Microsound used for National Symphony Orchestra [Archive]

geezer

October 14th, 2001, 11:24 AM

While the CD I burned in the thread above was strictly for personal audition and experimentation (No copies distributed, Charles!), I've been doing a lot of DVD work in the last year and a half, with CDs recently as spinoff product.

DVDs are native 24bit, and all of my surround and stereo mixes for these have been 24bit since day one. They have also been almosty exclusively at 48k sampling rate, which is the native rate for digital video.....This has raised some interesting questions when it comes time to produce a CD at 16bit/44.1.

Since I can't stay all-digital at 48k and use the internal MTU math to dither down, I've chosen to do an external analog conversion/mastering and dithering pass all at once. This has worked well, but probably only because I'm doing all of my editing at 24bit in MTU first.....This is incredibly important, and was really noticable sonically in the final product. (Most recent: "Kenny Rankin- Haven't We Met?" Image Entertainment) MTU's editing quality is noticably better than anything I have used or see available on the market, and, without buying some esoteric custom-built 72bit mastering system, I am unlikely to find anything else that sounds as good.

So, I guess my point is this: It is important to stay digital for as much of the process as you can, and it is important to try to do all of your 24bit work in MTU if you can....It really makes a difference.

---------

THE 24BIT SURROUND FUTURE AND MTU:

----All of the DVD work I am doing is ultimately in 5.1 surround and 24bit.....Because MTU does not have a 6channel digital I/O mechanism, this has created some highly problematic situations for me.

I have been toying with Nuendo, and should have a functional Nuendo setup with RME I/O shortly. I can tell, however, that I am NEVER going to be satisfied with any other program to do the bulk of the work I can do with MicroEditor. On the other hand, Nuendo does talk to the MX2424 and Avid and ProTools, which, of course MTU will never do.....Is there a solution? I think I'm starting to see one, based on Charles' discovery that MTU files are standard 32bit IEE, and can be imported and exported with Cool Edit:

File sharing is the key. As long as the various programs can read the files, then using whichever program you need as a "way station" (weigh? station) while working on them should work as long as you keep them in the 32bit format....This involves no digital, real-time transfers and the subsequent potential clocking and syncing errors between tracks, and should work as long as the time code lock can be maintained in the program that will ultimately spit the product out to tape.

The questions:
--While it is clear that Cool Edit (and probably Nuendo) can read MTU files, will MTU be able to read the files from the other program if they are in the 32bit IEE format? Is there any kind of file header or naming trick needed to do this?

---The Broadcast.wav format has become the defacto PC format for MX2424, Nuendo and, I believe, the PC version of ProTools. It is my understanding that this is nothing more than a .wav file with a time-stamping mechanism built in. Does anyone understand how this works? What is the possibility of of MTU reading the time stamp? Will opening a Broadcast.wav file in MTU alter the time stamp? Is there any impediment to opening a 24bit Broadcast.wav file in MTU?

---Barring use of a Broadcast.wav time stamp, are there any other ideas for maintianing sample-accurate lock to time code locations when file sharing?

Knowing the file conversion capabilities of Nuendo and Cool Edit, it seems highly likely that file sharing will work once I know the answers to the above questions and can figure out the "to-from directional protocols" with the different systems. I'm still 2 to 3 weeks away from being able to devote any serious time to testing, and would love feedback from anyone out there who can answer some of these questions.

It also seems to me that this path (i.e.- understanding file sharing and interactivity) is the only route available for "saving" MicroEditor as a competitive, modern product in the marketplace. I would think this would merit some serious attention on the part of the MTU staff, and would seem, in my opinion, to be an elegant and relatively inexpensive solution to the whole multitrack, native and plugin problem that has been plaguing marketing for MicroEditor for the last few years.....I don't see any other programs that are developing into the incredible, high powered editor that MTU has, but I also don't see any other way for MTU to avail itself of the multitrack and plug-in features that are out there.

What does everyone else think?

Rich LePage

October 21st, 2001, 11:21 AM

I strongly agree with these comments. I think it would
breathe new life into Medit if we could support file
exchange and also save in broadcast WAV formats.

In fact it might be a way to re-introduce Medit on its
strengths as an editor if it could allow working back
and forth within other environments. This is something
MTU definitely should spend time looking into, I think.

clawson

October 25th, 2001, 08:14 PM

Hi, guys.

I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to get back here.

First, let me state that Jim (a.k.a "Geezer") is being entirely too modest! On the occasion that he graciously filled in for me at the Kennedy Center, he turned out a marvelous, luscious recording that (consarn it!) was not selected by Leonard Slatkin as repertoire that he wanted to include in this season's broadcasts. (Perhaps it will wind up in a future season...)

RE: file exchange...

Yes, I am in whole-hearted agreement that we can squeeze some more life out of Microeditor this way. It's easy enough within CoolEdit 2000 to strip away extraneous header information so that ME will read most any files. If that doesn't work, there are some header-stripping utilities available to do the same thing. Putting the headers back, if required by another system, *may* be more problematic but I haven't thoroughly researched the question as yet. If I can't find the software utilities that I want, I may have to write them. (I've been dusting off my programming training in order to prepare for attacking these looming problems. Curse that need for sleep!) I'll post some more details as I discover things. It's a lot easier for me to do this while the NSO is on tour.

Jim, please do fill us in on your success with Nuendo. We're all eyeing the multitrack necessity and I appreciate you being willing to share your discoveries with us.

Gotta get back to production now. More soon...

Chas.

--
Charles Lawson
Senior Recording/Production Engineer
WETA Radio & Television, Washington, DC

geezer

October 27th, 2001, 04:36 PM

---I don't yet have any direct Nuendo experience (I'm still toying with a new computer configuration and recovering from a slow money period), but 2 colleagues have given me a little insight that might be useful:

1. Billy Wolf, a long-time folk/bluegrass guru (check out the latest Seldom Scene album) and respected mastering engineer, was talking with me a while back and said that his experiences with Nuendo were positive, but that he realized that he had to convert files to 32bit before mixing them etc. for the sound to keep from being degraded....He says that the program does not do this automatically. Billy would be a very good person to talk tech with about Nuendo, and he's only one exit away from you, Chas.

2. Bill Plummer, my mixing/recording/production partner for all of the DVDs I've been working on, has his Nuendo rig up and running. He tried a full mix on one of the St. Lucia recordings we're working on (Clark Terry or Eric Benet...don't remember which he said)(somewhere between 24 and 48 tracks of 24bit material) and was very displeased with the results....felt it was compressed sounding. When he dumped the tracks out of his computer into his digital mixer (in his case, the DA7) everything opened up again....Now, I should say that he did not heed my advice from Billy about converting everything to 32bit files, so I don't know that he would have felt the same had he done this....He does like Nuendo, and contemplates using it to create "stems" to cut down on the number of tracks fro the final mix.

I am taking both of these comments to mean that my intended use of Nuendo, which is pretty limited, is probably correct, and sort of follows what a lot of people are doing with Pro Tools: They are using it for track fixing and processing, then feeding it out at unity to their console of choice for the mix...I am looking at it in the same general way....I still like mixing on a mixer, and, as long as I stay in the digital domain, I haven't been able to find anything wrong with the mixer I'm using (02R). Since I'm set up for 64plus tracks of mixing, I'm not as worried about stems.

I have spent a little time looking at my partner's rig, and it seems very useful and intuitive for a lot of multitrack functions....Scrolling waveforms, good nondestructive editing, easy access to plug-ins, etc.....But I still only see it as an adjunct to the other tools, probably more for its auto-conform/OMF capabilities than anything else, and nothing, including Nuendo, is getting me excited about editing away from MicroEditor.

Therfore: FILE SHARING, FILE SHARING!

This is where everything is headed, and I'm probably more interested in loading files back and forth from the MX2424 then from Nuendo.

Could someone from MTU think about and address the several questions I raised a couple of replies up from this one? This is serious stuff, and I don't think it's necessarily that hard to address for someone who is better with code than I am.

Gary Boggess

October 1st, 2007, 07:57 PM

Hello Dave and Brian and all,

My question is:
I bought two MicroSound d/a converters on Ebay and they are in the smaller packaged boxes (about 7" X 2.75" X 10" size) Both seem in great shape.
The date on the inside circuit board is 1989.
I am writing to ask if these are compatible with the Krystal PCI card... via the DSP cable????????
Please make your response to my email: MIDIandSFX@aol.com

I've tried calling a number of times... keep getting the "you have reached the a-billing office" etc....

I bought (2) compatible computers as backups, one a 550MHZ for Microsync, and the other a 2.8GB clone of my newer system. And I bought (2) used Krystal PCI cards. My (2) original MicroSound systems are still working great.
With a couple hard drives, new WIN XP installs and RAM, I would have FOUR working MicroSound systems. And if the d/a converters work out it would be great.

A film I posted "Loren Cass" premiered at the Palms Casino in June 2007 at the CineFestival, in August 2007 at the Lecarno Film Festival in Switzerland. It got a great review in July's Variety and I was told many film people in Europe were impressed with the film's soundtrack = audio post work.
Go figure. I tell you... it's the MicroEditor. Editing sound for picture with my 3/4" video deck was a breeze, accurate, effiecient, fast, reliable and the end result was stellar. I still say... MTU was on the right track.

I'm probably one of the only studios left in the world who refuses to abandon MicroSound. I still love using it, and have found a way around every obstacle "progress" has thrown at it!!! I developed a protcol where ALL segments get ousted to .wav files. Firstly, its safer... and easier to backup files. Secondly, I then use Sound Forge to process the files with WAVES plugins and a zilliion other VST & Directx plugins. For reverbs, or ambience effects like delay or flangers and the like, I use ME's directx interface to access Sony's Acoustic Mirror program for KILLER reverb impulses I've collected of digital reverbs like the Lexicon's, and real ambient halls.
My clients are thrilled at the results. Many of my customers use Logic, Protools, Sonar, Cubase, and other software DAWs... but they are FLOORED when they see what I can do with the MicroSound.

OK... those "other" programs can import VST & DX plugins live right? Right.
But my clients have reported that many times past, they'd go back to the studio for a remix only to find out that their EFFECTS are missing, presets MISSING and their entire MIX IS A WASTED MESS. They way I use MicroSound, all of the EFFECTS ARE RECORDED AS .WAV FILES... so hence....
NO ONE THING GETS LOST EVER. Their in the folder. I can change the plugins and whatever... and their MIX stays locked. Believe it or not... my clients see that as a MAJOR BENEFIT. I would suppose the other systems "could" do that too... but, their users would likely consider it a pain. Sometimes, the obvious is obscured over by "progress."

Many of my clients leave the studio amazed at how much faster I can edit and mix compared to ProToys sessions they've had. But it's 2007 and although I do hear the noise in the jungle, as the restless natives are screaming: "buy ProToys... buy ProToys... buy ProToys... buy ProToys!!!" And alas.... I may have to surrender some day... but I'm bound and determined to have (4) working MICROSOUND SYSTEMS for every (1) ProToy I own!!!!!!! BeDang it! :g

Long live MicroEditor... the best DAW system ever.

geezer

October 1st, 2007, 10:02 PM

Gary Boggess

October 1st, 2007, 11:17 PM

Well, I'm glad things are working for you, but shortly after I posted on this thread above, I started another one that indicated some limitations I was having with Microsound when I wanted to work entirely in 24 bit......You know, I assume, that when you "save as .wav" in Microsound, you are saving as 16 bit, because that is all there was in .wav when the code was written.

I am happy that you are able to use the Direct X software in MTU, because I paid for it and could never get it to work, and received no support for it, despite my long time as a cheeleader and beta tester.

I will say that I was satisfied with all my projects that involved a final, straight 16bit master....The problem arose when I began comparing all my available methods of converting from 24bit to 16, and when I began examining all the available ways to export and import 24 bit files from MTU and back into MTU. The company also never responded to my interest in defining the files in such a way as to use the Broadcast Wave standard for import and export.

Before I began what became a very long and involved comparison of different file dithering methods and different software editing packages, I held MTUs non-dithering math as the pinnacle of converting 24 bits to 16 bit files for CD....and, indeed, it held up really well through a lot of the research process as the standard to which I compared everything else.......In the end, however, I found other methodology (using some very specific dithering inside of very specific software) to be superior in maintaining the depth, color and stereo soundstage of the original 24bit files.

