Topic: Couple of Samplitude questions

[Carrera2]

1. I'm using SAM 8SE and am finally getting the hang of it. I've been considering upgrading to the Master or SAM 10 versions. How many tracks can Master handle? Is it two stereo tracks? I am thinking that I might want to work with the four tracks out of the 744T. Can the Master version handle those four tracks? I'm guessing that the Master version is aimed at stereo mastering only.

2. On the Samplitude forums, there's some grumbling about the poor customer service and support in the U.S. See:

http://tinyurl.com/68v3aj Better Business Bureau gives Magix an "F" rating.

http://tinyurl.com/5r4c2r Magix forum discussion about customer service problems

Anyone have comments about this? I didn't see any English discussion on their forums about Samplitude or Sequoia, only about their Audio Studio and the SAM SE version.

Thanks for any experience. The price starts creeping up, particularly with the Euro/Dollar rate. Hate to get stuck without access to reasonable support.

[boojum]

Sam Master 10 handles four stereo tracks.  It will master, edit, burn, import, deglitch, dehiss, denoise and wash your skivvies.  Customer support does not exist.  There is a forum board but the questions go unanswered for longer than they should.  I am noot sure why this is.  But it sucks.  I just learn how to do it, whatever it is.  That takes a long time as SAM 8 SE is a subset of SAM Master 10.  You will lke it.

Cheers

PS - as there is no upgrade path from SE, the SAM 8 SE stays.  You can do eight tracks in that.  Then export as a four track set or whatever to finish in SAM 10.  Just a thought.

Cheers, again.

[ghellquist]

There is a much better forum at Samplitude. Severel actual developers take part here and there is quite a large group of user. You have to register somehow, cannot remember exactly how, so maybe it is not open to SE users.

Look under support / forum:
http://www.samplitude.com/eng/seq/

Gunnar

[Carrera2]

Great, thanks guys.

I had registered for the site, but didn't find my way to the link you had suggested. Looks like an active community there.

I've been using Cubase and ProTools in classes and much prefer the look and feel of Samplitude (although Cubase does seem good for MIDI work).

Any rate, thanks again. Can't give out T's any longer, sorry about that.

[boojum]

Hey, I checked what the BBB's "F" means:

"We strongly question the company’s reliability for reasons such as that they have failed to respond to complaints, their advertising is grossly misleading, they are not in compliance with the law’s licensing or registration requirements, their complaints contain especially serious allegations, or the company’s industry is known for its fraudulent business practices."

It seems the MAGIX boys are buttholes.  I got my software online and have had no issues with them.  I get questions answered by the folks in Canada as I guess the US office is shut.  I am thinking of upgrading to SAM 10 to get the extra tracks, but not sure I want to.  If I upgrade and it steps on and deletes the older version, I lose the denoiser and dehisser, etc. 

Software support may be a little slow responding, but they are good when you follow the Samplitude route.  And the software is written by those Germans at Samplitude.  SAM 10 is a bear to learn.  Any sophisticated editor is a bear to learn.  It has a tutorial which I have not studied.  Duh.  Maybe it would be easier if I studied it.   

ProTools seems the most popular.  I have not liked the editions I have seen.  SAM seems more oriented to the classical/jazz scene, but I may be wrong.  Here is the bottom line: if you like SE, go forward with what you know, a subset of SAM 10, rather than relearn a new editor.  I like mine.  I learn more about it daily and it becomes more useful daily. 

I really want to see what other companies the BBB is giving an "F" to.  Microsoft has to be getting one.   LOL

 

[Brian Skalinder]

Personally, I'd only upgrade if there were features I wanted in other versions that do not exist in SE.  That said, I've stuck with SE (v9) since it does everything I want it to do.  Do you find the SE v8 feature set lacking in some way?

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

The two things I would like in SE is the ability to script post processing so that all my after-tracking chores could be a single invocation and the ability to alter the default extension naming when exporting tracks so that I don't have to rename them to remove the "_".   Any chance these exist and I've just not found how?

[Brian Skalinder]

The two things I would like in SE is the ability to script post processing so that all my after-tracking chores could be a single invocation and the ability to alter the default extension naming when exporting tracks so that I don't have to rename them to remove the "_".   Any chance these exist and I've just not found how?

Not sure what to say about "after-tracking chores" since tracking is my last action (aside from renaming & FLAC-ing).  What kind of actions do you take post-tracking?

For rename, I use THE Rename - free, easy batch rename app.  I'd rather change the default filename in SAM, but since I haven't looked into how to do so (if it's even possible), THE Rename works well enough for now.

