Sound Forge issues

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

You might want to make sure you have the latest SF update. I think its
8.0A or something (on Sony's site). I have SF8 but have not done any
recording with it yet.

--Peter

Kayte wrote:
> We recently put XP on our audio pc which had been running sound forge 7
> on windows 98 without incident. Audio is captured from the tape
> machines, run through a lucid 96/24 ADC, and into the S/PDIF ins of an
> M-audio delta dio 96/24 sound card. This setup worked fine before the
> new OS; now we're also running SF 8. We've made sure to get updated
> drivers for the sound card.
>
> The problem is that the audio sounds like it's been captured at 44.1kHz
> and then changed to 96kHz. There are crackles that are not present in
> original material. I have checked and rechecked the audio card
> settings in SF and have tried different settings.
>
> If you have any ideas, I'd greatly appreciate them. Thanks.
>

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Kayte,

> We recently put XP on our audio pc <

Windows XP needs to be optimized for audio performance. Most important is
disabling all unnecessary background services, but there are many other
tweaks you can apply to improve audio performance. This is what you should
investigate next. One resource is my three-part series from Keyboard
magazine, 5th in the list on my Articles page:

www.ethanwiner.com/articles.html

These articles also list many other resources that I'm sure you'll find
useful.

--Ethan

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Ethan Winer wrote:
> Kayte,
>
> > We recently put XP on our audio pc <
>
> Windows XP needs to be optimized for audio performance. Most important is
> disabling all unnecessary background services, but there are many other
> tweaks you can apply to improve audio performance. This is what you should
> investigate next. One resource is my three-part series from Keyboard
> magazine, 5th in the list on my Articles page:
>
> www.ethanwiner.com/articles.html
>
> These articles also list many other resources that I'm sure you'll find
> useful.
>
> --Ethan


Thanks

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Kayte" <k.revitte@gmail.com> wrote in message...

> We recently put XP on our audio pc which had been running sound forge 7
> on windows 98 without incident.


Why?!? What made you think you needed XP on a workstation that *worked*?

My suggestion would be to build another box for SF-8 and reconfigure your
old 98 system with SF-7 properly and keep it as a *reliable* back-up box.
We're talking small dollars these days to build a good PC.


--
David Morgan (MAMS)
http://www.m-a-m-s DOT com
Morgan Audio Media Service
Dallas, Texas (214) 662-9901
_______________________________________
http://www.artisan-recordingstudio.com

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On 1 Aug 2005 07:41:50 -0700, "Kayte" <k.revitte@gmail.com> wrote:

>We recently put XP on our audio pc which had been running sound forge 7
>on windows 98 without incident. Audio is captured from the tape
>machines, run through a lucid 96/24 ADC, and into the S/PDIF ins of an
>M-audio delta dio 96/24 sound card. This setup worked fine before the
>new OS; now we're also running SF 8. We've made sure to get updated
>drivers for the sound card.
>
>The problem is that the audio sounds like it's been captured at 44.1kHz
>and then changed to 96kHz. There are crackles that are not present in
>original material. I have checked and rechecked the audio card
>settings in SF and have tried different settings.
>
>If you have any ideas, I'd greatly appreciate them. Thanks.

Windows XP is loaden with unnecessary effects, they can all be
switched off. Then there are many "tweak" programs which do additional
optimisations. Win XP Manager is an example. There are also lists of
Windows XP services which could be disabled; this is machine-dependent
and one has to be cautious when disabling some. But nothing helps if
the processor and the low amount of RAM can't handle Windows XP and
Sound Forge 7 and 8.

I am still using SF 6 with XP because I've found that SF 7 and 8 are
as many others applications of today, suffering of elephantism ie.
they are bloated. For example, SF8 took much more to load compared to
SF6. And the few new features, like various metering options, aren't
justifying a change to a higher version.

A good, optimized software, is hard to make but it is still a
blessing. These optimizations, however, are not "Visual This-And-That"
made but sometimes need a good mastering of the machine language and
processor architecture.

Hats off to those who still care and do.

Edi Zubovic, Crikvenica, Croatia

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 07:58:59 -0700, Kayte wrote:

> The higher ups ("they" ) decided they needed to be able to connect the
> audio pc to the network, which required it to have XP.

In what way was win98 unable to connect to the network. As far as my
experience goes I've found win98 supports most standard network protocols.
What are the hardware specs of the pc you upgraded to XP? Maybe it's just
not up to the task cpu and particularly memory wise?