Since I could not use the DirectX function in Microsound and could not readily import and export files to other software, I also felt I had to find new software, if that were indeed possible. I did find some things that were suitable and usable for some parts of my business, but which definitely did not sound as good, at least in their early iteration.....I ended up finding one product (and I'm sure there are plenty of others out there now) which did sound as good, if not better, and which ultimately wound up being even faster to use and more flexible: Wavelab. Once I figured out how to use it, the interface was remarkably similar in some ways to MTU's (even uses some of the same hot keys), and easier to organize.

..As a result, I have a couple of MTU systems (one including the 4 channel converters and I/O, if needed) that have been sitting on the shelf unused for several years. They are available for sale for any dedicated users.....These converters are all only 16bit, though........There are plenty of good quality 24bit converters out there now that should interface fine with the Krystal, but mine are available, too...

direct contact: mudsmith@earthlink.net

Good post! I have Wavelab 4.0, and I agree... it's pretty good... and you've made me look at it again because, I'm wondering... hmmm... you know... I never used it for ANYTHING except importing CD tracks!! :) :t :e :g !!!!!

What I like THE MOST about ME (MicroEditor) ... is the editorial inferface. Especially when used in the process of film audio post. But it's also a fantastic editor for music. I've tried other systems at other studios and I'm always eager to come home to MicroSound's sheer editorial PEACE and safety. I know I don't feel that way because I'm just used to it. I feel that way because it's just a great way to edit sound... any sound. I see all the bells and whistles on the other systems. But to me, editing and mixing is what ME does best. The effects are best done elsewhere... as I myself, rely on SoundForge for at least 50% of my vocal and special processing when I need to get specific. And for mastering... SoundForge is 100% the workhorse of choice.

Yes... I've found some of the options on MicroSound to be somewhat an obstacle course as compared to other programs. I will admit that I have found the entire 24bit deal a bit frustrating. I tried a few projects that way and as far as I'm concerned... it just isn't worth the trouble it causes. None of my clients want anything in 24 bit. When working on film... I worked 44.1 @16 bit. Why? Because while I'm importing hundreds of sound effects off of Sound Ideas and other libraries I can IMPORT right off the CD discs (via WAVELAB) into a folder, and import into MicroEditor without having to dither/convert Jack **it!

And as far as music. I've made my remarks at the Academy I often speak at. The labels can hardly sell a CD anymore. More and more music is selling to I-pods or free with all the online piracy schemes. So why bother with 24 bit... and then have to worry about dithering errors and degrading conversions to MP3's? I don't.

Firstly, my clientel moan and cry about every charge I write them... and they DO NOT want to pay the $25 I charge to BACKUP their projects to DVD's now. If I were burning 24bit, I have to add another $25 to cover my time burning twice the data... and then there's the time dithering to 16bit so they can have a couple copies to play for their girlfriends. Baloney!! I'm in agreement with Dave Cox... it's like "writing checks our ears can't cash." Yeah... I know... 24bit is better... cleaner... and it's HD. But the consumer will NEVER hear it! I have a $95,000 acoustically designed control room, with mirror image walls, floating walls and RTA flat response... and guess what?... the end user will never hear what I'm producing at 16bit 44.1Khz either!!!!

I'm happy with 16bit @44.1. It's more than 98% of the musicians I've ever worked with need, want or appreciate... and I'm talking about people who 15 years ago, didn't know what Dolby B or C or HXpro was when I asked which they preferred. I'd always get a big BLANK STARE that said... err what hugh?????

I don't mean to devalue your use and desire to work with 24bit. I'm just telling my experience with all this. I have a hard enough time keeping it profitable and efficient without adding my preferences for something that's NOT going to be appreciated anyway. And to cap it off, I'd rather invest time into the quality of the "material" and its artisic values... than worry about dithering squat. The probelm isn't the sound... it's the lack of good song writing, good concepts, decent budgets and musicianship or (in film) a dang script worth burning film on it. We're all recording clean crisp decent tracks... and for the most part... the reason why most of our productions stink is because of the talent and the writers. The other degrading factor I've been wrestling with in the last couple years is the idea that directors and musicians want the world for $69.95. And I'm not about to become the Earl Shieb of recording.

As for the FOUR channel I/O... I think I'd be interested and rather soon.... so if you want to pop me a asking price, MIDIandSFX@aol.com I'll give it thought. I have Krystal cards, so I'd need to know all was compatible. I just bought two MTU d/a converters off of Ebay for $9.95 each.

Yes... we've all encountered disappointments with MicroSound... and in the end... I still say... it's the best editorial tool I've seen... and at least for me, it has been extremely reliable. I only wish I could say the same for MicroSoft Windows XP Pro. The worst thing about all of it is Bill Gates.

www.boggessmusicandsound.com

Rich LePage

October 2nd, 2007, 09:57 AM

I agree with both of you, and us long-timers gotta keep in touch more often.
I for one also still use Medit nearly every day and find it my tool of choice for intensive editing. And we seem to do a lot of that!

Most of what we do continues as 44.1/16 bit, I've had nearly no situations where anyone has requested 24 bit audio. I never did get the Direct X part of Medit to work-- we tried many times with several versions, and it just did not work with any of the plug ins we tried it with.

Difference from Gary here is we don't use S/Forge for processing, instead Adobe Audition 2.0. It represents a pretty big re-design from 1.5, and though it sure can be a resource hog, it runs very intuitively. It's also very useful for restoration and similar work. The frequency/spectal editing parts of it often are useful in that. It's very handy too for compositing dialog music effects and then mixing to stems.

With some projects, I'll pre-edit in Medit and then build as multitrack in Audition. With others I just use it as a processing host and then take the stuff back to Medit for building etc.

Adobe is releasing Audition 3.0 which supposedly has some more improvements and hogs less resources, it will be shipping end of Oct.

I find Audition is a good host for the Waves and other Direct X and VST plug ins we use a lot - it also runs the Univ. Audio powered plugs well.

We have several 2 and 4 channel Medit systems. I only have one running on Win XP, the others all are still on Win ME or even Win98.

To accomodate the newer burners, I use MicroCD to create the master files but then Golden Hawk's CDRWIN to burn from. MicroCD always did use the Golden Hawk code, but DOS version.

However-- I think Golden Hawk may have just gone out of business! I ordered a renewal recently since they had a new Vista version of CDRWIN. The order did not process, and I tried calling them-- but the phone number is now someone else entirely not into audio! Sent several emails but no reply.

By the way, have had all sorts of trouble with MAM-A (form Mitsui) media past year or so. Where it used to be problem-free and consistent, no longer so. Though we still have hundreds of discs on hand, I doubt I'll buy more, have pretty much gone to Taiyo Yuden which seems more reliable. I check most anything leaving here on a Clover analyzer and with the MAM stuff, it's been very hit or miss. The distributor has said other clients have seen the same thing. And several replicators told me same thing too.

Gary, not sure about your tabletop modules and Krystal though I bet they would work. Scary though to try without word from MTU, since can't get the boards anymore. I think all that the rack mount did (if I remember right) was bundle the clock and I/O boards from the tabletop case into a rack mount module, with cables from the 1/8" mini jacks over to the XL's on the rack mount. I seem to remember converting one ages ago. But not certain!
I think the clock board was different from the 2 channel to the 4 channel versions too. But I hope MTU will get back to you with more definite word.

I have one Vista machine here (just recent, 32 bit version) and I wonder if Medit will run on that -- a lot seems NOT to run. Audition 2 does run, the new version claims it will be fully compatible. (currently it runs under Vista compat mode as an XP compliant program). The UA powered stuff does run, they have new software for it. But Waves -- NOT!! And they want you to buy their update plan just to get Vista compat. when they release it. (for the bundles we have, like $200+ a year for that). Not unreasonable I guess, but I think I'll wait on that one! Izotope Ozone DOES run (and they don't require that Ilok key either, you can authorize their stuff to a USB flash drive and go from system to system with it).

I have a Digidesign 002R interface that is seldom used. To be compatible with others, we set that up some time ago with ProTools LE -- which I nearly never use, though I upgraded it to version 7. I really don't like Pro Tools and will do most anything to NOT have to use it! (Spoiled by Medit, I guess!!)
Actually, it's on an AMD WinXP system that also has Medit on it. But you can't use 'em both at same time, there's a conflict. What I do is disable to Digi DAE engine in Device Manager and then Medit runs fine. For the rare time I need the Digi, I just re-enable it. Works, though you'd think it wouldn't.

So, when Digi gets Vista drivers, I'll likely use their box as an audio interface for the Vista machine - to run Audition. Either that or I'll just strip the Vista and put XP on it.

Quite a few of the Avid (Digi, M-Audio, et all) things don't support Vista currently. I'm also considering a Presonus Firepod.

But Medit still is my prime tool of choice for most of what we do. It's so intuitive and so fast to work with, and I continue to love it.

Hope you'll both stay in touch. My direct contact by the way is
richlepage@worldnet.att.net.

Best regards,

Rich

Gary Boggess

October 2nd, 2007, 11:43 AM

I'm open for a 2nd audio software alternative... but I just can't seem to feel sure about any direction.

My response (for safety) was to buy TWO backup PC computers off of Ebay. One PC is a motherboard and CPU CLONE of the last computer MTU made for me in 2005... a 2.8Ghz Intel cpu & board. The second, is a 550Mhz backup to my existing 233Mhz PC for my Microsync-based Microsound system that I use for soley for film audio posting. I also bought (2) extra Krystal cards off Ebay. All in all I can put together TWO more systems. Two FAST MicroSound systems for audio... and two slower "older PC" systems with MicroSync for film sound work.

MicroSync...
It was a painful SLAM in the gut (it felt lower) to me when the computer industry dropped the older I/O slots used by the MicroSync card, and thus adopting only PCI. I still think that if the industry wants to do this... then fine... but do it in such a way that the users can BUY interfacing to work around it. Insure backwards compatibility!!!!! You just don't leave people screwed out of their industry, their jobs, their work methods, their hardware investments and essential tools used for literal survival! I'm not a fan of Bill Gates for this very reason. I mean... hello!!!... we're all practically unwilling subsidiaries of MicroSoft as it is!!! And I resent being slammed into total obscurity & obsolescence by the mandates they author while hiding in their "safe sanctuary of isolation" provided by their monopoly over the entire world!!!!

ThIS iS CrAzy... but it works! :g
My original MicroSound DAW is a slower 233Mhz computer... and it's only used for sound effects design or film audio posting in sync with video, all because it hosts the MicroSync card. (I own two.)

You will find it interesting that I use the two working MTU computers NETWORKED. So that while I'm on the SLOW 233Mhz computer with MicroSync editing film sound, I can open and process .wav files across the network using the faster 2.8Ghz computer with SoundForge using all of the cool plug-ins. IT WORKS GREAT THIS WAY! Doing so, I find there's no real impact to being on the slower computer!!! The MicroSound performs MOST functions just as fast on either computer.

RE: MicroEditor & Drirect X Plug-ins...
Both of my working systems use the MicroEditor DirectX interface fairly well. Oh yes... there's a few plugins that don't work... but most do. I have a couple plugins that will only work WITH MicroEditor (one is Oberhiem OB-tune)... so what's up with that!!!!????:e :?

geezer

October 2nd, 2007, 02:50 PM

.....No way of knowing what's up with the Direct X since Dave and company never responded to my issues with it.

One of my two existent systems has the Microsync, too. I used it extensively on my first few years of posting projects for TV, which all involved analogue transfers. I stopped using it when Krystal happened, or rather it stopped being as useful if I was going directly I/O from Krystal via AES. I found out after questioning Dave extensively that Microsync is only reclocking the converters on the outboard I/O, so really is not chasing when you are using a digital interface.....In that sense, it is no more valuable than any of the better native time code interfaces which just jam sync. They and Microsync still provide a good time code lock as long as you have a good clock sync between time code or video from the video tape machine and the clock source for Microsound.

In fact, since Microsound does not have a dedicated word clock input, other devices (I have used the Rosendahl/Steinberg TimeLock Pro with Nuendo) provide you a much larger palette of syncing options with other, native systems. With a word clock input, a native card can stay reliably locked to a VHS tape via the Timelock Pro by just taking the video signal as the clock reference.....I posted a 90 minute show in Nuendo this way with a VHS HiFi work tape (time code on the right HiFi channel, scratch audio on the left), and things stayed locked for the whole show once the initial jam happened.....The true chasing of the analogue Microsync action is definitely cooler, but this, again, limits you to 16bit analogue land.

