MTU Folks and Users:
In the long and winding (downhill) road here at the end of the useful life of Microeditor, I still struggle with the clear fact that Microeditor is, by far, the most elegant and intuitive stereo editing and production DAW paradigm out there. There are some things it simply cannot do, however, and these things are becoming increasingly necessary for my work......As I have stated multiple times here over the last few years, my strategy has been to : 1)try to do file sharing with other programs; and 2)to define other programs that seem to be usable in similar ways to Microeditor, but with the other feature set(s) that I need.
I want to make a final plea here for some info and give folks some info (from my perspective) on a couple of the other programs:
1)File Sharing- Since Medit does not seem to be able to deal with 24bit .wav files, the only high quality file sharing possible seems to revolve around using the native 32bit files. I know that I have seen info about using these files (e.g.- editing file headers) in these pages before. PLEASE, if you know anything about this, convey it to me and all of us!.....All the current "native" programs operate with 32bit floaters now, and this would be a great way to extend the life and usability of Microeditor! PLEASE!
2)Other Programs-
I have settled into 2 Steinberg programs- Nuendo and Wavelab- for some significant portions of my work. Nuendo, the multitrack program, I bought into largely for its healthy set of features for post work. Wavelab is stereo-only, but contains an internal CD burning program and very high-quality Sample Rate Conversion, neither of which are available in Nuendo......
Nuendo is a bit more intuitive, but Wavelab 4.0 may sound a bit better than Nuendo 1.6x, and Nuendo 2.x still seems too buggy and undone to use.....Both have full functionality at high sample rates (i.e.- 96k) and are quite robust at file conversion and file sharing.....Nuendo also has a healthy set of EDL-sharing capabilities.
Although they achieve it in different ways (they were programmed by different folks), both programs do allow quick "segment" (clip) splitting, fade-in and fade-out adjustment, and segment level adjustment. If you disable all the "auto-crossfade" settings, you can work in a very similar manner to Medit by checkerboarding things across the tracks. (Wavelab has tracks, too, but doesn't have multitrack I/O). You can also have clips overlap on the same track and adjust crossfades (again, after disabling the auto-crossfade junk)......Some kinds of editing require you to circumvent a lot of stupid procedures or to find a menu item somewhere that you didn't expect, but the ability is definitely there in both programs.
Neither program has the kind of grouping available in Medit, but you can achieve similar and sometimes better results with some things that medit does not have: a)the ability to select multiple clips at once, and b)unlimited tracks.....My initial resistance to the tyranny of tracks was tempered when I realized that they could be very handy- and intuitive- organizational tools, as long as they are easy to create and not limited in number or placement. Tracks are easy in both programs.
Wavelab has a function that it calls "auto-grouping" which is actually the same thing as "Ctrl-click-drag" in Medit- i.e.- you are moving everything beyond the clip you are dragging at the same time. This seems, unfortunately, to require that you visit a menu to turn it off and on, but is, in any case, not grouping as we in MTU land have come to know it.
Both programs are non-destructive in most modes and have huge undo histories, but you need to read up and experiment (especially with Nuendo) so that you understand when this is not true....there are ways to destroy files that are not obvious at first.
.....I am still not using Nuendo for multitrack music mixing, though I probably will do some of that eventually.
I hear good things about the Sek'd equivalents (Samplitude and Sequoia), but only have anecdotal info. I should have some more direct experience with Samplitude soon.
I'll be doing my first attempt at editing and mastering a live CD with Wavelab over the next 2 weeks.....I am still resisting it because it is so easy in Medit, but I feel like I need to put in the learning curve time now so that I can deal with it better as things go more and more high-res....I'll report back in later.
Please e-mail or call outside the pages here if you are seeking info or have any to share:
Jim Smith
mudsmith@earthlink.net
304-261-9426