DAW for RED Audio - SONAR 7

[Andrew M.]

I was testing few DAW Audio Editing packages.
One package attracted my attention, SONAR ver 7

Anybody has experience how this package works with timecode and all other video/audio sync problems?

SONAR has 30 days trial that allows you to evaluate package like most of good software applications.
http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/DAWs.asp

[Bruce Allen]

My composer friend uses it for some film / video stuff. Are you talking about a DAW for composing / mixing music for your film, or an overall DAW for sound editing etc?

Personally I would go with Pro Tools because when you want to take your session for a final mix at a professional place, the chances are they will be running Pro Tools, so it's easier to bring the session across, set things up nicely etc for them so they love you and don't bill you as much.

The other two I'd consider would be Logic and Nuendo - because it's much cheaper to work in surround using them than Pro Tools (Pro Tools LE sucks at 5.1 and Pro Tools HD is expensive) and they are pretty OMF friendly.

Talk to the audio post houses in your area whom you're most likely to be working with and get what they suggest.

If you're doing everything yourself, I'd say get something you can work quickly and easily in. And make sure you get a great room and speakers. I think crummy monitoring environments can make a bigger difference than software.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Kenn Michael]

I agree with Bruce.

ProTools for compatibility with the rest of the post world...

Personally, I edit and mix in Nuendo. LOVE IT!

I compose and mix music in Logic which is fantastic for music, but I wouldn't really recommend it for rock-solid post audio. It's OMF importing is not that stable (AAF or XML is better).

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

With hard disk space so cheap, getting any audio from any DAW to the dubbing stage is trivial: Time stamp any audio you have used and print the stems to harddrive. Also copy all audio.

That way you can still access your submixes in case you need it.

A lot of times I even bring my MacBook to the dub and feed 16 channel audio from the Fireface 800 live into whatever they are mixing on (90% ProTools).

Just be carefull not to piss off the mixer. ("How many of us are mixing in this room???")

Logic can be synced in any numer of ways.

Regarding DAW: If you want to "create" music - and I use this term in its broadest possible sense - use Logic (or Steinberg/ Nuendo if you absolutly want to).
If you´re into using loops / techno / mashups, etc. use Soundtrack Pro or (better) Ableton Live.
For audio post from editing to final dubbing use Nuendo or (as most of us) ProTools

The cost of those tools especially compared to anything video is next to nothing (except ProTools). Dont learn any free kindergarten software because you can save 300 $.

Jochen

[Elizabeth Lowrey]

I use Sonar 6 (cross-graded from Cubase VST 32/5.0). Hated Cubase because of its non-intuitive interface, absolutely LOVE Sonar for the opposite reason. I'm a musician and use Sonar for real music creation (plenty of MIDI, audio recording, and streaming samplers/virtual instruments). In this use, it's top notch, extremely versatile. My understanding is version 7 is even better because of MIDI editing improvements.

Can't comment on its use strictly as a film mix tool. I'd be shocked if it wasn't extremely capable and reliable in this environment as well.

[Andrew M.]

Thank you all for the suggestions.
I am not creating the music, just need to recreate the original sounds in Surround 5.1 or even 7.1 (for the future) and add it to the Blu-ray format for the final copies.


What I like about SONAR 7 is that it supports up to 500 sampling rates including 384.

I found out that in surround sound the phase differences editing requires minimum 192.
It is almost like CC editing. Your material may end up on 8 bpc bit Blu-ray but you get amazing results if you use 24 or 32 bpc CC and secondary color correction.

Second thing I like and probably ProTools do have this (please confirm), is the fact that I can listen to the sound track even in 5.1 and in real time I can add most of the plug ins and manipulate them without even stopping the replay. This is the main pain with the Audition 3 that you have to stop change, sometimes even bounce the track and only than you hear the result.
I am talking 5.1 editing here. Stereo is no problem.

Here all the changes are real-time. The only thing missing is the true 3D surround manipulation. Would be nice to simulate vertical lift of the sound source.
Anybody knows the plug-in that will do it?

[Bruce Allen]

What I like about SONAR 7 is that it supports up to 500 sampling rates including 384.

I found out that in surround sound the phase differences editing requires minimum 192.

Dear Andrew

I think you are doing something wrong.



It is almost like CC editing. Your material may end up on 8 bpc bit Blu-ray but you get amazing results if you use 24 or 32 bpc CC and secondary color correction..

Similarly if you need to go above 16-bit to do CC operations without banding, then you are doing something wrong.




Second thing I like and probably ProTools do have this (please confirm), is the fact that I can listen to the sound track even in 5.1 and in real time I can add most of the plug ins and manipulate them without even stopping the replay.

Pro Tools HD - yes
Pro Tools LE - no (stereo, not 5.1 - you can hack it by rerouting things, but not in an elegant fashion)



This is the main pain with the Audition 3 that you have to stop change, sometimes even bounce the track and only than you hear the result.
I am talking 5.1 editing here. Stereo is no problem.


I used Audition from back when it was Cool Edit Pro. It's a very bounce-intensive program. Agreed, not fun.



Here all the changes are real-time. The only thing missing is the true 3D surround manipulation. Would be nice to simulate vertical lift of the sound source.
Anybody knows the plug-in that will do it?

Not sure on that... any smart sounds guys have suggestions on their favorite surround plugins?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Andrew M.]

Dear Bruce, I am learning here.
Last time I was involved on the high level in the audio engineering was 15 years ago.
Catching up very fast though:-)
Just by reading a lot of material about surround sound and reproduction of it I have seen example how manipulation of faze just by 20-30 deg can change perception of the direction.
I guess I have to read more.
Thanks in advance for any directions here.............

