful if you could answer this question for me, because I'm wondering if there's something I'm not getting right.

I've tried Sound Forge's pencil tool and, impressive as it is, in my experience Adobe Audition's spectral editing tools are even more powerful, because they let you work on the exact frequency.

For example, if there's, say, a strange click on a track during a passage of music, you can visually identify it, then snip it out, without affecting the music in any way. This has for me been a more scientific and certain way of fixing glitches rather than pencilling in the revised wave form, which for me always used to involve a touch of trial and error.

I'm not knocking vthe pencil tool, it's handy, but I've found I can do more, and be more accurate, with AA's spectral editing tool (this came in with v 1.5). So I'd be interested to know if you've used both AA's spectral editing tools and SF's pencil, and if so, what I was doing wrong with SF to not get the best or proper use out of the pencil.

Thanks for your patience.

Best
Geoff

ORIGINAL: glazfolk

Bump ... I'd really appreciate a second opinion from somebody experienced with BOTH the Sound Forge Pencil AND Adobe Audition 1.35 Spectral Editing Tool, and who can give an objective and informed evaluation and comparison (pros and cons) of both.

Thanks
Geoff

Sorry, I havn't used Audition since it was called CoolEdit and I don't remember the pencil tool from back then. I started using it when I got Sound Forge.

Cant seem to get Scott Garrigus' instructions for putting a program on the tool bar. Trying this in Adobe. Is it any different with Soundforge.

Seems the instructions are not for XP pro (at least getting into dos mode is very different) Entry as instructed using the equivalent Audition path come up with nothing. I'm on as administator.

How did you manage to get soundforge in?

>> Wavelab any good? <<

Wavelab is great. Solid, fast, flexible, intuitive, many useful features. Very reliable.

I'd really appreciate a second opinion from somebody experienced with BOTH the Sound Forge Pencil AND Adobe Audition 1.35 Spectral Editing Tool, and who can give an objective and informed evaluation and comparison (pros and cons) of both.

I have both Sound Forge and Audition. If you're asking to compare the SF Pencil tool to the AA Spectral tool, I think that's pretty much like an apples to oranges comparison. In my honest opinion Audition does not even compare to Sound Forge as a Wave editor. Sure Audition is a worthy editor, but it's not even in the same league as Sound Forge. Wavelab on the other hand, that's another story.

I looked at both programs today and came up with a list of pros for Sound Forge vs. Pros for Audition. Now this is Pros for each program, so that means a Pro for one program is a Con for the other program since it doesn't offer that functionality. I would say Sound Forge and Wavelab are neck and neck the number 1&2 wave editors available while Audition falls behind both of these.

You also have to consider that Audition is a multitrack program also, so it's development isn't strictly focused on it's wave editor functions like Sound Forge and Wavelab. Auditon is not the best multitracker and it's not the best wave editor, but it does both, just not exceptionally well. So I tend to think of Auditon more of a Swiss Army knife, where Sound Forge is a precision Tool.

Here's my list: You also need to consider I'm a lot more experienced working with Sound Forge than Audition, so I may be missing a few things on the Audition side

Pros for Sound Forge
VU meter
Multiple Wave Windows open at once
Drag and drop selection into new window
Acidized Loop Creation tools
RMS Normalization
Supports Video formats for sound editing to picture (.mpg, .avi,.etc.)
Explorer Window View with preview player for easy access to files
Pitch Bend Envelop Tool
plugins can be chained
Fully resizeable and customizable User Interface
Inclusion of CD Architect
Pencil Tool
FX Automation Support
Audio Scrubing


Pros for Audition
Phase Meter
Built in Noise Reduction Tools
Advanced Center Channel Extraction Tool to leave Vocal only.

ORIGINAL: tomek
......There were many times when cutting out the spike would not sound that good....

That's what clip envelopes are for....

ORIGINAL: GypsyJazz

ORIGINAL: tomek
......There were many times when cutting out the spike would not sound that good....

That's what clip envelopes are for....

yeah but say you have a glitch which is at 500hz and theres a bass note trailing off at around 100hz then in audition you can switch to spectral and delete the audio which is *only* at 500hz.

There's no way you could do that in sonar.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

It's hardly ever mentioned in the context of a wave editor for use in conjunction with Sonar but Goldwave,
now that it supports VST plugins, has become quite a value at $48.00 US. It supports up to 24 bit, 192kHz.

yeah but say you have a glitch which is at 500hz and theres a bass note trailing off at around 100hz then in audition you can switch to spectral and delete the audio which is *only* at 500hz.

There's no way you could do that in sonar.

Sorry I'm a bit confused on the functionality of this feature. How would this be any different than using a notch EQ on a certain section and thus achieving the same thing?