--
Jafar Calley
Producer - http://moonlife-records.com
--------------------------------------
See the latest Mars and Saturn images
http://fatcat.homelinux.org

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

jafar wrote:
> On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 07:58:59 -0700, Kayte wrote:
>
> > The higher ups ("they" ) decided they needed to be able to connect the
> > audio pc to the network, which required it to have XP.
>
> In what way was win98 unable to connect to the network. As far as my
> experience goes I've found win98 supports most standard network protocols.
> What are the hardware specs of the pc you upgraded to XP? Maybe it's just
> not up to the task cpu and particularly memory wise?
>
> --
> Jafar Calley
> Producer - http://moonlife-records.com
> --------------------------------------
> See the latest Mars and Saturn images
> http://fatcat.homelinux.org

I don't know why they couldn't get it on the network. I didn't see a
problem with keeping it running 98, but my opinion doesn't count
because i'm just the audio person.

But that doesn't really matter because the administrators have declared
that this pc will run XP and that's how it is.
Now it is my job to figure out how we can get any work done.

This PC is pentium 4 2GHz, 512 MB ram. That should be plenty.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

I've been using XP for a couple of years now and am much happier with it
than W2K or W98. Its much more stable, and most newer software will
likely require it (including SF8, looking at Sonys specified minimum
requirements).

It may not run so good on older systems, as it is somewhat more resource
intensive. You can disable unneeded things as others have suggested and
that will help some.

You should make sure that they did a clean install (and not an upgrade),
and only install the things that you really need.

Take a look in the registry under the key:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

And make sure there isn't anything in there that is not needed. These
entries cause additional processes to start up at boot time. Its also
the typical place that viruses and other parasites put their stuff in.
Just be careful with edits, as there is no undo. In unsure, export that
area of the registry to a file so you can restore.

Use the explorer and look under:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

And make sure there is nothing there that is not needed; this is another
place where things get started from at boot time.

Also look at services that can be turned off, like Messaging, Indexing,
etc. Make sure no antivirus stuff is running.

And there are a number of GUI "effects" things that can be turned off.

My main PC actually has (2) boot partitions, one with a minimal install
used for audio work, and business/play stuff on the other one. You might
want to explore that option too.

--Peter

Kayte wrote:
> The higher ups ("they" ) decided they needed to be able to connect the
> audio pc to the network, which required it to have XP.
>
> David Morgan (MAMS) wrote:
>
>>"Kayte" <k.revitte@gmail.com> wrote in message...
>>
>>
>>>We recently put XP on our audio pc which had been running sound forge 7
>>>on windows 98 without incident.
>>
>>
>>Why?!? What made you think you needed XP on a workstation that *worked*?
>>
>>My suggestion would be to build another box for SF-8 and reconfigure your
>>old 98 system with SF-7 properly and keep it as a *reliable* back-up box.
>>We're talking small dollars these days to build a good PC.
>>
>>
>>--
>>David Morgan (MAMS)
>>http://www.m-a-m-s DOT com
>>Morgan Audio Media Service
>>Dallas, Texas (214) 662-9901
>>_______________________________________
>>http://www.artisan-recordingstudio.com
>
>

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On 2 Aug 2005 07:58:59 -0700, "Kayte" <k.revitte@gmail.com> wrote:

>The higher ups ("they" ) decided they needed to be able to connect the
>audio pc to the network, which required it to have XP.

Maybe its time to tell the higher ups you need a new computer with
lots of RAM and processor speed. I would at least explain to them the
system that used to work just fine will never work the same even if
you do solve your initial problems, the extra overhead of XP will
speciously slow down your workstation.

Julian

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

> If
> the files you edit are short, and your number of edits limited, you'd not
> even notice the difference (nothing helps like more RAM when you need it,
> and nothing is more useless than more RAM when you don't).

The files I edit are long (15 minutes up to 3 hours), and I do a small
to moderate amount of editing. I'll bet I could use more RAM...

>
> I've seen not issues, however, I never run audio directly into the machine.
> I used to run S/PDIF in (to an Audiophile 2496), which is a real-time
> transfer. I always took the machine off the network, rebooted, and turned
> off _everything_ before doing that import. Now I run Firewire in, which
> is just another asynchronous thing, and don't worry about it.
>

Could you explain this to me? What are the issues that running S/PDIF
into the sound card causes?

Thanks

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On 2 Aug 2005 07:58:59 -0700, "Kayte" <k.revitte@gmail.com> wrote:

>The higher ups ("they" ) decided they needed to be able to connect the
>audio pc to the network, which required it to have XP.

