Sound Forge (general)

[John Rofrano]

[Kelly Griffin] ” I get the impression that most, if not everybody, uses Sound Forge for everything audio.”

I don’t work that way. I use Sound Forge for “surgical” edits. If I have noise reduction to do or general sounds clean-up, I will do that in Sound Forge and then use the clean audio in Vegas. All of my final audio finishing is done right in Vegas using separate buses for dialog, music, and sound fx.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Kelly Griffin]

Okay, two more audio questions:

(1) I’m embarrassed to ask after all these years, but what exactly is the definition of a “bus”? Is it just the same as a “track”?

and

(2) Is there a way to widen the L&R display of the VU meter? They’re so thin it’s hard to see (especially) the yellow-to-red zone (that’s about my extent of audio knowledge… “Keep stuff in the yellow zone, and just kiss red a little if you have to.”)

THANKS

–Kelly

[John Rofrano]

[Kelly Griffin] “(1) I’m embarrassed to ask after all these years, but what exactly is the definition of a “bus”? Is it just the same as a “track”?”

No a bus is a collection point much like the master bus that controls all of the tracks. Think of it as a “Y” cable to plug two things into one except you’re not limited to just two. By default, all of the tracks are routed to the master audio bus and that’s the big volume fader you see on the right of video preview. You can insert more buses and route audio track to them first instead of the master bus. Now the fader of the bus controls the overall volume of the tracks that are routed to it. If you need to raise or lower those track’s volumes, you can do it all with one fader. You can also add FX to the bus and all of the tracks that are routed to it will be affected by those FX. That makes a bus an ideal place to route all tracks that need a limiter to keep them at the same volume like for dialog or music or special fx (the three most common volumes that broadcasters worry about).

[Kelly Griffin] “(2) Is there a way to widen the L&R display of the VU meter? They’re so thin it’s hard to see (especially) the yellow-to-red zone (that’s about my extent of audio knowledge… “Keep stuff in the yellow zone, and just kiss red a little if you have to.”)”

Ah…, the trick is to make the zone you are interested in take up more of the scale. To do this, right-click on the volume meter and select -42 to 0 dB from the context menu. That will make the bottom of the scale -42 dB so that -21 dB is in the middle and you can monitor that sweet spot around -24 dB more easily. I believe this will make it easier for you to see what’s going on.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Danny Hays]

Also Soundforge is only a mono or stereo editor. You can’t mix with it. I can do most anything I need right in Vegas.

[Kelly Griffin]

Okay, I’ll look more into busses. Thanks John.

Also, I already changed the range of the VU meter before I posed the question, so I guess the answer’s “no”, unless I described it wrong. I’m just trying to “see” the meters easier; they’re just really thin. Is there a way to display them maybe three or four times thicker than they are?

[John Rofrano]

[Kelly Griffin] “Is there a way to display them maybe three or four times thicker than they are?”

Well you could using the mixing console. Go to View | Mixing Console (Ctrl+Alt+6) and then press the VU Meters button and you’ll get thicker VU meters that can be very wide. You can also press the Meters button and have them display at the top wide as well.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Stephen Mann]

I’m like John. I haven’t opened Sound Forge in months and prefer to use Vegas for all my mixer functions. Vegas was originally a soundtrack editor.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Danny Hays]

Ah! Good ol’ Sonic Foundry. Sony bought them out like, ver. 3 or 4 I think. It was audio only for a while,,, What ver did they add video?