ORIGINAL: Rednroll

yeah but say you have a glitch which is at 500hz and theres a bass note trailing off at around 100hz then in audition you can switch to spectral and delete the audio which is *only* at 500hz.

There's no way you could do that in sonar.

Sorry I'm a bit confused on the functionality of this feature. How would this be any different than using a notch EQ on a certain section and thus achieving the same thing?

true that would achieve the same results - but with audition you can see it right in front of you and so can very quickly remove any glitches. Not only can you remove it though you can apply any effect to that particular piece of audio - be it time selected, or frequency spectrum selected.

It really is a very very handy tool.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

Rednroll - without quoting extensively from the Help files, this is the best I can do for you. Hope it helps.

In Edit View:

VU Meter - Window, Level Meters. You can also view Frequency Analysis and Phase Analysis windows (not the same as Frequency Spectrum View)
Explorer Window View with preview player for easy access to files - Window, Organizer
Drag and Drop Selection into New Window - Drag from Organizer to Edit Window. This creates new window. Use Window command or Ctrl F6 or dble click in Preview window to switch.
RMS Normalisation - Edit, Group Waveform, Normalize (the "group" need be only one file, but can be several)

In MultiTrack View

Plugins can be chained
FX Automation Support
By the way, I never said that these features existed in Edit View! But I'd add two things here -
1. Miltitrack view integrates with Edit View well.
2. The context of this thread is integrating a wave editor with Sonar. In that context, I personally have no need for FX chaining or automation within Adobe Audition - I never need or use these features in edit view. Like most people on this forum, I suspect, for recordings made and mixed in Sonar, I use real time FX and envelopes in Sonar.

For mine, the great strengths of AA are its wave editing features - espcially its noise reduction, but also its fade out options, and, for the odd finishing touch, its EQ, Ampolitude, Reverb, Compression, Limiting, etc. To my ears, these are better than SF and on a par with Wavelab.

While you're there, you obviously know Sound Forge a lot better than I do. I'd be grateful if you could expand on your earlier comment

If you're asking to compare the SF Pencil tool to the AA Spectral tool, I think that's pretty much like an apples to oranges comparison.

Especially in the light of Dave Rich's comment about Spectral Editing and the ensuing contributions by others. I'd be genuinely interested to hear from you whether the SF pencil handles tasks specifically like this OK, in your view. Plus an example of what you can do with the pencil in SF that can'tt be done in AA. If you have such examples, then the obvious conclusion seems to mme that both editors are useful - as editors - to complement each other.

By the way, in answer to your other question, I don't work with video. I just know the feature is there ... there's pages and pages in the Help Files though. And I can't answer your question about ASIOP drivers ... I never use them because I can't find a way of supporting dual EWS88MT Sound Cards with ASIO Drivers.

Best
Geoff

have any of you guys ordered from that digitraxx place before?

In regards to your responses:

VU Meter This is not a VU meter, this is a PEAK meter. Sound Forge has both a VU meter and Peak meter that can be viewed simultaneously. Both have their uses for different tasks.

Explorer Window View This is NOT an Explorer window view, this is an enhanced OPEN folder option. There's quite a difference, I would suggest trying out SF and see what I mean. This view can always be open, so you don't have to keep clicking on the "Folder" button to get to quick access of files on your HD. You can also manage files with drag and drop copy and paste functions within the explorer view. Something you can't do very easily in AA.

Drag and Drop Selection into New Window
You're totally missing the concept of this one. Try to select a part of a file and drag and drop it to a new Window view. You have to right click on your selection and choose "copy to new", then audition opens that wave view and closes out your original wave view. Who said I wanted to close out my original wave view, I wanted to select multiple regions in that wave view and create seperate files. So this causes a lot of clicking back and forth. In Sound forge I can have the main wave view open and select multiple regions and just drag them out to create seperate files for each selection.

RMS Normalisation thanks for that one, I never realized that was there. I expected it to be located along with the Normalize function located under the Effects tab, which it isn't. I have to wonder why AA would have 2 seperate Normalize functions located in 2 different locations.

Plugins can be chained
FX Automation Support
1. Miltitrack view integrates with Edit View well
Well I suppose if you like to click back and forth between 2 seperate views when you're working on a single file then this is ok for you.

but also its fade out options,

How can AA fade out options be better than Sound Forge? In Forge you have a volume envelope with unlimited fade IN/Out capabilities

for the odd finishing touch, its EQ, Ampolitude, Reverb, Compression, Limiting, etc. To my ears, these are better than SF

Now didn't you just say you didn't need these in your wave editor? This seems like a perfect scenario for the FX plugin chainer in SF with automation capabilities. So wouldn't it be better to have access to all your 3rd party plugins in a single FX's chain, along with automation support if you need it?