[Carrera2]

Personally, I'd only upgrade if there were features I wanted in other versions that do not exist in SE.  That said, I've stuck with SE (v9) since it does everything I want it to do.  Do you find the SE v8 feature set lacking in some way?

I guess I was tempted by noticing that there is an upgrade/crossgrade option for SE8 or SE9 to versions 10 and it is likely that SE8 will no longer qualify when verson 11 is out. I am also tempted by the "cleaning and restoration suite" and the ability to use 8 plugins per track rather than 2. But I appreciate your point about thinking hard before upgrading.

Can you share why you upgraded from SE8 to SE9. I guess I assume that you did so because you were using SAM before I started and when I jumped in, SE8 was the latest version available.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

Not sure what to say about "after-tracking chores" since tracking is my last action (aside from renaming & FLAC-ing).  What kind of actions do you take post-tracking?

2496 bounce with no dither -> export with no dither -> normalize -> 1644 bounce with dither -> export with no dither

I find two things that annoy me are that the export seems to always pick a odd default for the bit depth, often defaulting to 32bit so that I have to manually set and verify each time and the export always appends "_xx" when I would prefer it append "_txx" or just "xx" when I specify an output file name with "_t".

[Carrera2]

If I decide to go forward with the Master version, I should be able to purchase it at an "academic" price. I contacted the only online dealer I could flush out through google offering an academic version and received no response from them. I wrote to Magix via their webmail form and received a short, pleasant email this morning from their North American rep in Ontario, who offered to hook me up. Seems like pretty good customer service to me. It appears that the "academic price" is just shy of $150.

[Brian Skalinder]

2496 bounce with no dither -> export with no dither -> normalize -> 1644 bounce with dither -> export with no dither

I find two things that annoy me are that the export seems to always pick a odd default for the bit depth, often defaulting to 32bit so that I have to manually set and verify each time and the export always appends "_xx" when I would prefer it append "_txx" or just "xx" when I specify an output file name with "_t".

Yeah, I hear you.  Export's format setting should default to the same format of the file one is exporting.  And I wish bouncing also included the Export feature's option of generating individual tracks based on markers.  And it would be nice to specify a default naming convention when exporting individual tracks.

For Export dither settings, I'm in the habit of confirming my bit depth on every bounce / export, anyway, since I go back and forth between 16- and 24-bit.  If I didn't confirm, I'd flub it a fair amount of the time - thinking I was exporting 24-bit when I was actually exporting 16-bit, and vice versa.  In my version of SAM SE v9, Export always defaults to the correct bit-depth for 16-bit source files, but defaults to 32bfp for 24-bit files.

FWIW, for the filenaming issue, I use THE Rename - a free, easy batch rename utility.  But granted, it's an extra step with which I'd rather not have to deal.

Edit to add:  Per the SAM/SEQ forum, there might be a way to bounce individual objects to separate "CD tracks" in other versions (not SE, like mine) of SAM/SEQ.  Not positive, and I don't know what versions, but might be worth exploring for those who would like the feature.

[boojum]

If I decide to go forward with the Master version, I should be able to purchase it at an "academic" price. I contacted the only online dealer I could flush out through google offering an academic version and received no response from them. I wrote to Magix via their webmail form and received a short, pleasant email this morning from their North American rep in Ontario, who offered to hook me up. Seems like pretty good customer service to me. I appears that the "academic price" is just shy of $150.

That's a good price.  If I could get a similar deal on the regular SAM 10, I might enroll in a course at the local CC.  How slimy can a guy get?   LOL

[Carrera2]

TIf I could get a similar deal on the regular SAM 10, I might enroll in a course at the local CC.  How slimy can a guy get?   LOL

Just for the record, I am enrolled in 9 units in the Recording Arts Program between two of our local community colleges.

[live2496]

Not sure what to say about "after-tracking chores" since tracking is my last action (aside from renaming & FLAC-ing).  What kind of actions do you take post-tracking?

2496 bounce with no dither -> export with no dither -> normalize -> 1644 bounce with dither -> export with no dither

I find two things that annoy me are that the export seems to always pick a odd default for the bit depth, often defaulting to 32bit so that I have to manually set and verify each time and the export always appends "_xx" when I would prefer it append "_txx" or just "xx" when I specify an output file name with "_t".

Try Convert Audio->Save in Format. If I split an object and do this a second time it remembers that I selected 24-bit last time (and does not revert to 32-bit float).

When saving the file you can click on a file that appears in the dialogue and then quickly modify it's name. If you had one that had _txx from the last "convert" you can edit it to be filename_t01, filename_t02, etc.