My network includes XP and W98 machines. Why couldn't theirs?

Have you yet shared the specs of this machine? IS it underpowered for
XP?

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On 2 Aug 2005 10:13:42 -0700, "Kayte" <k.revitte@gmail.com> wrote:

>This PC is pentium 4 2GHz, 512 MB ram. That should be plenty.

That seems plenty for XP and SoundForge. Which is only a two-track
recorder, after all.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On 2 Aug 2005 13:37:48 -0700, "Kayte" <k.revitte@gmail.com> wrote:

>> I've seen not issues, however, I never run audio directly into the machine.
>> I used to run S/PDIF in (to an Audiophile 2496), which is a real-time
>> transfer. I always took the machine off the network, rebooted, and turned
>> off _everything_ before doing that import. Now I run Firewire in, which
>> is just another asynchronous thing, and don't worry about it.
>>
>
>Could you explain this to me? What are the issues that running S/PDIF
>into the sound card causes?

And why would it be different to running analogue into the sound card?
One way the card's a>d converters have a job to do, one way they
don't. Why would the computer care?

I agree that, if a computer has been doing other work, a reboot is
good practice before audio recording. As is disabling the network.
But often I forget, and it seems to make no difference :-)

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Laurence Payne <lpayne1NOSPAM@dsl.pipexSPAMTRAP.com> wrote in
news:stb1f1hs9inatsq4ou0d091ijitfuq7q35@4ax.com:

> On 2 Aug 2005 13:37:48 -0700, "Kayte" <k.revitte@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> And why would it be different to running analogue into the sound card?
> One way the card's a>d converters have a job to do, one way they
> don't. Why would the computer care?
>

I agree-the same problems are presented by analog audio-in and S/PDIF in.
That was my point in distinguishing these from IEEE 1394 (Firewire) or USB
transfers. Real-time transfers with no proper protocol, and no mechanism
for the receiving side to tell the sending side "wait--I'm not ready for
more" or "send that last bit again, I did not get it" pose a different
problem than proper transfers supported by a proper protocol.

Peter A. Stoll

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Peter A. Stoll wrote:
> "Kayte" <k.revitte@gmail.com> wrote in
> news:1123015067.955172.133100@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:
>
> >
> > The files I edit are long (15 minutes up to 3 hours), and I do a small
> > to moderate amount of editing. I'll bet I could use more RAM...
> >
>
> Yes, I bet it will help for you, though on the longer files full-file
> edits (such as a full-file level change) you are going to go to disk
> anyway unless your motherboard will take more RAM than I guess is likely.
> With my Gigabyte of RAM, 10-minute 24/44.1 files go like lightning, but
> my usual concert-length files (60 minutes) us the disk anyway.
>
> If you go from 512 to 1G, you'll be just about tripling the working RAM
> available for useful work (XP chews about a 1/4 Gb as the price of
> admission, if you or your IT folks have you running extra stuff it could
> be worse).
>
> >>
> >
> > Could you explain this to me? What are the issues that running S/PDIF
> > into the sound card causes?
> >
>
> Running S/PDIF in is just like running audio in for the important aspect
> that it is not a proper communications protocol at all. The data just
> come along at their own clip ("real time" ) and if the receiver is busy
> for a moment, there is no way to say "retry" or "I did not get that" or
> even "error, don't trust this file". This means that if the processes
> running on the CPU don't visit the buffer(s) soon enough, you are
> guaranteed error (though some applications seem to keep track and attempt
> to show you such problems--I recall SF showed me import glitches once
> when I was not disciplined about cleaning the system of distractions
> first.
>
> By contrast, just about any computer communications protocol includes
> provisions for noticing whether the data came across OK, and for
> requesting and getting retries from the source if they did not.
> Sometimes a provision for error correction allows small errors to be
> perfectly corrected without a resend.
>
> Think about it--if Operating System installs were subject to transmission
> error at the rate folks see on audio input to some systems, the PC would
> never even boot! Unreliable as PC's are as devices, most data
> transmission they are involved in is flawless or declares itself invalid.
>
> The protocols come in layers, so just because the data move across USB or
> Firewire or ... is not proof it is a robust transmission, but at least it
> is possible. With pure audio in or S/PDIF, about all you can hope is
> that an application on the receiving end will notice it waited too long
> and warn you not to trust the result. But against noise error on the
> physical transmission link, you are defenseless.
>
> So I'll "capture" and audio source on LP or cassette or even DAT by
> playing it into my SD722 offline, then transfer the 722 file either by
> Firewire (IEEE 1394) or by pulling out the CF card and putting it in a
> reader on the PC. Avoiding electrical noise is one reason, but avoiding
> corrupt transfers (and not needing to "rig for silent running" the PC by
> turning everything off) is a stronger reason for me.
>
> Peter A. Stoll
> retired computer guy
> singer
> amateur sound recording guy