[Bruce Allen]

Dear Bruce, I am learning here.
Last time I was involved on the high level in the audio engineering was 15 years ago.
Catching up very fast though:-)
Just by reading a lot of material about surround sound and reproduction of it I have seen example how manipulation of faze just by 20-30 deg can change perception of the direction.
I guess I have to read more.
Thanks in advance for any directions here.............

I'm sure you're right and way beyond me there.

Probably the best way to change perception of the direction is to make the sound come from a different speaker though...

You're a very smart chap, so I'm sure you might figure out some amazing psychoacoustic technique that requires working at 300 khz sampling rate.

I'm a pragmatic fellow, so I generally look at what has worked before as a starting point. Eg, people have made great surround sound with Pro Tools and didn't seem to need 300 khz editing ability, so I will use what they used, since they probably picked the software that is nicest to work creatively in.

I am also expecting anything I do to be likely shown in an environment where everything is screwed up royally. Probably a bunch of folks listening to your film will be listening with one speaker miswired and 180 degrees out of phase ;)

Go for the big picture strokes first, since those are the most likely to be communicated well.

A while back at a previous job I was at a meeting with a movie exec we screened a trailer we'd just made for them in a big public theater they owned. My editor friend looked a little bugged-out afterwards.

Me: "What's wrong?"
Editor Friend: "That mix sounded wrong. I think there's something wrong with our mix... the surround sound was so strange"
Movie Exec: "Oh, don't worry. That's because there are no side speakers - we took them out because they obscured the murals."

Andrew, please bear this alternate speaker placement in mind in your phase calculations if planning for wide release!

And don't get me started on South Africa. A lot of theaters advertise Dolby, DTS, etc but sometimes will just drop down into optical mono or something in the middle of the film because something got messed up.

Ah well. For consolation, USC - supposedly best film school for sound in the world - had something constantly wrong with the sound projection at Norris, their main theater. I never heard anything in more than stereo there... Tom Holman's crazy 10.2 (or something) setup in another building was cool though.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[laguun]

The audio dept is filled with happy Nunendo and CubaseSX people here.

[Andrew M.]

I see Laguun has as usual very pragmatic approach to solutions, thank you.

I see Nuendo pops up here in each post.
Since Steinberg as the only software creator do not offer trial download, I went to the local audio store where I could play for one hour or so with the Nuendo and other Steinberg products.
Well, tested Nuendo, Cubase, and WaveLab. Liked WaveLab the most but what can I say after 20 minutes with each. So far, GUI speed wise, and response time wise, SONAR is significantly faster.
Bruce, I remember the time where 4 mikes and 4 speakers in Quadraphonic arrangement is all what you needed for surround. I agree that the best surround so far is just few speakers driven from few mikes.
This is what I was thinking till I started experimenting with M/S type of sound sources.
Simple acquisition method and what the flexibility and fidelity of the sound material.

I can localise the sound source 270 deg around the mike and it gives me ability to cancel any unwanted noise or sound source. These type of mike gives you not only sound data but also the angular (directional) data as well. Better the mike is and better editing software you have, more precisely you can differentiate different sound sources captured by the mike and cancel enhance or change the sound or placement of it in post.

http://www.sennheiser.ca/prod_download/MKH418-S_eng.Pdf
http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/icm_eng.nsf/resources/MKH418S_bda.pdf/$File/MKH418S_bda.pdf

This type of mike can actually zoom in like your lenses can zoom in, so it will follow your lenses giving you impression that mike flies with the picture. At the same time it will track the sound source of the moving objects on the screen. Add to it, cancelling of the unwanted noises around the camera and voila, it replaces sound crew of 3.



I am not in Blu-ray music video business but this guys have feast time with all recent advances in audio engineering. But I hear you Bruce, most of it will not bring the beef home, though it is nice playing with it though.

[Philippe Vandendriessche]

Since Steinberg as the only software creator do not offer trial download,

http://www.sennheiser.ca/prod_download/MKH418-S_eng.Pdf

This type of mike can actually zoom in like your lenses can zoom in, so it will follow your lenses giving you impression that mike flies with the picture. At the same time it will track the sound source of the moving objects on the screen. Add to it, cancelling of the unwanted noises around the camera and voila, it replaces sound crew of 3.

Andrew,

Here in Belgium, the Steinberg distributor can give fully functional demo packages. Nuendo is protected by an USB key. At the end of the trial you give back the key & books, CDs and that's all.

Nuendo is a very good software. I have a Tascam FW-1884 mixer/control.
For Surround recording I have the Soundfield ST-350 and the SurroundZone plug-in for Nuendo (B-Format to mono, stereo, Quadro, 5.1, 7.1). With a single microphone and 3 tracks on the Aaton Cantar I can do a 5.1 mix.

Did you listened to the sonic quality of the "S" component 'electret) of the MKH 418?

I don't understand how you can replace a sound crew by a microphone...

[Andrew M.]

Thank you for the advice.
Looks like in US we have no option but to buy "cat in the bag"

How I replace sound crew with one good mike and good software.

Well if your mike gives you spatial data of the sound and you have good software to edit and mix the surround and directional channel you can locate and separate the source of desired sound in the whole image and make separate track for each of the sound source. It is good for most science and 'National Geographic' kind of projects.

So far I learned how to select, separate and clean the multiple sources of sound around the camera without swinging the mike near the source of sound.