Cue Points in Adobe Audition, Sound Forge 7?

[Joel L.]

Is anyone using Adobe Audition or Sound Forge 7? Is it possible to create
cue points in wave files from these applications?

Up to this point I have used SoundForgeXP (that came with Director) to
create cue points in wave files for Director, however SoundForgeXP is
showing its age and I would like to get some more advanced audio editing
software. The information I found shows that for the PC, your choice for
adding cue points is either SoundForgeXP or CoolEdit2000. Since neither of
these products exist anymore, I am wondering what the choices are. At this
point I would prefer Adobe Audition because of it's noise reduction and
multitrack capabilities (it is also the big brother of CoolEdit2000 which
Adobe bought from Syntrillium), but I would consider Sound Forge 7 or even
Steinberg's Wave Lab. Obviously I could do editing in a higher-end app and
then bring the finished wave file into SoundForgeXP to add the cue points,
but it would be more convenient to do everything in one application...

[Mark A. Boyd]

On 21 Oct 2003, "Joel L." <webforumuser@macromedia.com> wrote:

> Is anyone using Adobe Audition or Sound Forge 7? Is it possible to
> create cue points in wave files from these applications?

I'm slightly behind the times on both of these. I still have Sonic's Sound
Forge 6 and it works just like Sound ForgeXP. I don't think Sony Pictures
made any major changes to that feature when they bought it, but I haven't
tried it. For that matter, I don't think had enough time to change much
more than the splash screens, logos, and version numbers in all the stuff
they bought from Sonic Foundry.

Likewise, I haven't used the new CoolEdit since Adobe bought it and changed
it to Audition. If past experience is any hint (After Effects comes to
mind), Adobe typically makes changes to their acquired software gradually
so as not to loose the existing user base. Although the name change does
make me wonder.

Don't they both have downloadable demos?


--
Mark A. Boyd
Keep-On-Learnin' :)

[Bill Kearns]

"Joel L." <webforumuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:bn3l8g$d9t$1@forums.macromedia.com...

> Is anyone using Adobe Audition or Sound Forge 7? Is it possible to create
> cue points in wave files from these applications?

SOUND FORGE: With your wav file open, put your mouse over the millisecond
timeline where you want to add the cue point and right-click. Select "Add
Marker/Region". Give your new marker (or cue point) and name and save the
file. Another tip. Once the marker flag is in place you can click on it and
drag it anywhere in the wav if you edit it later.

Bill

[Joel L.]

Mark,

I'm just starting to research a budget proposal for next year, so I've got a
little time to check around. :) The whole landscape of the audio/media
production software market has changed fairly considerably here recently (at
least in terms of ownership), so we'll have to see what the fallout is.
Like you say, the first version under the new company tends to be more of an
adaptation and repackaging than anything else. I will probably end up
downloading trial versions at some point, although I know that often trial
versions won't allow you to save, which is why I wanted to see if other
developers were using it sucessfully. The other thing is that the
applications typically don't come out in their documentation and say "these
are cue points you can use in Director..." For example, on SoundForgeXP,
you have to go under a menu called "Regions List" and then add a "marker."
That makes it a little harder to tell just looking at the typical help file
whether or not it will work with Director...

[Joel L.]

Bill,

I currently use SoundForgeXP 4.5 and understand how to create markers as you
describe. What I want to confirm is that the feature works in the current
version, which is Sound Forge 7.0. Which version of Sound Forge are you
using?

I am also hoping to hear from anyone who uses Adobe Audition, because I
would actually prefer to get Adobe Audition over Sound Forge 7.0 because of
some of its other features and eventual integration with other Adobe
applications I use. It would also be helpful if Macromedia would post an
_updated_ list of compatible software versions that can create cue points.

[Mark A. Boyd]

On 21 Oct 2003, "Joel L." <webforumuser@macromedia.com> wrote:

> Like you say, the first version under the new company tends to be more
> of an adaptation and repackaging than anything else. I will probably
> end up downloading trial versions at some point, although I know that
> often trial versions won't allow you to save, which is why I wanted to
> see if other developers were using it sucessfully.