The reason I got so involved in the 24bit thing was that I mixed and/or conformed and mastered about 12 or 15 music concert DVDs with 5.1 and stereo mixes between 2000 and 2003 or so. The masters were delivered as 8 tracks of 24bit/48k audio (DA78). Microeditor was absolutely of no use on these projects, and only served as an ancillary CD mastering medium for a couple of them. Even track repairs I had to do on some of the projects could not be done easily in Microeditor without tedious transfer times and tricky hand placement of repaired tracks.....I spent years asking for the functions in Microeditor that would allow for utilizing it on these projects, and never got any action on these requests......I also never got a decent explanation of how to get tracks as files back into Microeditor (as Rich seems to be able to do) from anyone here.....perhaps that is only because I wanted to be able to do it at 24bits.

One other interesting other piece of rare MTU software I do have that was quite useful in my early posting experience with MicroEditor is "MicroEDL". I don't know that anyone but me ever used it. This was a program that Larry developed on my specs before leaving for greener pastures. This program would take a linear editor's ("C" format) text file for a 4-channel audio edit and apply it to a 4 channel project with time code in MicroEditor, which allowed me to take a 4 channel stream from an early Avid editor with all level edits removed and chop it up and remix it and edit it properly once the basic offline edit was done......I used that for sure on the Hollywood Blacklist thing that won the Emmy (not for sound, but for the show), and delivered the mix on DA88 to the post house without them ever touching it before it hit air.......So that allowed me a certain amount of compatabiltiy with old-style post houses and pre-5.1 mix needs.

But this was as far as MTU got, and I think that was around 1996 or 1997. Nuendo started early on with the capability for OMF file imports and exports and multitrack output (although flawed in its original implementation), and I had a lot more file compatabiltiy right at the start with video post people, who no longer wanted to deal with the time it takes to do a real time 4 channel output......I did have to buy other file translation software to make things totally right, but at least that was possible with the other programs. Nuendo originally did not sound as good as MicroEditor for sure, but Wavelab did (and Wavelab now does 8 channel i/O and DVD-A mastering), and Nuendo is probably in the same ballpark now, along with Audition and virtually everything else......The writing was on the wall in 2000 for me, and I had to jump ship once I found the workable alternatives.

The only software packages I have felt pretty strongly about the integrity of are Wavelab (single programmer, different from the Nuendo team) and Adobe Audition....perhaps because a former intern of mine is on the Audition team. I think things are probably better at Steinberg now since Yamaha bought them, though, and Cubase, their least expensive product, is preferred by many to be superior (and does, in fact, get the upgrades to its audio engine before Nuendo does)......I have heard very good things about the sonic quality of the Samplitude line of products, but have never directly used them.....In all my casting about, Wavelab always came up with the most intuitive interface (inside the Audio Montage section), with Adobe Audition running a close second for the multitrack programs.....There are plenty of people who like Cakewalk/Sonar, too. They all have their quirks, but are all more stable than they were in the early 2000s when I was researching things heavily.

I really resisted putting my Microeditor systems on the shelf, but did not really have a choice.

If any other old timers or new timers want to contact me directly for fun or profit or just plain geezer jawboning:

Jim Smith- mudsmith@earthlink.net

Rich LePage

October 2nd, 2007, 06:41 PM

You're right Jim about getting nowhere with the 24 bit. What I have done is bring in 16 bit SF files to Adobe as RAW digital audio (per their selection) and then do whatever to them, but I then write 'em out as 16 bit WAVs so they can go back to Medit.

I seldom even do that, it's a hassle and you have to remember which "Raw" variant to use --or play around with it till it works. Instead, I usually just do a first pass edit in Medit to pull any desired "good" stuff together, and save that stuff out as a 16 bit WAV. If there are multiple takes of good stuff that I want to carry through, I just save those out separately.

Then I move it to Audition if it needs more fine tuning and/or if I'm building a multitrack with the material. Its click removal tools and the freq. and spectral editing have been very helpful at times.

It also has reasonable automation, though it does have its downsides.
I have actually run that in version 2 with one of those cheap Behringer fader controllers. (in USB mode) Though not easy to implement (partic at the Behr end), it does work OK for fader levels, mutes and a few other basic things plus transport control. I'm sure it could do more, but I ain't a MIDI programmer. It's handy once in a while, but not a setup I use regularly that way.

Beyond that there are clip envelopes you can use quite effectively, for level and panning. They stay with each clip/segment unless you clear them. So does another basic way of setting level and pan in the multitrack. ("clip properties") The other automation does not really stay-- if you insert or delete time or content from the session, it messes that flavor of automation up. But with that style, you can automate much more than level and pan. I think I did it once to do some back/forth EQ moves. But you could easily do same thing by just splitting the stuff across checkerboarded tracks probably.
That's what I usually do -- in fact, spent all day today doing that with some stuff from Japan that was all over the place.

I mostly use the clip based envelopes, which are a little like MTU amp zones, though a little harder to use. I seem to find them easiest to use with a pen tablet though. I use Audition with both a Wacom tablet for my right hand (mouse and pen come with) and a Kensington trackball for my left hand. I'm right-handed, but ages back I got comfy using Medit with left hand for pointer operations, also using a Kensington ball. I'm actually faster that way in Medit than using a right handed ball or mouse or whatever. That way, right hand is for keyboard and in Medit, often for macro commands.

Dual monitors also helps Audition somewhat, you can have the mixer and/or the plug ins on one screen and the main project view on the other. I've been running it with 2 "wide" Benq 19" monitors when doing multitrack work. The Edit View simply winds up on 1 screen usually. You can save multiple screen setups in Audition also.

On dialog, I seem to be able to get out mouth clicks and also lessen plosives like popped Ps etc easier using Audition than what I used to do in Medit. But not always so. It's a "remove single click" routine that was in earlier versions, but did not seem to work as well -- or as fast -- as in Audition 2.0. And easy enough to undo if you took out too much, one click to undo (and multiple undo levels)

But sometimes Medit using 2 segs crossfaded does it fine too. For breaths I usually reduce or cut them in Medit, using a variety of macros. But they are not hard to do in Audition at all either. Often I re-pace a lot of dialog to make it fit hit points, or a music/effects bed, or just to make it flow better. Both Medit and Audition can do this well - though I suppose I'm faster still with Medit.

Audition's time squeeze (used sparingly, and you can set up constant or varying for all or part of a file) really saved a client with a project that just would not fit to the max CD length their replicator quoted of 76 minutes without them signing waivers in case it didn't play for end users. (which they wouldn't do since it was going out all over the world) I was able to get it down to about 75.20 without any bad artifacts/burbles by messing with it and doing in multiple sections. I was fairly impressed with that.

It's de-noising (template style like what Dave was doing) also seems to work
pretty well, used sparingly. The stuff I got in from Japan had various hum and junk in some of it, and I got it down quite a bit by using that sparingly. Also was able to retrieve some dialog a client recorded on a mini-recorder that I guess was in a purse or something and everything pretty crappy sounding. But in that case, even though it had some def. artifacts, at least you could make out what was being said (though I couldn't, it was in German!!)

You can output 32 bit files from Adobe, but I just looked in their "convert sample type" screen and there's no selection for 24 bit there, just 8/16/32.
The samp rate choices do also go out to 192K, but no 24 bit in there that I could find. There's also no option for 24 bits in the record screens.

Here's something interesting (to me at least): As a result of your post, I just
went and tried typing in 24 bits into the box that offers 8/16/32. This would convert (in theory) a 44.1/16 WAV file into 192K, 24 bit per what I selected. After several minutes of number crunching, scaling, pre and post filtering etc etc-- done at 32 bits -- it now says it made a 192K 24 bit file. Hmmmm. Gotta play with that one some more! Alas however, opening the "stats" on it sez it's 32 bits, not 24.... And it really maxed out the Vista dual core machine I've been playing with in running that.... its "performance" gauge was WAY up there, though it did it. Took maybe 3 minutes.

Geez- the source file I was fooling with (44/16) was 168MB, the resulting new file is 1.27GIGS.

However, they claim version 2 (and prob ver 3) DOES handle Broadcast WAV files. I've just never done it. Apparently by that (from the help) they are talking about saving and/or preserving any metadata in the file, they also can handle XMP, which the help sez is Extensible Metadata Platform. They also say it can use the embedded BWF timestamp to insert a file into their editor.
There are some commands for it and windows for inputting metadata.

Again, my only ref is Audition 2.0 though-- maybe version 3 expands the capabilities - will find out when it shows up. You could ask the guy who you used to work with more about the 24 bit situation, too.

Great that you both posted and will look fwd to hearing more from ya.
Hope all this helps. Audition isn't used much in the circles of folks I seem to run across, but it seems pretty good for what it does. I was worried Adobe was going to drop it- because even with version 2, a lot of their "suite" stuff like Bridge and Font Capture and Gamma get installed. But now they seem to be leaning to developing it more -- as a stand-alone, non-suite product.
Some of the other stuff it installs def. slows the machine down - but I used something called Startup Commander in XP to tweak what starts with Windows and what doesn't load and that seemed to help a lot. But version 3 claims it will hog less resources too - we'll see.

Rich

geezer

October 2nd, 2007, 07:48 PM

Well I was rooting around in my barn today because I'm transferring all my gear into the new building my wife and I bought (her store is downstairs, and just opened, so I can start doing my rooms upstairs now). I discovered, and remembered, that I actually still have 2 of the 4 channel I/Os, plus the tabletop. Also, I got the tabletop with a used Krystal rig I bought, and it does interface with it just fine....The one I got supposedly had some sort of upgrade done to the converters, I think, but who knows. The 4 channel interfaces with Krystal, for sure.....I used it that way for years. The second 4 channel unit came with the third machine I had, but I just remembered that I sold the card to Geg Hopkins a while back....He did not want the I/O.

Wavelab (I'm currently using 5 and will get 6 soon) is a very quick transition from Medit, and, as I've said, is probably faster. The same kind of unlimited, non destructive, unfettered editing is the name of the game, with the addition of having full time, accurate waveforms to work with that even respond to the results of overlapping segments in a very useful way....The addition of the "track lanes" just ends up giving you another organizational tool and doesn't lay any of the limitations of a lot of the multitrack programs on you. Because of the tracks and the free overlapping on them, I usually end up with a lot less segments (called "clips" in Wavelab) stacked up to get a similar complexity that I would get in Medit....It is simply easier to stay organized in Wavelab......Wavelab's volume envelope is very nifty, too: you can create an unlimited number of adjustment points within a clip, and this is a lot easier and more fluid than Medit's similar function. I end up having to split clips less, and can create much more elegant crossfades between clips as well.....This all became more clear when I realized I could disable a lot of the automatic crossfading functions available in Wavelab and work in the more deliberate fashion I am used to.....The built-in CD mastering and burning program is way beyond Medit's, as well, and super easy to use.

Like all the other native programs, you don't get that instant 40db of gain that you get in Medit (only 6 db without processing), but this has not slowed me down any......All in all, it only took me a few days to become totally comfortable and fast in it while applying the same working methods I used in Medit. The transition was so easy that I really didn't learn a lot of the functions for a very long time.......As I have said before, the key was realizing that all the good action was in the "Audio Montage" area of the program, which the manual did not emphasize....Once I realized that that was the ticket, it was smooth sailing.

As far as the 16/24 bit and higher sampling rate thing: I can tell you that my CD masters these days that are mixed at 24 bits on a mixer that is fully 96k capable, whether I mix them at the higher sampling rate or not, are definitely better sounding than the stuff I was mixing and mastering before. The earlier stuff, though good sounding, sounds a little band-limited to me now....This extra range even translates down to the MP3s.....I will add, however, that things are sometimes tougher to control with this hugely dynamic and extended range medium....There are times I wish I was still mixing on the original O2R, even if the high end wasn't as pretty or extended....It was easier......I just hear everything now, and that sometimes leads to great anguish. The albums that sounded good on the O2R still sound good, so.....On the other hand, some of the work I have done has only started to sound really good when I have actually mixed it analogue in and out at 96k (using external converters to get it back down to 44.1). The DM2000 really kind of sounds like a big, expensive analogue console when you do this at times.....I never know what is going to sound best....I sort of hate having so many choices to make now.....This "all analogue, but digital" choice does seem to round off some of the extreme dynamic spikes, however, and make things easier for some projects.....It works differently for different recorders and different converters.....too many choices....