Thank you. I am making a list of issues to bring up with my
supervisors about the setup, and this will go on it.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 08:07:31 -0500, "Peter A. Stoll"
<Lyn1Stoll_spamdel@comcast.net> wrote:

>I agree-the same problems are presented by analog audio-in and S/PDIF in.
>That was my point in distinguishing these from IEEE 1394 (Firewire) or USB
>transfers. Real-time transfers with no proper protocol, and no mechanism
>for the receiving side to tell the sending side "wait--I'm not ready for
>more" or "send that last bit again, I did not get it" pose a different
>problem than proper transfers supported by a proper protocol.

You'd be making a good case for using a dedicated device for audio
capture except that we all DO routinely achieve glitchless audio input
using quite un-esoteric techniques on multi-purpose computers.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 13:34:14 GMT, Ron Capik <r.capik@worldnet.att.net>
wrote:

>Bloat issues are only re-configurable if allowed by the
>corporate network/IP folks. In my experience with corporate
>networks the support folks tend to want all computers on the
>network to look and act the same to aid in remote administration
>and such.
>
>I had to build and maintain my own lab networks to meet my
>experimental needs. The corporate folks wouldn't let me on
>their net with a non standard computer. Most data had to
>be moved via the sneaker net.
>
>The OP indicated similar corporate sys-admin problems.
>[YMMV]

It's hard to understand why even the most obdurate corporate sys-admin
couldn't tolerate a stand-alone computer performing a specialist task.
I suspect subtext to this story :-)

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Laurence Payne <lpayne1NOSPAM@dsl.pipexSPAMTRAP.com> wrote in
news:ftn1f19h04u43nsmpgj5vpbcfe3jkkg980@4ax.com:

>
> You'd be making a good case for using a dedicated device for audio
> capture except that we all DO routinely achieve glitchless audio input
> using quite un-esoteric techniques on multi-purpose computers.
>

I'll disengage with you on this point here.
Peter

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Laurence Payne" <lpayne1NOSPAM@dsl.pipexSPAMTRAP.com> wrote in message news:e2o1f199e5ejbsh61qh604393n1ic14o5n@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 08:12:20 -0500, "Peter A. Stoll"
> <Lyn1Stoll_spamdel@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > I do hear occasional glitches in my playback, as I don't turn
> >everything off for processing work, and don't defrag. Most likely the PC
> >failed to find the next sector on the disk fast enough. If I'm worried I'm
> >hearing something in the actual material, I just click back on the waveform
> >and listen again.
>
> If you're just playing back a stereo track in SoundForge, I'm very
> surprised you're getting any glitches at all. SF has a very adequate
> audio buffering system, and two audio tracks are a very undemanding
> job for a modern hard drive.

I've been on SF since 4.0 and using Win98SE have never encountered a
glitch on a dedicated workstation. I have SF4.xx, SF6.xx and SF7 running
on a variety of Win98 boxes now... but they are dedicated, streamlined boxes.

DM

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Peter A. Stoll" <Lyn1Stoll_spamdel@comcast.net> wrote in message...

> Most likely XP was off
> attending to something else during the period when it would have needed to
> be chasing the pointer tree to find the next sectors.


Aaaaaargh !!!




;-)

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 08:07:31 -0500, "Peter A. Stoll"
<Lyn1Stoll_spamdel@comcast.net> wrote:

>I agree-the same problems are presented by analog audio-in and S/PDIF in.
>That was my point in distinguishing these from IEEE 1394 (Firewire) or USB
>transfers. Real-time transfers with no proper protocol, and no mechanism
>for the receiving side to tell the sending side "wait--I'm not ready for
>more" or "send that last bit again, I did not get it" pose a different
>problem than proper transfers supported by a proper protocol.
>
>Peter A. Stoll

Whether this is a problem entirely depends on the computer and how
clean it is running. I just upgraded to a new Dell Dimensions 8400
with a 3.2 GHz processor and 1 GB RAM. I've spent quite a bit of time
optimizing it and I've ruthlessly removed every background program I
can find. The thing is so damn stable while recording I can hardly
believe it.

