Author Topic: Spark ME help (Read 10912 times)

greenone · « **on:** April 01, 2003, 01:41:52 PM »

Hi folks,

I'm finally dragging myself into the world of OS X recording and trying out Spark ME. From what I can tell, the recording itself is working fine, but I'm having a hell of a time figuring out how to split the tracks up from there. I'd like to wean myself from Sound Studio/SoundEdit 16 (they're all I use OS 9 for anymore) and Spark seems like it'll do the trick for what I do (no fancy editing, just track splits and the occasional normalization).

If anyone would be kind enough to drop me an email and walk me through the basics, I'd appreciate it muchly.

--Dave

hippies · « **Reply #1 on:** April 01, 2003, 01:51:31 PM »

i haven't tried Spark as yet, so no help there, sorry. just curious, why don't you like the OSX version of Sound Studio? i have version 2.07 and that's what i use for recording/ editing. seems to work great for me. and the price can't be beat.

~S

greenone · « **Reply #2 on:** April 01, 2003, 02:21:32 PM »

I've actually never had success recording with Sound Studio - I'd get consistent five-second "blat" noises between 30 and 40 minutes into each recording I did. At first I thought it might be my deck(s), but ruled them out. Then I thought it might be the OS X driver for my U2A (which was in beta at the time), so I waited for the non-beta version, and still had the same behavior, so I resigned myself to using OS 9 for audio until OS X behaved itself, figuring it was the driver and not my software.

Just last week I tried Spark after seeing another taper use it live, and it recorded without a hitch...but I couldn't figure out how to edit with it, so I just used SoundEdit 16. But I'd much rather use one program for capture and edit...and Spark is so much faster than SoundEdit or Sound Studio, which is attractive to me - when I used Sound Studio in OS 9, it'd take a minute or two to write a temp file when I did a cut-paste from one file into the next, and SoundEdit 16 has to redraw the wave form every time you scroll it, which is really irritating. I'm interested to see what's new in Sound Studio 2.1, but it's been "coming soon" for months now...

--Dave

ps. For what it's worth, there's still a bug in the OS X driver for the U2A - it won't light up the input light unless you click on "Analog" and then "Digital" again in the control panel. I've emailed them about it twice and didn't get any response...

hippies · « **Reply #3 on:** April 01, 2003, 02:32:40 PM »

interesting. sounds like a hardware conflict then.

just a quick thought. the glitches you mention when using SS. they don't correspond to your monitor shutting down or some other power saving feature do they? from my point of view, OSX and Core Audio rawk. very solid. 'course, this could very well be hardware dependant, as it looks in your case.

anyway, yeah, i use an EMI 2|6 and SS and that setup works great for me. but you're right, SS is very slow. i wonder how it runs on a dual G4 tower?

greenone · « **Reply #4 on:** April 01, 2003, 03:13:43 PM »

Hardware conflicts...eugh. But like you said, the price was right. Sound Studio is one of the few shareware programs I've gone ahead and registered because it's done what I asked it to do so well - record. That and Transmit (FTP) have really earned their stripes on the shareware front.

Interesting thought re: power saving features. I never had that problem using SS on OS9, and with the way OS X manages memory I never even thought of it. Of course, that still doesn't solve the slowness of editing, but it's another thing to test, at least. Maybe the folks at Felt Tip need to be alerted of it. +T for the diagnostic suggestion!

SS on a dual G4 tower...hmm. I'd be willing to test it out if someone wants to loan the hardware. To be extra-sure, I'd need to put it to the full stress test and run it for an extended amount of time. Say, a few months?

--Dave

ps. Still looking for hand-holding on the Spark ME front.

scb · « **Reply #5 on:** April 01, 2003, 07:47:33 PM »

>>when I used Sound Studio in OS 9, it'd take a minute or two to write a temp file when I did a cut-paste from one file into the next, and SoundEdit 16 has to redraw the wave form every time you scroll it, which is really irritating. I'm interested to see what's new in Sound Studio 2.1, but it's been "coming soon" for months now...<<

why cut and paste new tracks in sound studio? make markers and use the "split-by-marker" feature. it'll just cut it at the markers. takes less than 10 minutes to track a show that way

record in spark me, track in sound studio

hippies · « **Reply #6 on:** April 01, 2003, 08:10:49 PM »

i'm gonna havta check out Spark, i guess.

off the subject, i know, but Scott, has Spark worked out well for 24-bit? haven't talked to you in awhile. one thing i did test this past week was trying to get the EMI 2|6 to work with Windows 2K Pro. no dice! wanted to run 24-bit from a V3 to Vaio last Fri for Kimock.

no can do, unless there's something i'm missing. hell, i couldn't even get EMI to do 16-bit with Win 2K. not surprising, i guess. the surprising thing came when at the show, another taper mentioned how he couldn't get his 2|6 to work with a Powerbook!

thinkin' that sito has to be a user error. oh well...who knows.