Although I own Audition (2.5?), I haven't really used it much.....similarly, I upgraded to Nuendo 3, but have really only used it to organize Pro Tools HD files for my MX2424s, which was pretty simple, intuitive and fast with 3 hours of 32 track studio recordings. I did have an interesting experience with N3 when I put those files together for the MXs: Nuendo converted them to 32bit, I think, which made them sound pretty odd on the MX.....I was able to just substitute the orignal PTHD 24bit BroadcastWave files into the appropriate folder, and all things were put right again......I've also mastered really good sounding albums recently that were recorded entirely in Cubase on a Mac laptop....Too much

Perhaps the most interesting piece of newer gear in my rig is the Alesis HD24XR....Cheap as dirt, simple as all get out, uses cheap IDE drives, but the converters on the XR sound pretty good (better than the standard unit)....I recorded my son's Death Metal band on it, and coming out of it analogue into the DM2000 at the normal (44.1) sample rate really kicked ass. I'm still kind of shocked, to tell you the truth. It's really funny how different sets of converters and recorders manage to sound......Interesting thing about this unit is that there is a Yahoo users' group where a third party donation-ware software interface has appeared that allows great, easy transfers of the proprietary file format into .wav or .aif into ye olde computer.....Although it is clear that there will never be any upgrades, there are tons of these things out there, and they work, and they are still making them.

Anyway, there sure is a lot to work with out there today.....and I'm still willing to get off my MTU stuff....make me an offer.

js

Rich LePage

October 3rd, 2007, 09:03 AM

Excellent stuff from Jim, as always.

And I totally agree about the converters being a huge diff too. It's amazing how different in fact, from mediocre to really good - and more money does not necessarily mean better either.

Very interesting about the Alesis, something I will also check out as a unit like that might be useful at times around here. I never went down that partic. road when Mackie and others were making similar units.

I will have to give Wavelab another demo based on his notes. As for Audition, a new Mix magazine showed up yesterday and there's a brief review of Audition in there which seemed to mention many of the same things I posted.
Audition has built in CD burning too, but I've never used it, preferring to stick with the MTU and Golden Hawk combo since that has worked really well for us for a long time. But if Golden Hawk is now gone, I might have to look for future at other stuff.

Geezer and I both have discussed differences we've noted between discs and recorders as well.

Geg Hopkins? Gosh, there's a name have not heard in years-- he used to post here a LOT!

Likely Gary will want to offer for Geezer's MTU stuff. But if he's not interested, I might be. We have a lot of it but I guess never hurts to have a few more spares if price is right. Heck I have even some of the pre-Krystal boards packed up someplace around here!

Hope you are both well and good luck with the new building Jim. Sounds like a lot of space- terrific!

Rich

admin

October 3rd, 2007, 11:47 AM

GaryB, the I/O Module cable is identical for the "Tabletop" and "Rack mount" I/O Modules; i.e. it'll work.

I'm sorry I wasn't available to talk when you called. My wife's step-father had just had a stroke and she is up there helping him and her mother. She is an MTU employee and I have had to carry her ball also.

Jim, I don't want to start a word war cause I don't have the time, but you forgot how much time we spent trying to go to the 24-bit wave format. Chas Lawson was the main pusher on that as I recall. He's the initiator of this thread... about National Symphony Orchestra. The 24-bit SF format didn't work on many of the tests we ran. We had part of it, but the rest and interfacing with other gear wouldn't fall in line. With all we had on our platter, and Larry leaving (for lower pay I might add, but more status/security his wife needed), we simply couldn't finish it.

The real killer was Motorola. They lied to us... point blank! Eight months after they made firm 5+ year commitments to us (7 people heard the phone conversation), they discontinued the 56401 digital I/O, which also happened to be the clock generator for Krystal. They also dropped the Variactor diode that we used to do the magic in Microsync to lock to a +/-50% sync range. No other product even came close... +/- 12% was the best I ever saw advertised for anything else.

Had Motorola not pulled the rug out from under us, I would have considered keeping Medit going. Larry and I did discuss porting over to another 56301 card. We all knew Medit was GREAT... you guys helped us polish it. But we were just too far ahead of the time to win. Syntrillium and Sonic Foundry were "marketable" and were sold. MTU was considered for a short while by Sony, but not formally. Now our pioneering work is being adopted by others.

With Krystal production limited to the 400 56401 chips we bought (and 800 Variactor also), we had a limit on our lifetime. When the market shifted to software only taking a lot more market share, there was no sense in continuing pushing a dying horse. I paid the license for John LaGrou's POWr dithering, but we didn't have the staff to integrate it. He also never told me his was better than Medit's. Thus, it would have been for you, Chas and a limited few who needed the "prestige" of POW-r versus just as good home-grown Medit.

There was a LOT we invested in trying to attain 24-bit, but it was all futile. I hope now you will be a bit more positive. There's no need for sour grapes at this late date. After all, you were one of the main external "developers" on our team. If we had unlimited financial resources, things may have turned out differently. Also, in 2002 my now-ex wife demanded a divorce. Talk about trying to keep your head up and still breathe. MTU did survive, but we had to take a hard look at Medit, and it was just too much to try to convert to Software-only - sans Krystal. Sigh.....

Great to hear from you all you guys. I miss all of you and the great discourses we had in the past, and the fantastic energy of developing and polishing Medit to be what it was.

BTW: We have the best Vocal Remover available... to our knowledge anyway. It can even remove non-center panned vocals and instruments, and retain Low and High frequency music panned the same as the vocals. Really cool. Try the Vogone demo. :)

geezer

October 3rd, 2007, 11:36 PM

You know very well that I have zero sour grapes about the whole death of Microeditor saga....I was clear about what I thought was needed from the beginning, and got back whatever information I got back....then I went on my way, and have continued to reply to posts here and give information about what I am doing to other users so they can make use of it in the event it would help them....

No anger. No sour grapes. Simple, scientific realism. I waited until the last possible moment to jump ship, really, always hoping that some of my requests would bear fruit. To that end, I made an effort to restate my requests and concerns in a more elegant and direct fashion continually. This particular thread, which currently spans 8 years, clearly documents some of those concerns and requests.

I knew before the start of this thread that Larry's leaving, Motorola's lack of support and honesty- along with the financial issues dogging the company- had all conspired to keep you from the path you had set out so resolutely to follow in the beginning. That path, as I have stated many times, was the gold standard by which I judged all other software/hardware combos.

We are way beyond the need to be worrying about negativity, I think.....You know, I just wrote another magazine article (for Radio Magazine) last April in which I, again, laid out the saga of my own DAW journey and stated again for all to see how incredible the longevity of Microeditor was for me, and how unusual it was in this business.....I was describing the state of the whole DAW business for the radio crowd, and Microeditor was, as always, the pivotal system by which all before and after were measured.

In other words, despite the fact that I no longer use my MicroSound systems, your legacy and legend are intact........Those of us who are so attached to that legacy just need some friendly help in translating our work habits and needs to other systems that are more connected to the current workplace. That is all that is going on here. The memories are still fond. The reality is still what it is.

clawson

October 4th, 2007, 07:11 AM

Hi, all!

I still use Microeditor on a daily basis for NSO and my radio work. I must use other packages as well to have a complete box of tools to accomplish all my goals, but MTU still gets the lion's share of my daily work. (One of the producers at WETA absolutely refuses to use anything else...until all the hardware ultimately dies, anyway.)

Dave writes:
Jim, I don't want to start a word war cause I don't have the time, but you forgot how much time we spent trying to go to the 24-bit wave format. Chas Lawson was the main pusher on that as I recall. He's the initiator of this thread... about National Symphony Orchestra. The 24-bit SF format didn't work on many of the tests we ran. We had part of it, but the rest and interfacing with other gear wouldn't fall in line.

It was the industry, not I particularly, who was pushing for 24-bit. For classical music, 24-bit is the minimum required to handle the music. It's just physics. Without 24-bit, I would have been forced to abandon MTU a long time ago. (However, even MTU at straight 16-bit is still a remarkable sounding system...besting some of the other products found in many big studios today.)

I was able to import/export MTU 24-bit files with other programs pretty handily thanks to Larry having written the format according to IEEE standards. This allows me the editing freedom of MTU bundled with the processing available in other systems. (I have described the steps in one or more of the threads here. It's not hard to do.)

I am not bitter about how things worked out—just disappointed that MTU wasn't able to rule the industry way back when. Other programs are just now catching up to what Dave and company had mastered in the late 80s/early 90s. We can't always get what we want.

Gotta run back to the Kennedy Center now. More later if I can manage it...

Best to all,

Chas.

Gary Boggess

October 4th, 2007, 09:30 AM

What a wonderful collection of posts! Dave Cox and MTU should be proud of their diversity and intelligence of his past users.

MicroSound still produces the 90% of my business.
www.boggessmusicandsound.com

And I have kept crossing fingers that MTU would somehow get inspired, pick up the valuable remnants of MicroSound and develop the next generation DAW... the MicroSound Hal-9000 (tm). :g

I too have had to jump into other fomats. SoundForge, Wavelab, Cubase, Acid, Vegas Video 6.0 and nearly 40 other audio tools have been installed on my computer for years now. I have an Emu 0404 PCI audio card with ASIO installed right next to Krystal. Collectively, these programs and utilities give me all of the functions & tools I need. Yet... MicroEditor is the absolute pinnacle of what editing mixing sound should be... and so, that's it's job in my facility... which is the most important job as far as music and film sound go.
Many of my clients understand MicroSound to be the most valuable asset to their productions. They know all about ProToys. That's why they're my clients!

Rich LePage

October 4th, 2007, 10:31 AM

I'll echo Gary that Medit is still a very big part of just about everything we do - whether for the intial record or the final master. I've just changed some of the stuff in between-- mostly to use plug ins and/or do things that were either more difficult or just not possible in Medit due to where it left off after the Motorola debacle.

But Medit is my #1 "no problem solution" to many things, even though it means having to do some workarounds at times to keep using it in what we do. The advantages to me seem to far outweigh the downsides for a lot of projects we seem to get.

Sad about the 24 bits of course. That would have made it even more useful and more longevity.

Can also echo Gary's comments about clients and Pro Tools. Many people I work with are amazed by the results we get - and most of my competitors are pretty much all-Digi, all the time. Clients often rave about the quality of our work versus some others, and also how quickly we can often get their stuff done. One of our biggest "selling points" for ages has been often exceeding the client's expectations by a considerable margin and MTU has played a very big role in that for a heck of a long time.

geezer

October 4th, 2007, 12:17 PM

....This is one of those great communication errors that have plagued our interactions with MTU and each other, for whatever reason, during our struggles to integrate the product into our workplace over the last few years.

Medit does not, of course, export 24bit .wav files. When I asked for that specific process to be included, along with the Broadcast Wave timestamp if at all possible (and sent in examples of Broadcast Wave files), I heard nothing back, though Dave may have been working on this independently with others for all I know.

Charles and others have successfully been taking 24bit .sf files and using them in other programs. Charles specifically (anyone else?) has also managed to bring those processed files back into Medit. I do remember his original post describing the process in broad terms (must have been around 2001), but could never find it again when going through the forum. Requests by me on the forum to clarify or restate this process went unanswered......As I was explicitly stating then that this was the key to my being able to continue using Medit, I was always surprised that there was no response.....In the end, I assumed that perhaps this transfer back in was probably not so easy, else why would MTU not give pointers for all to keep its system integrated into the workplace?

So, hear again is the call to both the company and the codgerly old user's group: If you successfully transfer 24bit files out into other programs, then back into Medit, list the steps for all to see here.....Heck, I might even turn my machines back on now and then if this were once and for all made clear to me.

This has always been the key to extended longevity for Medit. Broadcast Wave with integrated time stamp could have added another 10 years beyond what this would do.

Gary Boggess

October 4th, 2007, 01:02 PM

I've tried ME's 24 bit recording... but being that you can export a mix or edit to anything but a .Sf file... I don't see the point if you can't deliver product to a format that's common.

I've tried importing .sf and .sf2 files into Wavelab 4.0 and SoundForge, but no dice. I even tried renaming the .sf to .raw and other .___ ... and still nothing.

