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. 

[Brian Skalinder]

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).

I recall this option in SAM SE v8, but looks like in SE v9 it's been merged with the Export Audio feature.  I tried what looks like it's replacement, Export Audio | Save in Format, and SAM does, indeed, remember the bit-depth.  But Save in Format doesn't allow me to generate song-tracks at the same time, so I'll have to go through the Export Audio | Wave process again (selecting the proper bit-depth for 24-bit files), anyway.

[ghellquist]

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".

Hmm. Not sure I am following you here. What are the end results - is it one file per song in several different formats? Personally I never bounce or export anything from Sam except the final results.

I have not used SE, but tha larger Pro version. It might be that there are functions there that closer resemble what you are trying to achieve. Perhaps with a slightly different work flow, but then the end result is probably what counts.

First - export CD. This works by using the CD markers, as if you were burning a CD from inside the program. Set the markers and then name them. Now the command is File / Export Audio / wave. One nice thing is that you can force the file names to be the same as the CD markers. So if you name, say, the first song as "Morning" the file will be called Morning.wav. No suffixes added or removed. I tend to use this to export mp3-s for previews of my work on the home page.

Secondly - batch processing. Here it is indeed possible to set up "jobs" that remember the export formats. One job could be 24bit and one could be 16 bit. Batch processing works against the files in a directory so you would have to export one set first (ie with the CD export function).  This does not change any names unless you want it to.

Have to agree that the manual is really, really difficult to understand. There are a few very nice tutorial vidoes on www.samplitude.com but sadly not of these file operations.

Gunnar

[boojum]

Disclaimer: I am about 80% German and speak, read and write it, poorly.  So, here goes: do you think they are still pissed about losing the war and are getting back with that awful manual they have.  I'll bet the German one is great.  LOL   <-----   joking, folks.     

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

Hmm. Not sure I am following you here. What are the end results - is it one file per song in several different formats? Personally I never bounce or export anything from Sam except the final results.

The end results I want are about what you would expect: a set of 2496 WAVs broken on the song boundaries and a set of normalized and dithered 1644 WAVs on the song boundaries.

I bounce before saving the tracks because that is what was recommended to me when I could not figure out how to get the output I wanted from 2496 but I also thought you had to bounce to apply offline effects like normalize and filtering before resampling to 1644.  I'll play around with export CD. 

I previously looked into the batch processing and I found what you describe, that it works on the files in the directory.  A practical issue is that I  want to batch operate on a finished track that is a complete set composed of multiple file objects, trimmed, faded and tracked.  For example I just tracked a show that was 3h of continuous playing so there were 4 component files.  They all four have to be pulled into the virtual project and tracked as a contiguous stream before being written out as songs.  I could not figure out any other way than to bounce the project and export the result. 

The other issue I had with batch was that if I did set up a job to process the 2496 tracks into 1644 for CDDA, I was concerned that there would be discontinuities at the track boundaries where the dither window drained and the refilled.  So in my work flow I resample and dither the entire contiguous set to ensure that the window starts and ends  where the set fades in from zero and back out to zero.   I could not figure out how to get the batch processing to do that. 

Any thoughts you can share on these would be welcome.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

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. 

I'll try this too.  Thank you.

[ghellquist]

The end results I want are about what you would expect: a set of 2496 WAVs broken on the song boundaries and a set of normalized and dithered 1644 WAVs on the song boundaries.

There are obviously several different ways to do things. So I´ll simply describe how I would work this kind of things. I will keep it simplified here to keep the description short. One thing I often do is to treat applauds differently from the songs, as example turning up the volume of songs and turning down it on applauses.

1 - lets start with a long performance recorded in 24/96. This will come in several split files (my 722 can be set to split at for example 2GB).

2 - I import these into a folder in my PC. Start Samplitude. Create a new VIP, 2 channels, 96K. And load the wave files into the VIP. 

    Note: For those not using SAM, a project is called a VIP in that program.

3 - In the VIP I now search out the songs. They are generally very easy to see on the screen. At the start of the song I generally do a split the object (mark the object in the "track" and press T). It is possible to slide the split forward or backward.

4 - once I have marked them all I add CD track markers with "Set Track Marker on Object Edges". I get extra markers on the file splits, but simply select these and remove them.

   EDIT: Forgot to write that you should name the marker (in marker manager) as this name is used as the file name when you export.

5 - now, in the file menu, export audio. Each CD track in a file. Select 24/96. The versions of Sam is a little different in exactly where you set dither or not. On the other hand, with or without dither on a 24/96 export is totally unimportant as the noise added lays well below the noise from the AD conversion. I generally export to a new folder on the PC, with only files of one type.

