What audio Editor do you use?

[Keith Nealy]

What audio Editor do you use?

Sound forge 10a says Red audio format not supported.

What editor works?

Thanks.

Keith

So far I love Vegas. very intuitive.

[Michael Romano]

Vegas is great but for real output I prefer ProTools. The audio recorded by the RED isn't incompatible with Sound Forge though. Sound Forge likely just doesn't open R3D files. RED is 48K 24Bit PCM. Any sound editor will work.

1 - Cut your piece without any audio effects (Panning, Level Automation is OK)
2 - Export OMF with handles at 24Bit 48K PCM/WAV/AIFF
3 - Ingest into ProTools (Or other: Nuendo is the natural second choice)
4 - Mix, Sweeten, ADR, Foley etc...
5 - Output in the polyphonic format of your choice
6 - Import to your finishing software
7 - Export your project with both audio and video.

Caveat 1:
ProTools LE requires DVTK2 or Complete Production Toolkit for OMF (Digitranslator)

Solution 1:
Shell out extra, or just get an HD TDM rig. The LE system is SO much cheaper that it really does make sense for smaller studios.

Caveat 2:
Not all editorial software supports OMF (Stupid!)

Solution 2:
You should be cutting with a professional tool. Ditch your editor.

Caveat 3:
FCP has a 2GB barrier on OMF exports and cannot include whole files, just handle lengths.

Solution 3:
Break your project into reels. The best place to do that is where you can have a frame of digital silence to accommodate the reel change. Don't do it in the middle of scenes.

Bonus Info:
Premiere makes a sexy OMF but doesn't natively support TC for Dual system audio in a reasonable fashion. The one real thing holding me back from pushing it as a platform in TV/Features.

Best luck!

[Anson Fogel]

I strongly 2nd everything Michael said. ProTools is the de facto standard for good reason. And the process, pros, cons pointed out are spot on. We do it all the time.

[Kwan Khan]

How about logic pro9?

[Bruce Allen]

Another for Pro Tools :) I like Vegas too by the way, but at some point you'll want to get into the Pro Tools thing, I think.

Logic or Nuendo works and can very likely give you more technical performance for the money... but to me you don't quite get the speed in terms of nitty-gritty audio editing.

Pro Tools just feels "smoother". For every problem in film audio you hit, someone has hit it before, complained to Avid and eventually a solution or workaround was found. Or Avid added a feature or made something work more clearly to avoid that problem.

Little things such dragging and dropping two mono tracks to combine them into a stereo track just work nicely.

Plus the bonus is that most mixing stages work in Pro Tools. You also have a better talent base of Pro Tools sound guys.

Also, it's just useful to have Pro Tools lying around. For example, we did an ADR session in Japan for a short film because the actors were there... and I was in LA.

I just said "give me the project file" and voila, I got a nice Pro Tools project of the session, ready to go, video track and everything.

If I were in Logic or Nuendo there would have been an additional step of an OMF export, etc. They would view it as an extra hassle. Wouldn't have been fun to explain when working across languages.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Keith Nealy]

Thanks for all the great info guys.

I'm totally there with you about Protools and I've been using Nuendo for years. I was just disappointed that Sound Forge didn't have a solution yet as I've been using it for audio fixes for years. I'll bet they solve that soon. Sony was very quick getting Vegas to support Red and being that it was an audio program first I would think they would fix this quickly - one would hope anyway.

aloha,

Keith

BTW, Mike - just did a shoot with Keala at volcano the other day.

[Michael Romano]

Keala the grip? Wish I was in volcano! Doing Hawaii 5-0 and an indie feature right now. Tons of schedule juggling and townie locations!

[Keith Nealy]

Vince Keala Lucero. He was the DIT and equipment provider for SandS on this shoot we did for a company out of LA. Good Luck on 5-0.

Aloha, Keith

[Chris Luker]

One more for Protools... but I'm a full time audio guy. My Protools rig cost me more than my RED.
Sonar has been good to me on PC as well. And it's cheaper.

[joshua csehak]

I hate Pro Tools. Well, to be more specific, I love Pro Tools, but hate Digidesign (or avid now? I think they've been completely absorbed). Pro Tools is definitely the easiest to use DAW out there, IMO. I started on it in the mid-90's and never had to refer to the manual once (unlike Logic). But I eventually switched to Logic because:

1. As of a few years ago, Pro Tools had almost no bundled effects, and the ones they had sucked. Even if you bought the Waves plugins, there wasn't one good reverb one, to my ears. Logic, OTOH, has a lot of great plugins, including a great-sounding reverb one. I believe Pro Tools is intended for studios with hardware effects and processors, which are nearly always better than software ones, just insanely more expensive.

