I write
this review as someone completely unfamiliar with
this type of program. My prime interest was in
recording my old vinyls and converting to MP3’s. I
wanted to do this to my laptop as this would be
easier to move between different audio systems.
After installing, it soon became apparent that
other assisting hardware was needed to make the
connection between my audio amplifier and laptop –
of which more later. I decided to see what else the
program had to offer by following the ‘Getting
Started’ overview. The workspace area and toolbars
were well explained and the direct link to online
help was easy. Toolbars are similar to Microsoft
Office and CAD type
software.
Extract Audio from a CD wasn’t very helpful as it didn’t have an option for where it was to be downloaded. Found it later by going to ‘preferences’ under ‘options’. It was fascinating to examine and stretch the wave forms of songs for the first time and to create my first extracts and loops. In playing around and creating new files, somehow I was forming multiples / duplicates of files with ‘sfk’ extensions. These would not open. Could not find the annoying reason why this was happening. Wave files opened ok. A good set of headphones to bypass the rubbish laptop speakers makes the whole experience more enjoyable.
Vocal Eraser seemed interesting – a need here to keep the serial number for this add-on. Using the preview is a must. All good fun but sometimes the ‘remove vocal’ ‘keep vocal only’ did the exact opposite of what was intended.
Before long I was mixing my own loops and realised I could do what The Beatles and George Martin were doing in 1966 when they created the loops in ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. It was easier for me with this program as I didn’t have to chop up pieces of tape! I decided to form my own G major Beatles extract loop. I started with a loop of the opening guitar chords of ‘Getting Better’. I made an extract of one beat of cello from ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and mixed it into the wave form of the guitars. I did this by using standard windows ‘copy’ from one file and ‘mix’ ‘paste’ into the destination file. I rounded it off by dropping in a raga drum pattern from ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. Felt very proud. It wouldn’t have been out of place on the Beatles ‘Love’ album.
The program seemed to have many more features that I could try but I just didn’t understand how to do it. The ‘show me how’ tutorials need to be much more extensive for the uninitiated like me. For example, under ‘preferences’ it would be helpful to explain what ‘VST effects’ actually are – there was nothing in the glossary. I struggled with ‘Vinyl Recording’ and ‘Restoration’ as I discovered that, surprisingly, my Dell laptop’s sound card did not have a ‘Line In’ jack. I purchased a USB input device ‘Fast Track USB’. The unit has guitar input jacks with conversion to USB for connection to the computer. But I discovered that it doesn’t have a stereo input. A big set-back.
Meanwhile, I experimented by making more loops using my own electric guitar, inputing to the program through the USB Fast Track box – guitar jack in / USB output to computer. Once I had recorded the guitar part, I was then able to modify the loop by applying the effects from the toolbar, such as Distortion, Chorus, Delay etc. Entertaining stuff.
However, I wanted to record vinyls; therefore more hardware to purchase. This is getting expensive! I considered a Tascam Unit but the helpful guys at Digital Village in Cambridge [see their web site] suggested that the Tascam was not as reliable as the similar ‘Alesis IO/2 24-bit Audio/Midi Interface’. I made my purchase together with a twin phono to twin guitar jack lead. With my new unit I tried again. It didn’t work by taking the link from the audio amp. There was an annoying background crackle. In the end this worked: output straight from turntable into small pre-amp; output from pre-amp via two phonos to two guitar jacks input to the Alesis IO/2, then USB output to laptop. At last a stereo link! At least to as far as the IO/2 USB box. Recording tracks – After completion of the recording, the program analyses for tracks which can be named. Then there is a choice to clean up the tracks – audio restoration and peak normalisation. This takes some time. The file can then be saved as wave or MP3’s of varying quality or it can be burnt direct to CD. It followed the track listings and created separate MP3 files for each track. Good stuff.
I recorded a vinyl track in but still could see in the active date window that Sound Forge was recording 2 mono channels. I realised that the small two blue boxes above the level indicators for each channel have to be set to ‘Microsoft Sound Mapper’ and not ‘Sound Mapper Right’ or ‘Sound Mapper Left’. The computer must have USB 2 ports. USB 1’s cause buffering problems. In the end I succeeded and created stereo MP3 files from my old vinyls. After clean-up scratches from the vinyls were still apparent but it was nevertheless a clear bright sound.