Now that I've visited the site, it seems that they did add a bunch of
features to Sound Forge 7. Perhaps they brought the Sonic team with them or
Sonic was already on the verge of releasing 7.

> The other thing is
> that the applications typically don't come out in their documentation
> and say "these are cue points you can use in Director..." For
> example, on SoundForgeXP, you have to go under a menu called "Regions
> List" and then add a "marker."

FWIW, that's how it works in the full SF6. XP was basically a stripped down
version of the full program for inclusion in software bundles like
"Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio" and with pre-loaded software computers like
Sony's VAIO.

In Audition, Adobe may be also be calling it a "marker" to conform to
Premiere's markers. I can't get to CoolEdit right now so I don't remember
what Syntrillium called it.

To tell the truth, and more to the point of your question, I rarely use
cuePoints in Director. It just feels less reliable than using currentTime
or movieTime to work up my own cueing system. It can be handy to create a
list of cueTimes from existing cuePoints in the media, though.

If you're already familiar with using cuePoints in Dir, then I'm pretty
sure you'll be in good shape. I'd bet that either company's software update
will still support them in their own way and continue to save them in the
standard format for WAV/AIFF files that Dir can read.

On a side note, Sonic/Sony's Noise Reduction plug in is OUTSTANDING, though
not free like CoolEdit's built-in noise reduction feature.


--
Mark A. Boyd
Keep-On-Learnin' :)

[David Downie]

I use cue points all the time.

Too many cue points.

I use Goldwave to insert them - [url]www.goldwave.com[/url] .

It's only C$55, and works prior to registration.

[Bill Kearns]

I'm still using Sound Forge 5 (so ashamed), but I downloaded the demo out of
curiosity and yes you still insert cue points the same way. I didn't know
sony had gobbled up sonic foundry until your post. Honestly, the only thing
thats changed from what I can see is the splash screen, toolbar icons and
the ability to burn a cd directly from SF (who needs that?). Still I've been
using it since 1995 and I will continue to swear by it. One feature they
dropped for SF4 and I wish they'd bring back is the batch conversion
utility. It was nice when you had 150 narrations in a project and had to
convert them all to 22,050 khz-8bit. Oh well, maybe they're listening.

Bill

[Joel L.]

"Mark A. Boyd" <mblist@sanDotrr.com> wrote in message

> To tell the truth, and more to the point of your question, I rarely use
> cuePoints in Director. It just feels less reliable than using currentTime
> or movieTime to work up my own cueing system. It can be handy to create a
> list of cueTimes from existing cuePoints in the media, though.

I got started using cue points when I was first learning Director and that
is probably because I wouldn't have had the know-how at that point to pull
it off in Lingo even if I wanted to! Lingo fluency aside, I suppose it
comes down to the nature of the piece you are creating as to which method is
best. Since graphics are driven by the audio narration in most of the work
I do, I still find cue points handy in most instances. I can edit the
pacing of the spoken narration in the wave file by adding or deleting
silence without effecting the cues for the graphics. Depending what you are
doing though and how you have things set up, I could see the benefit of
other methods.

> On a side note, Sonic/Sony's Noise Reduction plug in is OUTSTANDING,

though

> not free like CoolEdit's built-in noise reduction feature.

I'll have to check that out also, thanks.

[Joel L.]

Thanks for the discussion everyone. It looks like Sound Forge 7 is still in
the race with its marker capabilities and I will need to do some further
checking into Audition. Cue point compatibility with Director is only one
of the aspects I am assessing, so I will be looking into the feature sets of
each of the applications more closely in terms of the production environment
and the quality of the tools they provide such as compressor, limiter, eq,
noise reduction, work flow, etc.

Bill, if you go back to the Sony site again I think you will find that the
Batch Converter is now purchased as a separate product from Sound Forge
itself. So if you are willing to spend the extra money, it is available.
I'm glad that the days of noisy 8-bit audio for multimedia are behind us. I
remember it was a big deal when hard drives and processors were actually
fast enough to record and play back stereo 16-bit 44.1KHz audio. Let's just
say that we've come a long way since those days!

[Joel L.]

Just for the record, Adobe Audition 1.0 cue points in wave files are
compatible with Director.