6 - now go back to the VIP. Select all objects (Ctrl-A). Offline Effects, Normalize. Notice that normalize here only "remember" how much to increase the volume. I would do Unified Normalize to maybe 100%. But this would of course differ.

7 - I always add a limiter set to something like -1 or -2dB. The reason is that some playback devices start to sound really bad when very close to 0dB.

8 - now export again, but with settings 16/44. This also goes to a new folder.

Gunnar

[ghellquist]

This is a continuation of the previous post about working in SAM.

Under the section 7 is where you can apply various types of effects. The different versions of the program has slightly different set of effects so you should try different ones.

limiter - I suggest, when available, hard limiting with lookahead (have to check what this is called). I set the limiter at the very end of the chain and set it to -1 or -2 dB.

normalizing - notice that Sam-s normalizing works differently from just about all other programs. What it does is not writing a new file, but setting an internal volume (it is in the object). What you can do with normalizing is to normalize each song separately. Or what I tend to do, split out applauds from the songs and normalize them separately. It is possible to normalize to slightly above 0dB when you have a final limiter as that will pull down the occasional spikes going higher. You have to listen carefully though as too much limiter sounds like the crap they send on many radio stations.

EQ - this can be done either in the mixer or on each "object" separately. As it is easy to split a song into several objects, the Ctrl-T command, you can EQ different songs differently. Say EQ-ing an acoustical song differently from the electrical one. Typical things is to cut everything below 20 Hz as that does not come across any speakers anyway. You could also to a certain effect improve on a bad sounding room by EQ-ing out the worst "honkiness".

Compressor - a small amount of compression can be very effective. Most often I use single-band and a ratio of perhaps 1.2. The effect is a bit of "sweetening" of the sound and if done correcly has no hearable side effects. Of course, heavy handed compresion will totally mangle the song. Sometimes I do multiband compression, but that is a tool that I find as easily can make things sounding worse.

Stereo spread - this is above normal and to be used as something extra, sometimes I tend to use the so called "stereo enhancer" tool to reduce the stereo spread below about 100 Hz. The ear cannot hear any stereo effect here anyway, so I might as well make it mono there.

The final works you can do on a song like this is often called mastering. I tend to think of the word meaning a skill that has to be mastered through experience. It also takes a really good chain of listening equipment in order to be well done -- good speakers in an acoustically treated room. Regardless, we all use what we have and instead try a bit more conservative approach.

The purpose of traditional mastering is to make the music playable on a lot of different sound systems. Or you might want to master a special version for "car use" with very little dynamics (compressor), anything is allowed.

General advice though is to keep mastering on the conservative side, a little less is much better than too much.

Gunnar

[live2496]

Once you "convert->save in format" your files in 24/96 format and name them accordingly, you could use R8Brain to resample, reduce the word length to 16-bit (and dither). This can be done as a batch process. filename_t01 will become filename_t01_r8b, etc.

That is what I do if I am exporting individual tracks to go to somebody else. If I need a quick test CD for listening in the car I will burn it straight from the VIP. SE does not do this, but it is convenient. (These tracks can also be re-imported into another VIP project at 16/44.1, but that is a bit risky as burning the CD/extraction could introduce errors.)

You don't need to set the output as low as -1 or -2. Most mastering guys (by convention) set the output ceiling to -0.3 . The reason that it's not set to 0dbfs is that some older converters in cd players don't handle this well.

BTW, Voxengo Elephant is a very transparent compressor/limiter. They now have a version 3 just out. Use it as a VST plugin in the object editor or on the Samplitude mix buss. You can set the out gain to -0.3 and then experiment with the in gain control.

[boojum]

live2496 -  I just read your post re R8TBrain and Elefant.  I am not sure that there would be any gain in going outside SAM to work w/R8TBrain.  And, inside SAM there are three compressor options I have in SAM 10 Master:

[live2496]

Hi Boojum,
Well, I use whatever tool I think that works best for a particular track. I love Samplitude, but sometimes I use other tools that might offer a slightly different sound. Elephant does a good job of handling transients in a transparent way. I use the multiband compressor in Samp a lot too! I also use R8Brain.

Like a contractor building a house, it's good to have a wide variety of tools and know how and when to use each one.

VST plugins offer a certain diversity to an already great software like Samplitude.

[Brian Skalinder]

I tried to use R8Brain in conjunction with SAM, but the way SAM SE v8/9 deals with WAV files > 2 GB (using the "continue chunk") became an issue for me with R8Brain.  The workaround proved too much of a PITA for me to stick with it.

Before I head over to the SAM forums, do any of you know offhand if newer / different "package" versions of SAM support WAV files > 2 GB without the "continue chunk"?