CONCLUSION
Ploughing through all the associated hardware and software problems needs perseverance if your set-up is anything like mine. To achieve my initial goal took an age but I eventually made it. Now that I have the program up and running, I will use it again to record favourite vinyls. But in addition, the program offers much in other areas such as creating loops or straightforward audio taping.
software.
Extract Audio from a CD wasn’t very helpful as it didn’t have an option for where it was to be downloaded. Found it later by going to ‘preferences’ under ‘options’. It was fascinating to examine and stretch the wave forms of songs for the first time and to create my first extracts and loops. In playing around and creating new files, somehow I was forming multiples / duplicates of files with ‘sfk’ extensions. These would not open. Could not find the annoying reason why this was happening. Wave files opened ok. A good set of headphones to bypass the rubbish laptop speakers makes the whole experience more enjoyable.
Vocal Eraser seemed interesting – a need here to keep the serial number for this add-on. Using the preview is a must. All good fun but sometimes the ‘remove vocal’ ‘keep vocal only’ did the exact opposite of what was intended.
Before long I was mixing my own loops and realised I could do what The Beatles and George Martin were doing in 1966 when they created the loops in ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. It was easier for me with this program as I didn’t have to chop up pieces of tape! I decided to form my own G major Beatles extract loop. I started with a loop of the opening guitar chords of ‘Getting Better’. I made an extract of one beat of cello from ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and mixed it into the wave form of the guitars. I did this by using standard windows ‘copy’ from one file and ‘mix’ ‘paste’ into the destination file. I rounded it off by dropping in a raga drum pattern from ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. Felt very proud. It wouldn’t have been out of place on the Beatles ‘Love’ album.
The program seemed to have many more features that I could try but I just didn’t understand how to do it. The ‘show me how’ tutorials need to be much more extensive for the uninitiated like me. For example, under ‘preferences’ it would be helpful to explain what ‘VST effects’ actually are – there was nothing in the glossary. I struggled with ‘Vinyl Recording’ and ‘Restoration’ as I discovered that, surprisingly, my Dell laptop’s sound card did not have a ‘Line In’ jack. I purchased a USB input device ‘Fast Track USB’. The unit has guitar input jacks with conversion to USB for connection to the computer. But I discovered that it doesn’t have a stereo input. A big set-back.
Meanwhile, I experimented by making more loops using my own electric guitar, inputing to the program through the USB Fast Track box – guitar jack in / USB output to computer. Once I had recorded the guitar part, I was then able to modify the loop by applying the effects from the toolbar, such as Distortion, Chorus, Delay etc. Entertaining stuff.
However, I wanted to record vinyls; therefore more hardware to purchase. This is getting expensive! I considered a Tascam Unit but the helpful guys at Digital Village in Cambridge [see their web site] suggested that the Tascam was not as reliable as the similar ‘Alesis IO/2 24-bit Audio/Midi Interface’. I made my purchase together with a twin phono to twin guitar jack lead. With my new unit I tried again. It didn’t work by taking the link from the audio amp. There was an annoying background crackle. In the end this worked: output straight from turntable into small pre-amp; output from pre-amp via two phonos to two guitar jacks input to the Alesis IO/2, then USB output to laptop. At last a stereo link! At least to as far as the IO/2 USB box. Recording tracks – After completion of the recording, the program analyses for tracks which can be named. Then there is a choice to clean up the tracks – audio restoration and peak normalisation. This takes some time. The file can then be saved as wave or MP3’s of varying quality or it can be burnt direct to CD. It followed the track listings and created separate MP3 files for each track. Good stuff.
I recorded a vinyl track in but still could see in the active date window that Sound Forge was recording 2 mono channels. I realised that the small two blue boxes above the level indicators for each channel have to be set to ‘Microsoft Sound Mapper’ and not ‘Sound Mapper Right’ or ‘Sound Mapper Left’. The computer must have USB 2 ports. USB 1’s cause buffering problems. In the end I succeeded and created stereo MP3 files from my old vinyls. After clean-up scratches from the vinyls were still apparent but it was nevertheless a clear bright sound.
CONCLUSION
Ploughing through all the associated hardware and software problems needs perseverance if your set-up is anything like mine. To achieve my initial goal took an age but I eventually made it. Now that I have the program up and running, I will use it again to record favourite vinyls. But in addition, the program offers much in other areas such as creating loops or straightforward audio taping.
Sony SoundForge Audio Studio 9 Review