With my Emu 0404 I can record up to 24bit at 196K sampling rate... but, I don't. Until I have clients standing there asking for it... I simply default to 16bit @44.1K.

Maybe the new MicroSound Model Hal-9000 will feature all of the bit rates, sampling rates and wave formats! :c

Rich LePage

October 4th, 2007, 01:14 PM

That HAL9000 thing must give Dave a laugh, I think his original
partner was a guy named.... HAL!

I posted what I could find about 24 bit and Adobe, though I will try playing
some more with making up some MTU 24 bit SFs and taking them into
Adobe and see. If anything meaningful results, I'll post it.

Back to work here repurposing some stuff I did back in Medit in 2001,
in fact some during an aborted session on 9/11 that was in a studio
pretty near the former World Trade Center. Scary to go back to that time indeed.

clawson

October 4th, 2007, 01:53 PM

Forgive me, Geezer (!) and others if I didn't answer something you had asked years ago. I will re-post a procedure here as soon as I get the chance. The key thing to do is let the importer know that you're working with an IEEE file in a specific format (details escape me at this instant). Then, after you do whatever processing in whatever other program, export in the same format WITH NO HEADER CHANGES! If the headers get changed in any way, Microeditor will reject the file. (I once had to go into a file with a hex editor to make it usable again after I had not been careful in this regard.)

It's a busy week for me and I may not have time for further postings until the weekend.

Anyway, it's great to see so many users here and still active.

Thanks for waking up the list!

Chas.

admin

October 4th, 2007, 07:24 PM

You know very well that I have zero sour grapes about the whole death of Microeditor saga....I was clear about what I thought was needed from the beginning, and got back whatever information I got back....then I went on my way, and have continued to reply to posts here and give information about what I am doing to other users so they can make use of it in the event it would help them....

No anger. No sour grapes. Simple, scientific realism. I waited until the last possible moment to jump ship, really, always hoping that some of my requests would bear fruit. To that end, I made an effort to restate my requests and concerns in a more elegant and direct fashion continually. This particular thread, which currently spans 8 years, clearly documents some of those concerns and requests.
Jim, I apologize. :s

I'm a product developer, not an audio engineer. Sometimes you just left me in the dust and I or Larry or Elliot couldn't understand your requests. What else can I say... I'm sorry... :s

I'm listening here very carefully. Just today, David Clark, our current SW guru, and I were talking about getting Ricardo to revive DNoise including a graphic editor window for the template. When I look at our web site traffic, it is incredible that DNoise has so many visitors after being dead for so many years.

If there was a way we could revive Microeditor as software only, building on what is now readily available hardware, I'd consider it if we could set a price on it that we didn't loose our shirts. When I try to think about an "editor" for $99 or less, I'm left cold and disinterested. Is there a market we could reach in the $1,000+ range?

What if... we could resurrect Medit as is being described here? Is there enough market for us to garner a share somewhere?

We're seeing the handwriting on the wall for Karaoke CD+Graphics discs. The publishers hate the Karaoke Producers and no one can get digital download rights. It looks like VCD and DVD are going to replace CDG. That's why we've made investments and major advances in vocal removal.

All I can say is I'm hearing a very solid cadre of users who maybe I need to listen closer to... again.

Am I nuts? :?

Gary Boggess

October 4th, 2007, 08:27 PM

Hmmmm...

What do I know? Not much... especially about software programming.

I know this: The ease and straight forward creative process that ME allows is incredible. Oh sure, I can think of a hundred improvements. One came up in a discussion the other day, I.E. it would be nice if ME allowed for "GRAPHIC COMBINING" of grouped segments graphically, and not requiring an actual writing them to disk. Just to help keep the screen cleaned up easily in projects that have X amount of segments.

There's many improvements to be considered... but what I know the best is that ME allows for a tremendous freedom while editing and putting things together. To me, that's is the greatest strength a creator in the music and film sound medium could ask for. ME is a superb manipulator of sound materials. And while I've tried several other systems... I can easily say ME is the best system for EDITING and putting things together. It's also a powerful sound mixing device... only lacking in full implementation of VST and DIRECTX plugins operational LIVE during the mixing process.

Frankly, TO me personally, ME's greatest value and strength is in EDITING and MIXING. For mastering and other specialized processes, I honestly don't mind whatsoever doing those things in Wavelab or SoundForge.

The only buggaboo IS that ME won't allow a 24 bit EXPORT to .wav or .aif or other formats.

Too, for those with Andromedian (alien grey) bandwidth for hearing, I suppose ME should be able to record at 196Khz too.

And if using 3rd party hardware is a possibility, then I'd say ME should have a set of drivers that accommodate all or most of the audio cards and external boxes... INCLUDING PROTOYS!

And too, a new ME should be able to carry 512 I/O's without a hiccup.

As far as ME becoming the BEST audio program, I say, stop. We already HAVE tremendous DO EVERYTHING programs. FEATURES ARE NOT WHY I PREFER MICROEDITOR!

It's all about the sheer sensibility and power of ME's editing and mixing interface!! I'd say, an upgrade to ME's formats and integration would be great stuff... but ME should be ALL ABOUT EDITING & MIXING.

If there's ONE thing the other programs lack and seem to be even lame at doing, it's firstly EDITING... and secondly MIXING.

ME's complete departure from being analogous to TAPE & REEL recorders and MIXING CONSOLES is what makes MicroSound a superb... if not the ULTIMATE tool... for assembly and creative stacking, and mixing of music & sound.

I can attest, that the editing capabilities in audio post for film are extremely sensible and powerful RIGHT NOW WITHOUT AN UPGRADING!

Last year, I did audio posting for a 90 minute feature film titled Loren Cass. There was very little "on the set" production sound available, since there was very little dialog. So, I decided to recreate all of the background sounds for the entire film. I also rebuilt (from scratch), ALL of the Foley sound, walking, cloth, and props effects. Each scene features sound recreated FROM SCRATCH!! I produced highly detailed sound effects & design, and I edited the dialog and music and mixed the entire film, all while in sync with a 3/4" Sony U-Matic video deck. The results were a flawless audio soundtrack that will be my calling card for years to come. I was told that many film people in Europe noticed the soundtrack's subtleties and over all quality... and asked about it.

* If revived, MicroEditor should emerge as the premium best & ultimate EDITOR...

* I'd say, GO FOR THE FILMMAKERS' NEXT AUDIO EDITORIAL STANDARD.

* Incorporate the best 7.1 surround encoding and decoding...

* Develop the ultimate film audio post editorial utilities possible.

If this happened, music clients would be automatic.

Film is where the envelope for new tools and TECHNIQUES are being tested and challenged.

Also, incorporating an advance interface for editing TO AVI or MPEG video would be an advantage, since most all of the audio programs that allow you to edit audio TO PICTURE are so tedious and frustrating, that editing to
15 year U-matic tape (the way I do) seems like a trick of genius!

Reliable software DAWS for film are few... and if my ProToy HD3 friends frustrations mean anything... there's ROOM for improvement. WIN over enough of the film editing crowd... and winning music people will be automatic.

I stand by this one concept: WE DO NOT NEED MORE FEATURES than what's already being offered by all the other programs.

WE DO NEED A POWERFUL EDITORIAL DAW... and yes... that would mean things like EDL, and other tools that enable importing from OTHER formats and "popular or standard" protocols in the field.

Anything NEW from ME should not compromise the strengths ME already has... but it should OPEN THE VAULT on being able to INTERFACE and PULL as many FORMATS & EXISTING markets together as is possible.

Position ME in the middle of the workforce and make it the SUPERVISORY & UPPER MANAGEMENT amidst the existing DAW forces. Make ME the boss.

HAL... bring me wine and cheese... now!! :c

Gary Boggess

October 4th, 2007, 09:08 PM

Why not a $1250 - $2500 program?

The Krystal cards were expensive.

IF the new MicroSound HAL9000 could interface with 75% of the PCI and external USB or firewire sound cards... and provide all of the features I mentioned above PLUS provide a true middle ground between the other programs and systems... then it would be worth every dollar.

If a person buys MTU's MicroEditor, they shouldn't have to replace their hardware. If that could be made a well known fact, it would change everything. ME would emerge as a format peacemaker... allowing all manufactures to keep their strongholds... yet through ME, tie everything together. ME isn't trying to REPLACE other formats or programs... but enhance them with what it does best... ASSEMBLE, EDIT & MIX. The other software companies each do something uniquely well... so why not ME?

Why not? The real question is, could ME do all of this using 3rd partly hardware... and maybe IMPROVE or at least maintain a enhancing or positive control over the net sonic quality??

Umm... HAL... I don't like Chablis... I prefer Merlot. Thanks.

Gary Boggess

October 4th, 2007, 09:59 PM

No Dave... but I am! :t

geezer

October 5th, 2007, 09:37 AM

What should it cost? Is it marketable?

The problem is, in my viewpoint, that Wavelab and Cubase exist. Wavelab, even in the latest (V6) iteration, only costs about $500-$600. Cubase, the "baby brother" to Nuendo (which costs approx. $1,500.), costs about $450-$500, and "LE" versions of Cubase are almost free (as with Apple Logic).

Wavelab= free form editing for stereo up to 8 channel audio with every single capability that Microeditor has, plus all the plug-in availabilty, full time accurate waveform display, better CD mastering with CD text, CD mixed media and DVD-A capability.....Very good sounding. The 64 bit version of Wavelab is the audio engine and interface for the highly respected mastering tool Audio Cube.

Cubase= full multitrack studio capability with all the file management, editing, plug-in, mixing, monitoring etc. capabilities of Nuendo, and only minor reductions in the multimedia functions of Nuendo...though neither has CD burning capabilities. Good sounding, though it suffers from the same stereo buss problems that all the "mixing in the box" programs suffer from (see more about this below), though this doesn't seem to be stopping people from making really good sounding albums totally inside Cubase, and Nuendo is a major film tool these days.

.....There is also Adobe Audition, which sounds quite good and costs possibly half the price of Cubase!....with most of the same capabilities plus CD burning.

-----The stereo buss problem: All the "studio in a box" native multitrack programs seem to suffer from at least a 1 or 2 bit loss at the stereo mixdown buss....This is the real downside to the native multitrack programs (but does not seem to be an issue with Wavelab, as far as I can tell at this point), and probably has something to do with the lack of big accumulators on the output stage, I would guess. In any case, the folks with serious good ears come out of these programs into analogue or digital mixers via the program's multitrack busses in order to achieve the summing to stereo for the final mix......MTU, as a non-native system of elegant design, never had this problem and was way ahead of the curve in this regard compared to the other hardware companies.....Of course, most of the curve has been caught up with at this point by most folks one way or another.

So, the question is: Can MTU come up with a new hardware package with affordable research (I'm actually assuming this is not an option), or can it convert its elegant math that currently uses hardware to a new and competitive native solution? This seems like a tough row to hoe to me, but I have no idea what the company's outlook or programming capabilities are, and I don't know how much of MTU's math/code was dependent on the Motorola hardware......In any case, there is so much out there now that functions either pretty well or really well, does MTU have the resources and resolve to catch up?....Some of this modern functionality is actually a plus, because it means that there is code that is readily available for use (EDL translation, for instance).

Perhaps there is an interim third option that would see an attempt to integrate some of the file sharing solutions so obviously needed while looking down the road to see what impact this would have on a more long range solution......I know the market is really cost-driven these days, even for old farts like me, so you have to carefully consider your game plan, I would think.

-----And as far as Dnoise: Just like with the DirectX interface, I could never get the new version of it to work at all. The original, slow DOS version achieved some brilliant things for me, but took a lifetime to compute and test. The new Windows interface only crashed or produced garbage for me. I don't know why, and stopped asking since I had some pretty good noise removal tools in other software which did not cost a whole lot.

Don't know if any of these ramblings are helpful to you, but those are my thoughts on the subject as of now.

geezer

October 5th, 2007, 10:19 AM

When I stopped off the summit of Medit and contemplated the void of other programs 6 or 7 years ago, I ran smack dab into the whole, knotty issue of both I/O hardware and computer integration.....There is, luckily, some forum, blog and FAQ kind of guidance for this sort of thing, because not a single company offers real support anymore for anything.

Seven years later, I would have to say that I have found a lot out, but do not feel that things are totally predictable and stable all the time. Some cards do seem to sound remarkably better than others, while many qualitative performance aspects seem to be simply a matter of the random combination of different elements in the system.