[live2496]

Not that I have heard of.

[boojum]

If I knew what "continue chunk" meant I might be able to help.

The current SAM 10 Master can handle way huger than 4 GB.  Some humonguous number; bigger than three.      So it is huge.  The manual is upstairs I would tell you.  A trip to the site would do it for you.  I guess you knew that.   

[ghellquist]

I tried to use R8Brain in conjunction with SAM, but the way SAM SE v8/9 deals with WAV files > 2 GB (using the "continue chunk") became an issue for me with R8Brain.  The workaround proved too much of a PITA for me to stick with it.

Before I head over to the SAM forums, do any of you know offhand if newer / different "package" versions of SAM support WAV files > 2 GB without the "continue chunk"?

Reading that thread I cannot but believe that if you did things in a slightly different order you would not have a problem. The order I suggest is:

1 - Edit
2 - Generate tracks (each is probably smaller than 2GB)
3 - SRC and dither in R8Brain

Sam 10 handles so called RIFF64 files which can be larger than 4GB. This is a realatively new format and I am not sure if r8brain supports it. This might your solution otherwise.

Gunnar

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

<the following was edited for brevity>

I´ll simply describe how I would work this kind of things. I will keep it simplified here to keep the description short.

1 - lets start with a long performance recorded in 24/96. This will come in several split files
2 - load the wave files into the VIP. 
3 - In the VIP I now search out the songs. do a split the object
4 - add CD track markers with "Set Track Marker on Object Edges". I get extra markers on file splits, remove them.
5 - now, in the file menu, export audio. Each CD track in a file. Select 24/96.
6 - now go back to the VIP. Select all objects (Ctrl-A). Offline Effects, Normalize.
7 - I always add a limiter set to something like -1 or -2dB.
8 - now export again, but with settings 16/44.

Gunnar,

thanks for the description.  I use a similar work flow with these exceptions:

3,4 - instead of splitting objects, I just set CD markers directly without splitting objects
5    - I bounce before this so I can probably just eliminate the bounce step
6,7 - I normalize to -0.5db
8    - I bounce before export

Questions:

1) Why do you use object split in addition to setting CD markers?

2) In step 8, I bounce first because it was suggested in a past thread that bouncing produced better results than performing the dither as part of the export process.  I don't recall why but I just went with that.  Is there no difference?

3) I have another reason why i bounce.  There are times when I need to shape levels using a volume curve to hide my my gain adjustment in the field or because of mid show PA adjustments.  Usually this is to lower the volume of a section so I want to normalize before I do a 16-bit export.  When I normalize a multi-object track that has an applied volume curve, samplitude analyzes the original non-shaped track and reports the peak level of the original recording.  By bouncing the shaped track into a new WAV I can then normalize using the peaks of the smoothed track.  Is there a better way to do this?

VST plugins offer a certain diversity to an already great software like Samplitude.

Is it better to use the r8b standalone or the VST plug-in?  Will the r8b plug-in do a batch conversion of tracks? 

[live2496]

VST plugins offer a certain diversity to an already great software like Samplitude.

Is it better to use the r8b standalone or the VST plug-in?  Will the r8b plug-in do a batch conversion of tracks? 

Sorry if I did not clarify, but R8Brain is not available as a plugin. The author does is not interested in developing one.

[Brian Skalinder]

Reading that thread I cannot but believe that if you did things in a slightly different order you would not have a problem. The order I suggest is:

1 - Edit
2 - Generate tracks (each is probably smaller than 2GB)
3 - SRC and dither in R8Brain

Sam 10 handles so called RIFF64 files which can be larger than 4GB. This is a realatively new format and I am not sure if r8brain supports it. This might your solution otherwise.

Thanks, Gunnar.  Already tried generating tracks first.  R8Brain introduces artifacts at the track breaks, unfortunately:

I tried cutting the 3.5 GB WAV into smaller chunks, running them in batch through R8Brain, and then importing back into SAM for dithering and final tracking.  Unfortunately, this produces audible clicks at the point I re-join the WAVs.

Most of my recording results in contiguous tracks from start of performance to end of performance, so they need to play back without artifacts between each.  But I only SRC'd in R8Brain.  Maybe SRC + dither in R8Brain, instead of just SRC, will prevent the artifacts from occurring?  I doubt it, but may give it a try.  At any rate, I'll check into whether R8Brain supports RIFF64 as another potential option.

[live2496]

Possible workaround:
Cut your 3.5 gb file into two chunks and allow for some overlap between them. Resample in R8Brain and reimport into a 44.1kHz project. (I will leave it up to you to figure out how to line it up, but it should be possible.)