In regards to the Frequency tool vs. the Pencil tool. The pencil tool is great, because you can zoom in on the waveform, where things start to look like continuous sine waves. You will see a continuous curve of how the audio should normally look, and then an interupted Spike where the click happens. So what you do is re DRAW back in the continous curve where the Pop/Click occured, thus you haven't elliminated anything from the original recording. With the frequency tool, it sounds like you are elliminating something that was originally there. So how could elliminating something from the audio be better than putting it back in? Thus with the pencil tool, you're really doing both. You're elliminating the pop/click and replacing it with what should be there. You're missing the second part of that with the frequency tool, so I would have to say, it's only half as good as the pencil tool.

As far as video here is what it says in the AA help file:

In both Edit View and Multitrack View, you can import audio data from a video file in AVI, MPEG, or WMV format. This approach is useful for soundtrack editing that doesn't require a video preview, or for readapting soundtracks for audio-only mediums, such as radio or CD.

Only in Multitrack View, however, can you import both audio and video data from a video file. This approach lets you precisely synchronize audio with a video preview. Note, however, that a multitrack session can contain only one video clip at a time.

So as you can see, in the Edit view you can only edit the audio portion of the file.....well how do you know what this does to the sync of the video then? Wouldn't you like to cut the video portion out along with the audio portion if you had to cut something out? Well, I suppose you could go back to clicking back and forth between views.

Like I said, Audition is a great wave editor. And that's what we're talking about in this thread is it's wave editor functions, so that's why I am referring to the Edit view, because this is where these functions are in AA. Sure you can click back and forth between views, but why would you want to when you don't have to? Audition pales in comparison to Sound Forge in ease of use, effeciency and functionality. Sound Forge is also more effecient when doing mastering tasks in this regard.

Hmmmm? No ASIO support in AA? I guess for those Sound Cards that don't have Wave drivers, you're out of luck then huh? Or like the Digi 001/002 hardware where their Wave drivers have limited functionality compared to the ASIO driver? So I take it you might be stuck if you choose to use the ASIO driver in Sonar then also? So you're forced to use the Wave driver in Sonar then, if you choose to use AA? That sounds like a pretty good reason to not use AA as a wave editor if you're using it in conjunction with Sonar to me.

Thanks for the follow up.

ORIGINAL: glazfolk
RMS Normalisation - Edit, Group Waveform, Normalize (the "group" need be only one file, but can be several)

Doy! I got so wrapped up in the freq-space things that I forgot about Group Normalize! That is really cool when making finishing touches on a group of tracks along the mastering chain. It's a way of automatically putting all of the tracks in your "sweet spot" of loudness. You get a choice of loudness comparison, either absolute or psychoacoustically based. You can also get complete statistics on all track amplitudes, both before and after normalization is applied. Very handy for unifying a project (at least as a first pass... if your content varies too wildly from track to track, you sometimes need to go in and tweak a track or two).

dual EWS88MT Sound Cards

Cool... another Terratec bro!

ORIGINAL: losguy

ORIGINAL: Rednroll
In regards to the Frequency tool vs. the Pencil tool. The pencil tool is great, because you can zoom in on the waveform, where things start to look like continuous sine waves. You will see a continuous curve of how the audio should normally look, and then an interupted Spike where the click happens. So what you do is re DRAW back in the continous curve where the Pop/Click occured, thus you haven't elliminated anything from the original recording. With the frequency tool, it sounds like you are elliminating something that was originally there. So how could elliminating something from the audio be better than putting it back in? Thus with the pencil tool, you're really doing both. You're elliminating the pop/click and replacing it with what should be there. You're missing the second part of that with the frequency tool, so I would have to say, it's only half as good as the pencil tool.

Nothing wrong with the pencil tool, and no problem with with your description of it either. The frequency space editing is subtractive, yes, but realize that drawing a smooth curve to replace a spike is subtractive of the spike. With the frequency-space editor, you would also zoom in to select a narrow time window, and in frequency space, select only the offending frequencies to remove. Doing so effectively creates a very short, very customized filter to smooth out the spike, a filter that only evaluates over the time span of the spike. The net result in the time domain (i.e. on the waveform) is a smoothing in the region of the spike, very analogous to the pencil tool.

In the end, it's really a matter of what it is that you want to be precise at. For narrower spikes, I suspect that the pencil tool will be better, because the amount of drawing (and hence, guessing) required is less. For wider or lower-frequency things, and especially for things that themselves look like desirable sounds, I would choose frequency-space editing without a blink. But I have successfully used frequency-space editing for both.

[Edited for clarity]

losguy:

Thank you for this ... a very clear and comprehensive explanation which sheds light on something I have never really understood. Thanks again!