This phenomenon raises 2 very important issues:

1)Hardware compatabilty with native systems----Simple operational compatabilty is not enough. MTU will have to make sure that I/O cards operate with the right kind of audio integrity.

2)Instability of digital systems in general:

This kind of uncertainty is probably why some people opt for the expensive PT system, and it is certainly why I do not "mix in the box" for my multitrack projects.....Also, while this causes me to miss the reliability and simplicity of the pre-integrated MTU system, I don't think everything I am hearing is simply a result of bad integration.

When I upgraded to my DM2000 console, I started hearing things in the audio that I had never heard before when I made minor changes in installed cards or word clock syncing methodology. After literally months of A-B testing, I was able to prove to my vendor and Yamaha that certain issues existed with the console, which they repaired. Several years down the road, however, I have realized that the introduction of the console with its totally 96k capable audio path and converters was allowing me to hear a much better defined picture of what small amounts of jitter were doing when introduced into this complex, multipath digital audio situation.

Once I heard this, I could not stop hearing it. I have developed, as a result, a whole new set of working methods for I/O between my various pieces of gear, and a whole new set of rules for syncing. I have been told repeatedly that I am nuts about some of these rules, but I can prove, at least in my situation, that they make a difference......

What does this have to do with Microeditor? All I can say is that, when working constantly at high bit rates with converters attached that can convert high sampling rates, there is so much more detail available in the audio that one really has to pay attention to the integrity of syncing and the variations in jitter if one wants the audio to remain stable sonically.....We used to always say "once its digital, its digital", meaning that, if we kept it digital, we wouldn't have to worry about it any more. As far as I can tell, that is simply not true.

One of the implications, in fact, for this revelation is that a system with strong internal clocking and a totally analogue I/O can have some advantages these days!......I wish it was that simple, however. All I know is that I will go through checking multiple I/O and syncing methods at the start of any new multitrack mixing project before settling on which one "sounds best"........Perhaps this is why so many people are actually "mixing in the box"...They are keeping their situation stable by importing files and bypassing the I/O and syncing issues more or less completely....then just working with the same situation over and over......Too many possibilities and too much of a moving target are the real curses of the digital age.

Rich LePage

October 5th, 2007, 10:45 AM

Well, likely your common driver set would be ASIO these days unless something else is gonna supercede that.

In theory that allows a lot of stuff to work with each other, and the good part is that generally the hardware mfg has to write the drivers for their particular box- and (hopefully....) update them as new things like Vista come along. Just look at the big variety of F/wire, USB2, and PCI and other interfaces out there today. Most talk to the software via ASIO drivers though lower end stuff tends to run with "Windows Sound" only. Some can handle both.

One place to get familiar with what's around would be:
www.americanmusical.com
or same guy's other site which is:
www.zzounds.com
They have links to various mfgs there too usually on the product pages. This is same guy who also used to have Victors that I tried years ago to put Dave together with. They sold Victors to Guitar Center but he kept the 2 internet businesses which are very large, he's like the 3rd or 4th largest seller of most things he carries.

The price point for most of the more comprehensive programs around seems to fall anywhere from say $400 up (software only) so there is a lot of room depending on what it does and how you can sell folks on the perception it will do that better than other products. Bundled hardware/software solutions go for more of course, such as Digi -- though after they bought M-Audio and other companies, they now seem to offer something at just about any price point. Their web site has an overview. The logic of that approach for a marketer is obvious, though only a big player with lotsa $ can do that now I think. It's the "oh you want THAT? Sure, just send this much money(and maybe your old unit)" approach.

It's def become a list/street price situation too. Resellers are very big in this stuff, the larger ones include the 2 above plus folks like Sweetwater, Full Compass, BSW, others. And.. of course.. the 20 ton gorilla-- Guitar Center and its various divisions (at the high end, GC Pro). Pricing follows the MI (musical instrument) model often, and buyers expect big discounts off inflated list prices, and resellers expect good margins too. They won't feature (often won't stock either!) anything w/o that -- and they want all sorts of other sales incentives like co-op ad money too. It's not unlike supermarkets who get paid by manufacturers for their shelf space, product placement and promotion - or the car sales business!

Only the very high end still works a little differently. A few companies like Apogee, Empirical Labs, Massenburg, John La Grou and others can counter the "box-sell" model but even there I think they have to do same types of things at times. John would obviously know more about that. But in that world, it's always hardware or hardware/software-- it's what makes 'em different. And they usually have networks of reps who add a layer of cost to the equation, though often can provide some value if they are good.

So to be software only and to be able to run on a variety of platforms, you would likely have to fall into the lower price point area - again maybe around $400 street price. And upgrades to signif new versions for much less.
With Audition, I think the Adobe Direct price for the full version is $349 plus shipping, but Amazon and others sell it for a bit less with free shipping. The upgrade price (for users of ANY previous version) is $99. They also make a more basic product called Sound Booth, which is something completely different, and that sells direct for $199, again avail through many resellers.
Most of course also do the "educational software" thing too - that's become pretty established now.

Another thing to look at for what you mention about de-noise might be to develop it as a plug in or something that can run in other hosts. Direct X is still used, but seems not the more preferred format these days, it's moved more to VST, VSTi for "virtual instruments" and something called AU (audio unit) that I have not messed with. A few companies go a different road, like Universal Audio with their proprietary format that will only run on their own DSP boards, which they make as PCI and PCIe, also in some outboard configurations. www.uaudio.com. It will run however on many hosts, and I think currently under VST only, though older versions also ran Direct X.
It even runs on some hosts they don't officially support, like earlier versions of Adobe Audition (I've run it under version 1.5 which they don't support)

But they sell their stuff through the same MI channel discussed above, in a variety of bundles (hardware/software). The difference there is once you are in their world, you will most likely deal with them direct for upgrades and additional software purchases. Every new software upgrade (all free) gives you one-time 14 day demos of new plug ins they develop-which you can then buy if you like 'em. They also offer incentives to returning customers-- once registered as an owner, you get many offers for deals and promotions run directly by them. I just installed a new version that's Vista compliant (but on XP) and in my account went a $50 off your next purchase voucher. It just runs the plugs I'm authorized for unless I choose to buy (or demo) more.

One thing that is expected (or at least hoped for) as you move up the price point ladder is comprehensive support. Some can be pay for support, but companies like Univ. Audio offer a lot of support for free. Adobe offers installation support only for free, and a variety of paid support options.

Waves offers free support and upgrades for 1 year, after that you must buy their update plan which is priced by what you have, often about $200 a year or so. They won't much talk to you unless you're covered under the update plan. And though they've become better on Windows things, they still come at things from more the Mac world, like Digi does as well. And they use the Ilok key, which can be a whole other can of worms- you have to get its drivers from Ilok (Pace), but Waves doesn't follow the full Ilok authorizing scheme, they use their own but on that key.

Izotope offers mostly free support, and is very friendly about authorizations for their stuff- I suppose unless you abuse the privilege!
You can authorize any of their products to either a hard drive or a USB flash drive which you can then use on any system as its "dongle". Upgrades so far have been free. (www.izotope.com) I've used their Ozone quite a lot, it seems well-integrated, but it definitely uses a lot of CPU resources. Also their stuff will run as demo unauthorized for a while, after that it will still run with no key inserted but will add some noise every so often and gently remind you to authorize it. Waves won't run at all without its authorizer inserted, and might crash your host too.

I hope you will consider redevelopment, I for one would be interested. I'd echo a lot of Jim's thoughts however as being necessities for any editing and mixing plaform these days. Hope all this is helpful to you.

Rich

geezer

October 5th, 2007, 11:25 AM

Isn't AU somehow related to Core Audio (the Mac protocol)? I'm really not up to speed on Macs.

rich's info is right on....Waves is an interesting model. They do definitely provide direct support (I have been on the phone with guys from Israel more than once, but after a day delay with e-mail contact), but it does cost you. Because their plug-ins are so darn good, people are willing to pay. I probably have way over $2k invested in them, if you include the update contracts (plus I have one of their cards for my DM2000).....The Ilok thing is a pain, but so is the USB dongle, which everyone is going to now....Pretty crazy to have thousands tied up in a $30 piece of plastic hanging off the back of your computer.

So, there are models that have people paying big bucks....but even I searched around for an endorsement or educational deal before I got Nuendo 3 (worked out an endorsement deal through a musician friend who was already in the pipeline)....It still cost $850......Even Waves, however, has lots of bundles that cost around $400. That does seem to be the price where everyone is interested if they think the quality is there.

ASIO is the only game in town for quality interface with multichannel capacity on the card.

Gary Boggess

October 5th, 2007, 12:15 PM

I talked to several of my friends in LA about ASIO before I bought the Emu 0404 PCI card. I wanted to be able to test Cubase, and use the 67 VSTi instruments I collected.

The result has been fantastic. The 1st thing I noticed about the Emu card is that I didn't hear the typical computer hash from its outputs. Sounds like a minor benefit, but I have used other audio cards for long while for Native PC audio programs, and for auditioning/hearing the Directx plugin effects inside the MicroEditor. The Emu card features a nice set of audio specs pasted below. The zero latency ASIO ability is 110% crucial for VSTi synths and instrument plugins if you expect to actually perform music with them.

I still prefer my arsenal of Emu samplers and synth modules over software ones... mainly because I need the vacation from the computer keyboard and the mouse. Having KNOBS in my hands while writing music is just more relaxing. Come to think of it... I hate the dang mouse/keyboard solution.
It's like the MIDI keyboards... we had a piano keyboard, a pitch wheel, a modulation wheel, velocity sensitivity, after touch and pressure sensitive keyboards as far back as 1985. NOTHING has improved or changed much since. Same for computers... there's no affordale interface improvements as yet, although I've found the wireless Logitech series mouse to make mousing very pleasant. And yes... I'm aware of the mixing consoles interfaces from ProTools and numerous others. But they are so proprietary... what's needed is a univeral device that is "user" programmable.

I'm also aware of a touch sensitive panel (or screen) device that's being developed by Apple that will make inroads to classrooms soon. It features the ability to integrate multi tasking for classroom use. And it appears it's likely to branch out into other uses due to the simplicity of it's concepts for the user.

Back to my reality, I've always appeciated the dumb intelligence of the MicroEditor when compared to other programs that have multiple fader graphics and multiple meters. It's been a running joke here to my clients when they notice ME's ONE FADER. I just say "heck.. you can only click on one fader at a time anyway!"

I read the last few posts and I think my contribution to the dialog is more from the typical daily studio engineer/composer/musician and film sound designer experience.

I love technology. But I can't get anything accomplished when:
a) I can't afford better gear/software tools
b) when I can't get support when I need it
c) when I can't rely on my computer systems to keep working day to day
e) when I have to wrestle with some Windows issue 1 to 2 full days a week
f) when I have to become a software programmer in order to deliver
to a specific format.

I can't afford to be entangled in the spec wars and format wars. It's been impossible to avoid the battles and wasted time I spend just keeping WINDOWS XPpro up and working...
so I can keep working
so I can pay the bills
and stay in business.

I like to keep things affordable, simple, practical, predictable and reliable as is possible. I've watched too many studios open and close while trying to BUY what MIX Magazine's selling them.

As I read the posts above, I can't say I've encountered the "sync" problems mentioned... nor have I ventured out to much beyond the daily sessions recorded at 44.1Khz @16bit. And the reason isn't non-interest in 24bit... it's just that my clients aren't asking for it... and to steer them around the studio CLOCK and run up studio time/costs for something they're not asking for is not useful. I'm always glad to hand them their well recorded, edited and mixed audio on two CDr's and get paid with a smile.

Which... come to think of it... just burning CDs has been a source of fear.
It works. It doesn't. It works. It doesn't. It works. It doesn't. :m
I have spend hours trouble shooting issues with burning CDs.
NOTE:
MicroCD needs to keep updating the drivers for the DVD/CDr burners. I bought a new Plextor DVDR PX716A and MicroCD doesn't see it. So I've have to turn to my Roxio 9 program (now owned by Sonic Solutions).

I've reported that my overall experience with MicroSound is still, a positive one. Even amidst all fo the changes in the industry. Yes, I wish my MicroSync card worked in my faster 2.8GB computer... and there's a plethora of things I wished were better... but it still gives me almost everything that is critical to producing music and film audio. Although I wrestle daily with ME's SLOW WAVEFORM GRAPHIC/DRAW SPEED. Why is it soooooooooo sloooooow?:?