~S

greenone · « **Reply #7 on:** April 02, 2003, 01:09:51 AM »

Quote from: scott brown on April 01, 2003, 07:47:33 PM

why cut and paste new tracks in sound studio? make markers and use the "split-by-marker" feature. it'll just cut it at the markers. takes less than 10 minutes to track a show that way

Never saw that feature...but SS doesn't support user-selected frames per second. It's 24 or 30 or nothing, it looks like...or you can edit the grid to 588 samples/second and use snap to grid. Kinda a bassackwards way of doing it, but I guess it works...

Oh well...I'll put in a feature request for user-selectability or at least make it an option. Thanks Scott!

--Dave

schoeps t00bes · « **Reply #8 on:** April 02, 2003, 02:20:25 AM »

hey scott,
i thought the EMI 2I6 was cross compatible with win 98, me, 2k, and xp? could it just be that you need an updated driver installed? just curious, since i started looking at all the info you sent me i was really happy that this unit seemed to be easily compatible.
dave

scb · « **Reply #9 on:** April 02, 2003, 10:02:27 AM »

>>Never saw that feature...but SS doesn't support user-selected frames per second. It's 24 or 30 or nothing, it looks like...or you can edit the grid to 588 samples/second and use snap to grid. Kinda a bassackwards way of doing it, but I guess it works...

Oh well...I'll put in a feature request for user-selectability or at least make it an option. Thanks Scott!
<<

that's what shntool is for!

split by markers (it does it to aiff, but latest shntool deals with aiff) and then run shntool on them. very convenient

greenone · « **Reply #10 on:** April 02, 2003, 10:27:06 AM »

Quote from: scott brown on April 02, 2003, 10:02:27 AM

that's what shntool is for!

split by markers (it does it to aiff, but latest shntool deals with aiff) and then run shntool on them. very convenient

Yeah, but I'm lazy...I hate renaming files.

Taking all those '-fixed' flags out wastes valuable time, dammit! And as far as I can tell, there's no way around it.

Since you brought up the aiff thing...I had some weird errors compressing aiffs and then running shntool on them before - like shntool couldn't get some info from the files because it didn't recognize them. Ever seen those before? I'm also not thrilled with the file.aiff.shn format for command-line-shortened aiffs - again, the file renaming laziness rears its ugly head.

Oh well.

--Dave

hippies · « **Reply #11 on:** April 02, 2003, 11:28:12 AM »

Quote from: schoeps t00bes on April 02, 2003, 02:20:25 AM

hey scott,
i thought the EMI 2I6 was cross compatible with win 98, me, 2k, and xp? could it just be that you need an updated driver installed? just curious, since i started looking at all the info you sent me i was really happy that this unit seemed to be easily compatible.
dave

hold the phone, dave!. we're sorting this out right now on the laptop tapers list.
it was and still is my belief that the thing is cross platform. just gotta figure out what the problem is here.

~S

schoeps t00bes · « **Reply #12 on:** April 02, 2003, 11:44:02 AM »

haha...your the MAN scott!!

can't wait to find out. you're definitely right about the cross platform.
i went back and re-read all the info on the emagic site today.
thanks for all your help,
dave

coldrainandsnow · « **Reply #13 on:** April 02, 2003, 11:47:40 AM »

Forgive me for changing the topic a bit, but this fits in with some info i need to figure out.

What are Mac users using to record & track audio files. Ive got a VX Pocket on the way and want to be able to run my 48k dats into the powerbook to transfer.

I currently have Peak & Toast w/ Jam on OSX. Is Spark a better option than Peak. I saw a suggestion to track w/ Sound Studio. Anybody have any further input or suggestions? Thanks for the help. Feel free to email me off the board at coldrainandsnow@hotmail.com
Mark

greenone · « **Reply #14 on:** April 02, 2003, 12:33:00 PM »

Glad to have someone else on the thread. It was getting confusing with two Scotts and two Daves.