2. You have to use Pro Tools hardware. This is fine if you get a TDM rig, you're using their hardware anyways. But you can't use the Pro Tools software with a non-Avid-approved D/A box. And what's more, for LE (or M-Powered, don't remember which), they made me use a dongle. Using up a USB slot just to prove I'm not a pirate is a real pisser.

3. They didn't fix their bugs. I remember one bug that was listed on their site as a known bug. It was, "Computer is not able to sleep with Pro Tools installed." Not running, installed. Which means, ever. Their fix? "Set your computer to not go to sleep." Seriously?

4. But what really got me was the forced upgrades. Here I was sitting pretty with my Audiomedia III card. (Told you this was a while ago :) ) It had 2 analog ins and outs, and a spdif in and out. All you need for 2-track stereo recording. I think it was a PCI card too, so it should theoretically still work today. So I'm sitting there, not long out of college (and thereby not exactly at my most solvent), recording my horrible music. I upgrade the OS. Pro Tools tells me "This version of Pro Tools won't run on this OS. You need to upgrade." So I do. It was only $100 or something. The new upgrade runs, but it tells me the Audiomedia III card isn't supported any more, and it can't use it. They bricked their own product. That's messed up. Contrast that with say, Red. I'd be shocked if even 10 years from now, Red One's aren't supported. So that did it for me. I got an M-Powered system and began the transition to Logic.

I'd say, if you're building a serious recording studio, or if you're doing work on large-budget movies, get the Pro Tools TDM or HD or similarly fancy rig. And stock your racks with gear from Mercenary (www.mercenary.com). But if you're doing indie movies or bedroom rock, go with Logic or Record (Propellerhead's new DAW). No matter what you use for waveform editing, get Reason for MIDI. It's freaking beautiful.

Caveat: things may have changed since I switched to Logic. God, I hope they have. Heck, if Avid's treating their customers right, I'd even be open to going back. Logic sure can be confusing sometimes. And it looks like PT comes with more plugins now (of course, that doesn't mean they sound good...).

[Mark Allen]

I used ProTool professionally from when it was called ProMix and ProEdit and all the way through version four of the current ProTools I upgraded every time. And upgrading meant upgrading all your equipment and such. But something happened around then - processors got faster and programs like Logic were requiring no constant updates of hardware with very powerful results. So I finally switched as my main focus moved to directing mostly anyway it wasn't worth it keeping up with the sound gear and I could do all the same work, plus I'd have a more powerful sequencer.

When logic completely redid it's interface I was one of the super happy ones as suddenly all the really difficult stuff became simple.

Now - there are a few things I miss from protools. SPOT MODE is the main one. Having it so you drop in your sound instantly hit time code in your keypad and it lands. That was great. But you know what I don't miss? Upgrading my darn hardware so often! Somewhere I still have a sixteen bit 888 I think that I could never sell despite the money I paid wen first purchased.

So, for me, logic does great. If I wanted to be compatible with the audio world totally and fluidly and wanted that extra edge for the sound editing placement, ProTools is the way to go. It's a great app, I was an expert and loved it years and years ago, but my patience just ran out with it's hardware reliance and expense.


After writing this I realized I completely didn't address whether Logic uses RED files or not.... I've never tried. I got lost in the whole ProTools eval, sorry.

[Michael Romano]

Vince Keala Lucero. He was the DIT and equipment provider for SandS on this shoot we did for a company out of LA. Good Luck on 5-0.

Aloha, Keith

Nice! I'm off 5-0 and onto my feature (MX R1), good to hear those guys (And you) are working!

On a note about ProTools:
Avid has the worst customer support I've ever dealt with but I put up with it because of the software usability. For me, its bar none. I've also not had to update my hardware since I first bought into ProTools in 2002. PT8 works just fine with my good old boxes!

Nuendo has been my next up choice but the universe never has really given me an opportunity to drive it hard. Ardour is the linux/open source alternative but installing on the Mac was such a hassle I gave up on it early. I did donate to them a while back though, I fully appreciate open source software.

[Keith Stark]

Well, just another option. You could just convert your red audio to standard wave files. then you can edit in SF and back to Vegas no issue. With scripts you can do an offline audio conversion to create a wave file for every red clip, or just wait till your done editing. I did something similar for another camera where I rendered out the audio in groups by camera angle. my 2c.

P.S.: with Vegas 8 I'm using nearly 10 year old M-audio cards and running windows 7. .....

[Sven Seynaeve]

Nuendo all the way.... for every reason you could come up with , especially nuendo5....

i've thrown PT out of my studios long time ago...and never regretted it ,
only brought me some idiotic chats with people , mostly musicians who claimed, why you don't have a pt... it's the best....it's the very best....i don't know why, but I've been told it's the very best, so it's the very best,,,,you know....the very best.....

that would be one of the only reasons I would buy one again....to let them shut up immediately and give them the option.