When you keep getting asked "how did you do that?" often enough, then you have to credit the tools as much as the user. And my customers have spent many session hours here, comparing what happens here to what happened at the some other (ProToy) studios. And the ones who happen to understand the differences, are now MicroSound advocates.

************************************************
EMU 0404 Digital Audio System Features:

24-bit, 96kHz converters that deliver an amazing 111dB (A/D) and 116dB (D/A) signal to noise ratio and dynamic range
Flexible connectivity with 1/4" analog I/O, optical and coaxial S/PDIF I/O, and MIDI I/O for seamless integration with your entire studio
E-DSP 32-bit multi-effects processor offers you over 16 simultaneous hardware-accelerated studio-grade effects with no CPU overhead - plug-in architecture allows you to add new effects as needed
32 Channels of zero latency Hardware Mixing/ Monitoring with super-flexible virtual patchbay - no external mixer needed
Full compatibility with most popular audio/sequencer applications with ultra-low latency WDM, DirectSound and ASIO 2.0 drivers
Powerful software studio package
Two 1/4" analog inputs
Optical 24-bit/96kHz S/PDIF I/O (switchable to AES/EBU)
Coaxial 24-bit/96kHz S/PDIF I/O (switchable to AES/EBU)
MIDI In/Out
E-DSP Hardware-accelerated effects, mixing and monitoring

Rich LePage

October 5th, 2007, 12:46 PM

Yeah, I think AU may be Mac only, and Macs are something I know very little about other than simple things like getting web mail with Safari when at outside total-Mac studios(sometimes not so simple!). I just seem to see all the newer stuff (Audition too) stating it will run VST, VSTi and AU plugs, with some saying Direct X too, but less these days than a while back.

The better thing about Izotope and their letting you use a USB flash drive as opposed to Ilok is that it's much easier (and less costly though $15 versus $40 is no issue) -- and when the piece of plastic breaks or is lost, at least you can re-authorize another w/o big hassles. Funny though, they DO use Iloks for the Digi versions of their software (which run in the Digi RTAS format). But not for VST- though that was not at all initially clear from their web site. I wound up authorizing their stuff both ways, though I almost never use the RTAS since that's Pro Tools only and I will only go there if there's no other way. They use the Pace version of Ilok authorizing, not the way Waves does- but again only for the RTAS versions. Once you buy, you can authorize all flavors, free.

With the Ilok, Pace wants you to buy... Ilok "insurance". But because Waves doesn't fully use the Ilok scheme, that may not be all that cool to have anyway. Won't help you if your Waves Update Plan has expired either!

I too have been on phone sometimes for an hour or more with Waves from Israel after an email delay. They were good at what they did, and def. knew their stuff, which is worth paying for. Right now I just have their Platinum and Vocal bundles, each on its own Ilok (because the Vocal one has some of same plugs as the Platinum plus others). But still their authorizing etc "guides" are not as intuitive as they could/should be, maybe because of the layer of Ilok stuff. But then I feel the identical way about anything from Digi. Maybe it's that I just don't have a Mac mindset ...

Recently I learned that you can buy the Waves update plan from dealers, too. If pricing for that follows what the plug in pricing diff. is, it could be a substantial discount. Pricing from a dealer upgrading Gold to Platinum wound up being a LOT less than direct from Waves when I requested a quote after an "upgrade" notice appeared in my account. And it all still went though Waves web site. I simply picked up a box at dealer, but once installed, it all went through Waves.

With Univ Audio, I'm not clear yet on moving the board(s) to another machine, though they advise you can. I'm also not sure how that works with their external box, which lets you use with a laptop or move between machines. But they have good phone and web support, and very good install guides, even videos on their site for setting up.

For Gary- try the Golden Hawk/Micro CD thing I posted a while back for what you need in terms of support for newer burners. My late model Plextors run that way. But.. as I posted recently, you might not get anywhere with Golden Hawk- though they had a new version as recent as spring 2007, when I just tried to renew for updates last week they seem to have recently gone out of business- the order wasn't processed and they haven't answered emails. Phone calls wound up with "yeah,this used to be their number, but this is a medical office"... If you do actually get them, let me know how you did it! (you can still at least get the demo version free on their site). But you can use Micro CD to make the image and then use their program CDRWIN to burn from the cue file that MicroCD creates (which was always the G/Hawk code).

I too have long been frustrated by keyboard/mouse only. The tablets help some, so does sometimes using a cheap controller like the Behringer I wrote about, though there are downsides to that too. I use the stuff every day, so always looking for a better way. I also spent years as a keyboard player so I come at it from that standpoint too, as well as years of tape and razor blades for that matter! I think all of us come from the same mindset you mention - to survive in this business you have to have that approach, really.

Gary Boggess

October 14th, 2007, 01:29 PM

Hi all,

I woke of this morning... and was recapping recent thoughts I posted about the MicroSound...

I was up late removing Norton Antivirus completely from my computer. A friend told me to use AVG FREE... and so now have it installed. It's been said... that Norton Anti-Virus IS a virus... and that impacting thought, along with thoughts we've all shared about WHAT IF MicroSound could be redesigned. And I had some crazy thoughts... (not unusual for me).:e

I know this is way OUT THERE... but so what, here it is:

MicroSound IS NOT BROKEN. It's the best editorial tool anyone could ask for. The other programs are also nice, WaveLab, ProTools, SoundForge and several of the others. My pondering question is: WHY RE-INVENT what already exists? Are improvements needed in MicroEditor? YES... but not a complete RE-DESIGN.

MicroSound has weaknesses... and so do the others... but, EDITING and MIXING sound is the MOST VALUABLE part of producing music or audio posting, sound effects design and etc. FOR FILM production. And MicroSound already provides VERY POWERFUL editing and mixing tools.

So what "could" be done? I'm thinking crazy maybe... but with the VST and DirectX technologies... and perhaps some I don't know of... why couldn't a NEWER version of MicroEditor be designed to IMPORT key segements software like ProTools, WaveLab or others? As if MicroEditor was hub editor that used the resources of OTHER programs. As if MicroEditor was THE HOST program to all of the others!! So if someone had ProTools, MicroEditor would pull in the audio files, allow for an EDIT and MIX... and then either SAVE as a MicroEditor project or SAVED back to the imported ProTools project. ProTools would function as the IMPORTED software/format/resource... and of course MicroEditor would be thus LINKED to ProTools hardware. If MicroEditor was a HOST... it would use whatever HARDWARE the software it HOSTED uses. I know this sounds RIDICULOUS. I am not a software designer. But may the THOUGHT may spark an idea. But my point is that MICROSOUND doesn't necessarily NEED to re-invent itself when there's SO MANY USEFUL programs already. Maybe there's a way to KEEP MicroEditor intact AS THE TOOL IT ALREADY EXCELS AT BEING... (with changes of course).

Or... could MicroEditor have a component via VST or DIRECTX... to be IMPORTED into programs like ProTools or others to FUNCTION as a ALTERNATE editorial tool WITHIN HOST programs?

In any case... one thing is certain... MicroEditor must be able to use 3rd party HARDWARE... and IF that could be accomplished, maybe some of the ideas above could spark development along this line of thinking. (And no... I'm not suggesting being Baker Acted).

MicroEditor is already the best tool for CREATIVE audio production... and it is because of the CONCEPTS and PHILOSOPHIES that produced its design. MicroEditor is what, 15 +/- years old... but conceptually... it's 15 years ahead of the other programs in the simplistic POWER it gives the user for BUILDING and CREATING/MANIPULATING sound elements. Can't you see the headlines in Mix Magazine: "MTU Debuts ULTIMATE HOST DAW!" Imagine how powerful it would be if MicroEditor could become the CENTRAL HOST software to all of the others!!!! Every time THEY upgraded their software, MicroEditor would automatically be improved! Micro Editor becomes the TROJAN HORSE of all editors!!! Crazy huh?:t

My software-code-dumb 2 cents... or maybe it's the coffee this morning? :?

Rich LePage

October 14th, 2007, 03:02 PM

I agree with your logic, but it sounds very un-trivial in terms of what I think might be required to do the things you mentioned. Dave would know much more about that however. To move projects to/from the Digi world for instance might be daunting, I'd suspect difficult in some other "worlds" too.

But as a concept, yeah, that would be terrific-- though you'd be limited to 4 hardware outs in the MTU world, I think.

About your Norton thing: Finally those folks have a tool you can download (Norton Removal Tool). You can search for it at the Symantec site. It helps. However, it doesn't always remove everything though it claims that it will. After having huge problems with some Norton stuff a few years back and getting endless junk from what they call "support" (nearly all of which did not apply to the problems I'd run into), I really gave up on anything Norton, except Ghost (v9 for XP and now v12 for Vista) and Partition Magic which they bought.

As a rule except when no other possible way, I won't let the audio machines go on-line. With your networked approach, I wonder if you do the same thing? I often don't even set up Internet access on 'em.

But for general use on other machines, I've found the ZoneAlarm free firewall works well, and Spysweeper with anti-virus seems to do a good job too, though it adds some overhead for sure. I also use V-Com's Fix-It Utilities which has a different type of virus and spyware scanning in it, though I mostly use it for fixing problems and cleaning up the registry etc. And Ghost, of course. Fix-it and Ghost have really saved me a few times when stuff got real weird on some systems.

Hope it helps you.

Gary Boggess

October 14th, 2007, 03:08 PM

geezer

October 14th, 2007, 04:56 PM

....Yeah my wife's computer got a really, really bad virus from connecting to the Norton site!....AVG free seems to function a whole lot better, frankly.

This thing about running in other programs or other programs running in MTU might not be as far out as you think......I bit the bullet this week and actually went ahead and started to learn a video editing program. Even though I own Adobe Premier, I decided to start with a simplified, cheaper version of Sony's Vegas + DVD that's called Sony Movie Studio (Platinum) plus DVD Architect...To make a long story short, the program asks you what audio editor you want to use inside of it, and sends you out to the program and brings the files back in relatively seamlessly. This thing only cost $125. at Best Buy, and its high-end brother only cost something like $500-$600.....It doesn't seem to have any problem communicating with other programs or doing file conversions and keeping them synced.

So maybe it's not that far out of an idea.

On the other hand, Wavelab does do virtually everything MTU does right now....Is there really a point?.....That's really what the discussion should be about:

A)What are the qualities and working methods that exist in MTU that can not be duplicated or even improved upon in Wavelab? B)Can MTU really be exported/rewritten to work in the native environment?

.....I am very curious what answers others out there would have to these questions.

Gary Boggess

October 14th, 2007, 05:43 PM

[QUOTE=geezer;66800]

This thing about running in other programs or other programs running in MTU might not be as far out as you think......I bit the bullet this week and actually went ahead and started to learn a video editing program. Even though I own Adobe Premier, I decided to start with a simplified, cheaper version of Sony's Vegas + DVD that's called Sony Movie Studio (Platinum) plus DVD Architect...To make a long story short, the program asks you what audio editor you want. So maybe it's not that far out of an idea.

On the other hand, Wavelab does do virtually everything MTU does right now....Is there really a point?.....That's really what the discussion should be about:QUOTE]

I also am using Sony Movie Studio (Platinum) and am planning to buy the FULL Vegas Video ASAP. I'm producing short video and DVD projects... and use it to produce DVD DEMOS of my sound effects design works for feature film. And you're right... it does allow you to SEND audio out to a preferred audio editor, and then automatically saves the processed file into VEGAS and even IN PLACE! It's amazing. But you know, I thought it only worked with SoundForge so I wasn't too amazed, but you're right, it lets you CHOOSE others if you want to!

SO... DAVE... maybe this is a BIG hint of some options!!?? :)

Frankly, I don't have ANY BIG issues with MicroEditor, but the EXPORT/IMPORT format limitations, the lack of real time VST & Directx, the lack of multichannel I/O, and there's a handful of utilities for keeping organized. Too, I'd like to see a ONE EASY step to CLICK, and all the segments would automatically EXPORT to a .aif, .wav, .sf, OR other... and automatically RE-IMPORT into place, named and intact as they were as ME segments. THAT WOULD SAVE SO MUCH TROUBLE AND TIME DOING IT MANUALLY. <<< As I said in a previous post, I've adopted a daily protecol of saving/exporting to WAV and then IMPORTING and replacing default .sf files.