On my old 98 computer I used to make sure everything was defragged and
I was running absolutely no program in the background. It was pretty
reliable but occasionally if I got impatient and started some other
program up while recording in Sound Forge and it would show an error
in the wave display. SF does do a very good job of reporting those
places where problems crop up IMO. It reports many small glitches
that can't even be heard and also catches major problems as well.

On my new XP machine just for fun, while recording a not very critical
series of minidisc's via it's SPDIF out I abandoned every rule. I was
reading e-mail, newsgroups, web surfing, playing bridge, working on
excel spreadsheets, you name it, and no glitches reported by Sound
Forge. No problems listening when playing back either. I recorded
about 6 minidiscs this way, so it was a decent trial. That's using a
LynxOne card recording 2 track into Sound Forge 4.5. I could use the
computer as normal and Sound Forge just continued to hum along with no
errors. It's a vast improvement to the stability I had with 98. If I
did anything except just sit there watching the level meters, I was
asking for trouble.

Julian

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Julian <JulianPAdamsNo@SpamHotmail.Com> wrote in
news:tf22f1hkjo9ljnsdd3t5trs7b3bfhukjnl@4ax.com:

> On my new XP machine just for fun, while recording a not very critical
> series of minidisc's via it's SPDIF out I abandoned every rule. I was
> reading e-mail, newsgroups, web surfing, playing bridge, working on
> excel spreadsheets, you name it, and no glitches reported by Sound
> Forge.

I take essentially no precautions when burning CD's on my XP machine. In
many hundreds of audio CD burns, I think I got a coaster once when I was so
incautious as to start up Microsoft Word during a burn--but the application
told me so (starting up Word on my machine sometimes takes remarkably
long--it appears to be gazing around my network looking for I know not
what).

I'd expect no less--there are decent size buffers, but more importantly,
the elements in the chain are clearly expected to produce perfect data
transfers, with much higher goof-up penalty points awarded for producing a
faulty disk without warning than for producing a scrap disk with warning.

Peter A. Stoll

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Lorin David Schultz" <Lorin@DAMNSPAM!v5v.ca> wrote in message...

> Maybe if I tried to do a defrag while it's playing...

As best as I can tell from hanging on the XP groups, XP doesn't
really defrag... it just takes about 15 seconds to give you a diagram
of the drive. All of the MVPs on the XP groups recommend some sort
of a third party defragging tool for use with XP (easy to search this).

DM

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Geoff Wood" <geoff@nospam-paf.co.nz> wrote in message news:42f1252a$2@clear.net.nz...
>
> "David Morgan (MAMS)" <mams@NOSPAm-a-m-s.com> wrote in message
> news:so9Ie.39599$W%5.9737@trnddc05...
> >
> > "Lorin David Schultz" <Lorin@DAMNSPAM!v5v.ca> wrote in message...
> >
> >> Maybe if I tried to do a defrag while it's playing...
> >
> > As best as I can tell from hanging on the XP groups, XP doesn't
> > really defrag... it just takes about 15 seconds to give you a diagram
> > of the drive. All of the MVPs on the XP groups recommend some sort
> > of a third party defragging tool for use with XP (easy to search this).
>
>
> Um that's because they only clicked the "Diagnose" button, and subsequently
> didn't see the "Defragment" button.


When I decided to try this myself, the only 'button' I saw was, "defragment".
About 10 seconds later I got a stupid little image of the drive, which looked
pretty splattered to me, and this text, "This drive is not Fragmented".

Which is why, I suppose, Microsoft's MVPs recommend a 3rd party utility.
They claim there's is nothing erroneous about the built in tool... but in the
same breath, say that a 3rd party tool is essential for proper defragging.

(see *hundreds* of posts on microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support )

DM

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"David Morgan (MAMS)" <mams@NOSPAm-a-m-s.com> wrote in
message news:so9Ie.39599$W%5.9737@trnddc05
> "Lorin David Schultz" <Lorin@DAMNSPAM!v5v.ca> wrote in
> message...
>
>> Maybe if I tried to do a defrag while it's playing...
>
> As best as I can tell from hanging on the XP groups, XP
> doesn't really defrag... it just takes about 15 seconds
to give
> you a diagram of the drive.

IME XP defrag works a whole lot better than that.

I've applied it to thoroughly fragged drives and had it run
for hours, and clean things up quite nicely.

It's unlike the Win9x defragger in that you can run it with
other programs that write to disk running. You can often get
better results by just running it again.

If it runs through the drive in 15 seconds, it usually means
that there just isn't much to improve.