The other possibility is to put a short fadein/fadeout at the split point. Use the Volume Curve tool, but make it so fast that a person listening cannot tell. However the DAC will then be able to handle this without a click. 

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

I've altered my work flow to eliminate the extra bounce step in most cases and it's been a good change.  Thanks for the help.  Of course now I have another question.

I have a defect in one channel and I want to just replace the garbage section with exactly the waveform of the other channel.  This will result in a brief mono object but it's the best solution.  In CE this was easy but in SE I can't figure out how to copy one channel of a track and replace it with a copy of the other channel.

Can anyone explain how to do this?

[live2496]

Use the "t" keyboard shortcut to split the object where you want the audio affected. Split the object in two places (beginning and end of the region you want to affect.

A this point there are lots of ways to do this but perhaps the easiest is to just change some settings in the object editor.

Double-click on the object to bring up the object editor.
Hit the checkbox to mute the channel that you don't want to be heard.
Rotate the stereo pan control all the way to the left until it says mono.
Raise the volume control in this object by 6db.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

awesome! +T if I could.

I almost had it but didn't get there.


edit That didn't work so well - I don't like the audible result.  I tried something else since the defect is in a part of the audio where I could snip out the offending samples and heal the discontinuity with a cross fade.   So here is what happened:  I marked the offending range, split it off as an object and deleted the object with the glitch.  I then slid the following object over to mate the two.  Using cross fade editor I set the crossfade region to 1000ms and the resulting fade seemed about right but the offending glitch is reappeared.  Its as if I never cut that out.  Any ideas how this would happen or if I am doing it wrong?

[live2496]

I would hit undo and try it over to see if you get the same result.

[Brian Skalinder]

LKJIL -- I've experienced the exact same issue as you before.  When one splits and deletes an object, SAM doesn't actually delete the underlying audio.  The audio remains.  In two places, actually!  Best described by an example (from memory, I don't have SAM on my work laptop):

Take a 60 sec waveform.  Split it into 3 objects:  Object A (0-20 sec), Object B (21-30 sec), Object C (31-60 sec).  Delete Object B, the middle object (21-30 sec).  Now...drag/extend the right side of Object A, or the left side of Object C.  And what will one see?  The content from (deleted) Object B!  Even if you move Object C, so that it abuts Object A, the content is still there.  Depending on how one applies crossfades, it's possible to reveal some of the content from Object B.

There are at least two ways to apply crossfades:  <1> move 2 objects so they overlap, ensuring one does not change the size of either object, <2> overlapping and/or extending each object so that they overlap, in part by changing the size of the objects.  In case <2>, changing the size of the objects may reveal content from the deleted object that previously resided in between them.

Basically, you have to make sure you don't "un-delete" any of Object B's content as you apply your crossfade.  Not at my home PC to explain how in greater detail, but hopefully this provides a bit of guidance.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

Brian thanks.

I was using the cross-fade method of placing the two objects adjacent and then using the second object (left click > cross fade editor) to affect the splice.  That seems to be consistant with your description.

Are you recommending that I drag the second object on top of the first object to cause a crossfade?  When I pull one object to overlap another the object on top always appears to replace the region it covers.

[Brian Skalinder]

Are you recommending that I drag the second object on top of the first object to cause a crossfade?  When I pull one object to overlap another the object on top always appears to replace the region it covers.

To be honest, I don't recall precisely how to do it, and I won't be at my home PC to futz with it until later in the week.  :scratches head:  But there's definitely a way to crossfade without bringing the "deleted" artifacts back into the mix.  Sorry I'm not more help at the moment...

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

No worries.  I'm out sick today so I'm just laying here playing with audio and reading soap operas.  I'll post if I figure it out.

[live2496]

If you delete the object that represents the part of the audio that you don't want, it should not re-appear when you crossfade the two adjacent objects. I'm not quite sure what is happening here.

All of the data is still in your original file. So the data you deleted is really available, but it is not referenced in any of the remaining objects. Of course, it could be a bug. Maybe that only happens if the region deleted is small. But I can't say for sure.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

edit: (removed question)

OK I have a solution.

1) enable auto cross fade in the tool bar
2) hight light the offending section
3) ctrl-del

This does exactly what I need and the result is very clean without any artifacts.

Also, when I start shifting these objects to remove the defect, all my CD track markers move too.  Is there a way to lock CD markers into their relative position within the object?

[live2496]

I don't know if there is a way to do that.

What I usually do is to split the track at the beginning of each song to create a new object for each. Then "set CD markers on object edges". It generates all of the cd markers at once.

If changes are made, you can remove all of them and then "set CD markers on object edges". That is how I would do it. It's the fastest way.