#1) Doing so protects against deleating permanantly, and allows me to process the files with SoundForge and Wavelab. Once they're WAV files, I can do what I will with them, and when I re-open the MicroEditor project, they automaticaly import PROCESSED!. It's admitedly a work around, but it's really not too much bother compared to the benefits.

#2) It also protects against hitting the BUFFERED .SF2 FILE SIZE LIMITATION OF 2GB!!!

Why raise MicroEditor from the dead? Because we want to.

Rich LePage

October 14th, 2007, 10:38 PM

This all sounds very interesting to me - and I hope it might lead somewhere positive!! Looks like a def. maybe... but hoping so anyhow.

Did not know that about Vegas, many eons ago I beta'd an early Sound Forge version but have not kept up with it since Sony took over etc. I'll give it a demo too when I get a chance, along with Wavelab.

Demo schedule at the moment is kinda full but will get to it. Messing with a mastering EQ program called Har-Bal right now, but just started and there's a learning curve to it, so too early to tell much. After that there is a new Izotope demo I want to try for de-noising and restoration.

Def. one of the downsides of being a real small biz like most of us are!
(Endless Windows and Norton stuff etc being just a few of the others...)

Keep the dialog going in any case-- I think the input is great, and hearing about other programs and how they could potentially work with Medit is invaluable, I think really for all of us.

Gary Boggess

October 14th, 2007, 10:51 PM

Vegas 6.0 seems to be a double bonus...

a) a great video editor, great for delivering audio & video... and more

b) a means to gives us 5.1 encoding

Rich LePage

October 15th, 2007, 09:22 AM

Sounds cool.

If anyone's interested, Adobe Audition also has had a surround feature
for some time now, though we haven't messed much with it. It supports 5.1 work with a number of features.

It also allows video into Audition in a basic form to be able to do audio for video work. For more extensive video, Adobe has their suite. Audition used to be part of that - which may be why they bought Syntrillium/Cool Edit.

The downside was that with Ver 2, it installs a lot of suite related stuff whether you want it or not, which adds to its overhead. It also has an application called Bridge which allows you to move audio easily (it sez) between its other products. It's apparently a librarian and asset manager.

I can't say, we don't have the Creative Suite.
I just know that the stubs of some of the things it installs (with no option to not install them) took quite a bit of time to run down and were def. clogging the Pent4 2.5gig machine we often run it on. I used a program called Startup Commander to disable them one by one to see what really was/was not needed for running Audition for audio-only work.

With the coming version 3, they seem to have abandoned that approach and are developing Audition more as a non-suite thing. Their newer application, Sound Booth, seems to be more targeted towards the suite user. I think their logic is do basic audio work with Sound Booth integrated into their suite, and use Audition for its strengths in spectal processing, more intensive editing, and multi-track.

More info on their website.

geezer

October 15th, 2007, 10:50 AM

....The insane thing about this low cost Movie Studio program is that it allows you to work in 5.1, too.....With all of the surround stuff I have done in the past outside the box, I don't really expect to be diving into this aspect of the cheap program, but I am just amazed at how much it does and how well it seems to do it. I have found a couple of little bugs (some VST plug-in preset saving weirdness), but found the workarounds pretty quickly.

I basically bought this thing to put together a DVD of a funeral service that I took on as a duplicating job that came through my new phone number at my new building.....small money, but LOCAL!....Anyway, one thing that really impressed me was this: The handycam video was recorded at slow speed MiniDV with 32k audio. I brought it into the computer digitally, then processed the audio using my Waves plug-ins and printed a new audio track in a single pass that came up with a 48k track in place in perfect sync!....When I dumped it out to my pro MiniDV deck to test it, it automatically came up with the bars and pre-roll, etc., and controlled the deck flawlessly.

The program seems to have most (probably all) of the functionality of Final Cut Pro of 4 or 5 years ago (with some definite additions), and maybe actually works better in a lot of ways. Truly mindblowing. Kind of hard to comprehend that the non-DVD version of this can be purchased for under $100.....And, even though the manual is printed in an unreadably small font, the online help and tutorials inside the program pop up all the time and lead you right through it pretty logically.

I have overseen all kinds of video projects over the last 10 years, and really understand most of the issues, but I had no intention of actually doing any real video editing on my own. I was sort of forced into it by the economy of running my little business, and the economy of the native software made it possible to get in pretty quickly without much of a learning curve.

Native, native, native. That is what is driving everything. Plus file interchange, file interchange, file interchange. This incredibly cheap program has a truly intelligible mechanism for bringing files of all types, both audio and video, right on top in the program all the time. It just makes sense, and really doesn't even require the amount of computer savvy needed to keep your files together for Medit (which, of course, is not all that much).

---------------

This incredible economy of development has, of course, been accompanied by a real shake-out and consolidation of the software developers. Sonic Foundry was taken in by Sony, Syntrillium by Adobe, Steinberg by Yamaha, etc. Some of this, of course, means that big money has been thrown at software development. It also means that the "big boys" have forced some more standardization of file formats and interchange methodology and protocols, and that the I/O hardware has also become more standardized and higher quality.......Aside from all the Pro Tools stupidity, all these protocols and hardware improvements and standardization seem to be readily available and usable for any developers, even small ones. The clarity that has developed around all these issues in the last 3 or 4 years is pretty astounding.

So, I guess that's how I see the situation for MTU. Can MTU really rework its programming for the native world? Since the death of its hardware (Motorola) is often touted as the original event leading to the end of development for Medit, this has certainly had to be on everyone's mind there for quite a few years.

I am not a programmer in any way, shape or form. I do, however, have a pretty good handle on what has distinguished the "good" native programs from the others:

1)The paradigm. This should be easy for MTU to deal with, though will have to be examined thoroughly. Without going into the whole "studio in a box" thing, MTU should be able to translate its initial elegance into an updated form.....I have my doubts that MTU would or should ever try to capture the "all-in-one" program market (Nuendo, Cubase, Logic, etc.), but the business model clearly has all these other companies putting out "all-in-one" programs as part of their whole cash flow stream....(some of these "all-in-ones" don't have some things -CD burning, for instance- but, in my experience, people don't have a problem with buying a second program for this once they get hooked on the studio in a box of their other program).

The ONLY program I have seen that has anything like the original Medit paradigm going is Wavelab. In order to see this, I had to kill the MTU concept that "tracks" are a negative, and that see waveforms all the time is not necessary or helpful. It turns out that tracks, when not tied to some limitation or intended to ***** a multitrack machine, are a very useful organizational tool. It turns out that seeing accurate waveforms all the time increases your speed by a lot, as long as there is no big redraw issue (Wavelab, like most of the other programs, achieves this by creating a waveform file when you first bring the file into the program).

2)The "audio engine" quality. Around the time that I started buying native software, everyone started becoming aware that there was a difference in the sound of the various "audio engines" being used to calculate things in the different programs. Not being a programmer, I have no idea what ultimately makes this different thing happen in the different programs. I know that MTU was ahead of its time with accumulator depth and 32bitfp in the hardware days, and I'm not sure how that translates to software-only programs. It does matter, though. I think there is general consensus that the Magix folks (Samplitude, Sequoia) have always had a great sounding audio engine. Logic is supposed to be up there as well. SoundCube/Wavelab are definitely good sounding.....The 64bit environment of SoundCube might be a clue for a direction to follow. I don't know.

In this same arena, my brother informed me that a major software company told him that "we all lose at least one bit at the mixdown buss", meaning for the multitrack, "studio in a box" programs. This is why the people with better ears use outboard summing solutions when they use these programs.

I do feel that MTU would definitely need some serious consultation with audio pros with good ears if it were to go down the path of attempting to come up with a good sounding native audio engine. Achievement of quality in this realm actually involves the asking of some very complex questions, in my opinion, and requires a particular mindset and some particular experience.

--------------------------

----------One other thing that I have been thinking about today: The failure of MTU to get the NPR contract a few years ago.....why, how, etc. There are, of course, many things about this interaction that I do not know, but there is a lot about it that I do know:

--Jan Andrews (main engineer in charge of new projects there) asked me about Medit's internal bit rate before they gave the contract to someone else. I did not know what it was, and had never thought about it. In hindsight, MTU was probably the only product on the market at the time with that high an internal bit rate. Why had Jan not been informed of this by MTU? What was wrong with that communication mechanism, and why wasn't MTU touting those specs back then?
--There was the perception that Medit would not network well, wheras Sonic Solutions would. I think that was probably a false perception. Again, a communication breakdown.
-- Sonic, when it got the contract, went into a long period of development and changes in their product for the NPR contract. It is my understanding that hey never achieved this, and simply cost NPR a whole lot of money before they backed out (I was told they received 1 million and never came up with a product....don't know if that is true). I ran into the main liasson from Sonic for that contract at NPR when they were way into that process. He described for me what they were trying to get Sonic to do (every part of which MTU already did), and said they had only been able to achieve 15% of it at that time.....Again, a clear case of miscommunication up front, for whatever reason.

There is the other part of the equation about giving the contract to a bigger company with deeper pockets, but something about the initial communication was clearly faulty. I always wondered why that was, and why neither Charles nor myself were asked to help out with that process.

.....The only point of this would be to aid self-examination for MTU if they were to embark on a new development and marketing program.

-----------

Anyway, my 2cents to the 10th power for today....

Rich LePage

October 15th, 2007, 11:55 AM

I sure agree with a lot of what Geezer says here. Clearly in Adobe-land that was the case, a be-all, end-all suite. But they seem to have shifted their mindset now as regards Audition at least - and seem inclined now to develop it more stand-alone for pro audio serious use. I think they see there's a big enough market that way for them as opposed to trying to integrate it more into their suite.

A lot of the posts I see at www.audiomastersforum.net (which still has lots of old Syntrillium info too) seem to be from Europe (partic UK) and Australia. I know Adobe reads that forum and so maybe that's part of it too.

Yes, native and yes file interchange. Izotope and quite a few others do their processing 64 bits internal, using floating point. Don't know how Waves handles things internally, just like some of what their stuff does (the de-essers in particular!). They are def. behind the curve about Vista lately, but no surprise there since Digi and its variants are too -- (M-Audio, etc). Next audio interface I'll likely try is a Presonus Firepod. I have a Digi 002 rack unit gathering dust (almost never run Pro Tools) but no Vista ASIO drivers for it yet.

That's amazing about that little program you used.

The machine I've been messing with for testing new de-noising and other things is a rather low-end (these days) HP prebuilt bought as a refurb. For many years I would not use prebuilts for anything audio, though we have a couple for general biz use. I've found better pricing than direct from HP at resellers, better selection too. HP supports for 90 days direct though.

But this thing was under $400, and is a Pent D dual core 3.0gHz with 1.5 gigs RAM, a 320 gig SATA2 hard drive, what seems to be an OEM Plextor optical drive, and Windows Vista Home Premium. (prob cheap because a Pent D dual core is older tech than the current Core2 Duo). I bought with the idea of using Audition 3 when it comes on the thing, since Adobe's specs seem to favor Intel over AMD in terms of their stuff being happier with it. This "old model" indicates it dates way back to April, 2007.

And surprisingly pretty decent parts-drive is a Seagate Barracuda 10 for instance. I could not have bought even lower-end parts for the price. To be sure, some things are lacking-- it really should have a bigger pow supply than 300w (and once the 90 days are up, it will get one), and comes with various bloatware like Norton pre-installed, which is when I learned about the removal tool in a forum somewhere. The onboard analog video ain't the greatest and won't support dual monitors, but it does have a PCIe16 slot, so I'll pick up a lower end DVI and VGA card (one that isn't a power hog) for it.

Native SPDIF coax out and in, too. (also onboard 5.1 outs via a Realtek HD chipset on the Asus m/board.) I might revert the thing to XP, bought a spare copy of it, not a bad idea before it maybe gets discontinued or whatever!

The Sony stuff (and Wavelab too) intrigue me, will def check 'em out. I think most of the "Forge" team is still at what became Sony Software (in Wisconsin, isn't it?). Too bad in Sony-land that they did shut the NYC studios though. There was a huge auction in early Sept of a lot of the stuff. Heard the building will be torn down for more Manhattan high-end condos- like so many others have been.

Restoring an old Medit project here from DDS3 carts and it's barking to give it some attention, so gotta go.