I've never used a VXPocket; I use an Egosys Waveterminal U2A and have been for almost three years now...but the software I used on OS 9 was Sound Studio and SoundEdit, to record and track, respectively. On OS X, Spark and SoundEdit (running in the Classic environment) until recently, though if tracking is as easy as Scott B says it is on Sound Studio 2.0.7, I may try to see if I can resolve the conflict I was having before that made my recordings 'gassy' so I have an all-in-one solution.

--Dave

hippies · « **Reply #15 on:** April 02, 2003, 02:34:52 PM »

yep, Sound Studio is definately just that easy. drop markers and click 'split by markers'. delete old file. rename. all done.

John Kelly · « **Reply #16 on:** April 02, 2003, 03:01:33 PM »

About shntool, you can actually make it so that you don't have to rename any of your files. I track in Sound Studio, and split all my tracks by markers. The files that I get do not have an extension on the end. Then I run shntool using the following command:
shntool conv -o shn *
in the folder with all the files. I then get nicely named files (btw, you could also use the command shnconv) with a .shn extension and without any -fixed flags...

scb · « **Reply #17 on:** April 02, 2003, 04:17:19 PM »

>>Yeah, but I'm lazy...I hate renaming files. Taking all those '-fixed' flags out wastes valuable time, dammit! And as far as I can tell, there's no way around it.<<

you can edit it so it doesn't add the "-fixed"

download the latest shntool source code. open up the fix.c source file (it might be core-fix.c or somethign, i can check when at home).

put a "//" before the #DEFINE postfix line

then down lower, put a "//" on the 2 lines that add the "-" and "fixed". or i'll send you the binary

(if you're a computer geek already then maybe i should have just said comment out the lines that add the -fixed)

.>>Since you brought up the aiff thing...I had some weird errors compressing aiffs and then running shntool on them before - like shntool couldn't get some info from the files because it didn't recognize them. Ever seen those before? I'm also not thrilled with the file.aiff.shn format for command-line-shortened aiffs - again, the file renaming laziness rears its ugly head. Oh well.<<

shntool uses sox to convert formats, and sox doesn't understand compressed aiff-c.

sound studio exports (when choosing split by markers) without filename extensions. then a quick "shnfix -o shn *" form shntool fixes them and outputs to shn from the aiff. no filenames to clean up. you can also specify in shntool what output filenames to use. very powerful utility if you know all the modules

greenone · « **Reply #18 on:** April 02, 2003, 04:36:37 PM »

Quote from: scott brown on April 02, 2003, 04:17:19 PM

you can edit it so it doesn't add the "-fixed"

Nifty fix. I hadn't thought about fiddling around in the source code but I'll give that a shot when I get home...question, though - does it then just overwrite the source file instead of adding the -fixed?

Quote from: scott brown on April 02, 2003, 04:17:19 PM

shntool uses sox to convert formats, and sox doesn't understand compressed aiff-c.

Hmm. I also noticed that everything was incredibly slower when handling aiffs - shntool, shorten, everything. Even 'shntool len' takes 10-15 seconds. Is that typical?

Quote from: scott brown on April 02, 2003, 04:17:19 PM

sound studio exports (when choosing split by markers) without filename extensions. then a quick "shnfix -o shn *" form shntool fixes them and outputs to shn from the aiff. no filenames to clean up.

This was amazingly fast. So long, SoundEdit...now to get SS to export to wav, or to get shntool to work faster on aiffs...

--Dave

scb · « **Reply #19 on:** April 02, 2003, 04:53:52 PM »

>>Nifty fix. I hadn't thought about fiddling around in the source code but I'll give that a shot when I get home...question, though - does it then just overwrite the source file instead of adding the -fixed?<<

it will overwrite if you output the same format. when i fix though, i usually fix .wav or .aiff directly to shn though, so no worry about overwriting

as for shntool taking longer for aiffs, there are many variations of aiff files and i have found that it's faster on some than others. if you have a version of Peak, that'll split by markers into wav. but if fixing all aiffs takes a few min longer than .wav, i don't mind as long as it's not incredibly longer.

mike v and i requested the output to wav option in sound studio a while ago, but it wasn't put in. maybe in the new verson out any day now? we'll see