Sound Forge and ACID loops

[maryslittlesecret]

Hi, guys. I was told that Sound Forge 4.5 could alter ACID loops (change tempo, key , etc) the same way ACID did. However, when I tried it the other night with some of the new ACID loops I just picked up, nothing happened. It looked like it should've worked -- the Loop Edit box came up and I made the changes, but when I listened to the loop, nothing changed.

Do I need to reinstall Sound Forge and double check that I installed these features? Am I doing something wrong in the actual process of altering the loops? Or was I misinformed about Sound Forge and I need to get ACID in order to permanently alter these loops? Please let me know. Thanks!

J

 

[AlChuck]

Hmm, I'm a bit confused about what you are trying to accomplish. You can speed up/slow down the loops a bit, or change the pitch a little, or both, in Sound Forge. The first of these functions are performed more-or-less automatically by ACID when you started adding loops together in a project. The loops can be ACIDized, which basically means some markers get put in that ACID can use to speed up its ability to beat-match them. That's what the ACIDizing features let you do. You can make your own loops and optimize them this way for use in ACID. But they don't play any differently in Sound Forge once they are ACIDized. You can always change them by time-stretching or compressing the loops, but it's tedious to do this, which is the whole reason for ACID to exist. You can't make Sound Forge act like ACID, if that's what you're hoping.

 

[maryslittlesecret]

Thanks for the reply, but actually, that is kind of what I was hoping. I assumed that since they were made by the same manufacturer and Sound Forge was a much more expensive product, that it would overlap/interact with its other programs to a degree. Since there's an 'ACID Loop Properties' screen in Sound Forge which allows you to pick base keys, etc., I figured you would be able to edit the loops as you do in ACID (ie: change the pitch without changeing the tempo or vice versa).

This may be kind of a silly follow-up, but what is the ACID Loop Properties feature in Sound Forge used for? It doesn't seem to do anything when I try it. I don't mean to seem dense, but let me know if you get the chance -- in the meatime, I guess I'll start shopping for the best deal on ACID 2...

J

 

[AlChuck]

From the ACID help system:

ACIDizing a file involves adding extra information to the audio file that is ACID-specific. This information contains all of the properties on the Track tab in the Properties window, including the stretching properties, root note, and number of beats or tempo of the file. This information is then used by ACID to time-stretch and pitch-shift the file for you automatically when you open it... Non-ACIDized files will open fine, however, their stretching properties may not be optimized and they will not conform to the key of the current project.

and from the Sound Forge XP 4.5 help system topic titled "ACID Looping Tools":

These tools are specially designed to make it easy to edit audio into Loops for Sonic Foundry’s ACID. However, these tools can easily be used for other loop-based audio applications as well.

Hope that helps clarify things a bit.

As far as Sound Forge incorporating ACID within itself, this is not terribly far-fetched. They may even decide that they have to do it to try to keep ahead of other products that do similar things. Cakewalk, for example, has a major new release called SONAR that includes an ACID-like loop editing scheme along with all its usual digital audio and MIDI sequencing features...

 

[KaBudokan]

What SOund Forge does when you edit Acid loop properties is this:

It changes the ways Acid handles the loop. If you change the "root note for transposing" in SOund Forge, you change the note that Acid will pitch shift from. For example, if you have a loop that has a root of E, and your key in Acid is G, Acid will shift the note up 3 half steps. If you change the root note in SF to F, then Acid will only shift the note up 2 half steps. SF doesn't do the pitch shifting, it just changes how Acid interacts wih the loop.

Same with the "number of beats" function. Change the number of beats from 8 to 16, and when you open the loop in Acid, it will play at half the speed.

It is a useful function, but not anything groundbreaking.

Hope that was clear enough to make sense. Change the properties and then resave and open the loop back up in Acid, and you will hear the difference.