SF8 opinions please...

S

Synkrotron

New member
Yep, I know... there is a Sound Forge specific forum here but have you been in there recently? Not much going on.

And my question is more about Mastering really... although I say that in the amateur sense cos I ain't no mastering engineer (as you know).

And try to bare with me... and I'll try to give you as much background as I can.

So, in the past, I have used Sound Forge (can't remember the versions but probably 2 or 3 so it was quite early stuff), to "master" my stereo wav files. And by master I only mean trim the tracks slightly if needed, fade out any noise at the beginning and end of the tracks (so that it wasn't so obvious) and perhaps minor EQ and compression.

In a recent fit of madness I've been upgrading my software and you've probably heard me mentioning Sonar 5. As part of that process I bought Sound Forge Audio Studio and to be honest I didn't really do my homework properly and I'm also a little more educated, believe it or not, than I was three months ago. Only the other day, I exported one of my Sonar projects to a 24 bit stereo WAV with a view to attempted, as described above, some simple mastering. I wondered why the file would not open, no errors, SFAS just ignored the fact that I was trying to open this file. So, a little late in the day I decided to dig into the specs of SFAS and was a little disappointed that it only opens 16 bit, 44.1Khz files... guess I got my just deserves and at the end of the day you only get what you pay for.

So, now to the crux of my query...

Sound Forge 8 WILL open and edit 24 bit files right up the spectrum so I could upgrade from SFAS to SF8 for around another $230. But before I do that I would like some opinions, expert or otherwise, on whether this is the right thing to do or whether I'd be better off saving up and getting something better and ditching SFAS altogether.

Bare in mind that I am not, nor probably never will be a mastering engineer and I will only be using the software to try some minor tweaking. It looks to me that SF8 will certainly allow me to do that and it will also let me use plugins I already have (like the Sonitus stuff I use in Sonar for instance).


I know that there is one other option and would not take any more of my hard earned cash and that is to master and edit within Sonar itself but something nagging at me and saying that I should really be taking my finished mixed stereo 24 bit files outside of Sonar... don't know why... it's just a hunch. Sonar, IMO, is just a little bit too unwieldy to use for tweaking stereo files.




Any thoughts chaps? Apart from the obvious groans of "oh no... not again".


thanks


andy
 
I personally am a die-hard SF user. I use it in three main instances; as the linked editor when I'm editing video soundtracks in Vegas, as my go-to editor/player when someone hands me a mono or stereo track of any format to listen to or analyze, and (most frequently) as my mixdowm polisher (mastering software, if you will.) This last one is basically what you are talking about.

I am only up to v6 in SF (I frankly have had no reason to spend on an upgrade), but have been using it ever since v2 on Win98 many moons ago. I think it is the most honest and accurate sounding of the Windows-based editors, though the Steinberg stuff is right up there too. But I like it much better than the Adobe and the Cakewalk stuff in that regard (I know, I know, a WAV is aupposed to be a WAV, but I swear I can hear a difference between the same file played in SF, GuitarTracks and Audition, and the SF is the closest to reality).

It seems the tide has turned more to Steinberg's Wavelab these days, though. I have nothing against Wavelab (I have the Lite version of it myself) and it's sound is right up there with SF's. But people seem to like it's suite functionality taking you right through to CD burning a bit more comprehensibly than SF (if you get the SF/CD Architect bundle, that is a different story, though.) But, IMHO, SF is still the gold standard on the Win platform for mono/stereo editing and polishing.

G.
 
Thanks for that Glen... pretty much what I wanted to hear... and that $230 included CD Architect too so I guess it's a goer... for me to upgrade to that is.


andy
 
Synkrotron said:
Thanks for that Glen... pretty much what I wanted to hear... and that $230 included CD Architect too so I guess it's a goer... for me to upgrade to that is.
Click to expand...
The SF/CDA bundle is an excellent package well worth the money, you'll be using them long after they have paid for themself, I'm sure. Good luck with it! :)

G.
 
SF8 is awesome. Was using 4.5 until I upgraded and got a new PC November last year.

Same user interface, but with improvements like plug-in chaining, which is great for home mastering.

Has batch-processing, mp3 encoding, video support. You won't regret it. It's a serious audio editor and well worth every penny you pay, I wouldn't use anything else.
 
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