Topic: Sound Forge 7.0 v Wavelab 4.0

[zowie]

Can anyone elaborate on the differences between these (aside from price).  I've seen the "sound forge is very good and wavelab is great" comments, but was hoping for a little detail behind that.  Thanks.

[jpschust]

both are good in their own rights.  i prefer wavelab honestly because i prefer their visualizations for metering.  also wavelab uses the uv22hr apogee algorithm for dithering so thats always a plus with me.  

[zhianosatch]

Sound Forge is a lot easier to use and way more straightforward. I have both and prefer Sound Forge because doing stuff in Wavelab wastes a lot of time for the new user.
But if I were to do almost any editing or just basic resampling or dithering, I strongly suspect that Wavelab is the better choice.

[jpschust]

here is the comparison i had a friend make to me just the other day.  soundforge is very narrow, yet very deep.  Meaning- easy to grab ahold of quickly, but there's a lot there if you want to dive in.  Wavelab is very wide and just as deep.  There's a lot to learn at first, but juts as much depth.  I don't know if that makes a lot of sense, but with all the options in wavelab, all the visualizations, all the functions it has always felt more powerful.

[nic]

unless you need automation abilities, I would stay with Soundforge 6 instead of Soundforge 7.
SF 7 has a serious latency lag that is not present in SF 6.
(it *could* be possible the latency issues I experienced was because of having SF 6 AND SF 7 both installed...but I doubt it)

if your running SF, I HIGHLY recommend the Waves plugin bundle, if only for the Rennaissance pack!!

[zowie]

Thanks all.

Are Waves/VST plugins really useable with Sound Forge?  I only noticed directX ability, but if I could use wave plug ins I can't think of any reason not to go with Sound Forge

Some priorities for me are:

Great sounding compressor/limiter, reverb and eq;

bit reduction or dithering scheme;

speed of editing (not waiting for HD to churn out a new file);

FAST and EASY dividing files into CD tracks;

Noise reduction.

I have almost all of this stuff now in some form, but not with good enough quality and/or convenience.

[MattD]

You can use DirectX plugins with both SF and WaveLab.

[jpschust]

when you talk about using plugins for compression, eq and whatnot, i kind of balk at the idea of using them with sf or wavelab.  that stuff for me occurs within protools.

as per speed of editing you can't beat wavelab.  

i am demoing sf 7 to see if i wanna buy it right now.  so far i like it, but still wavelab is holding its own.  im gonna do some more work with both and see what ive got.

[RRobar]

i am demoing sf 7 to see if i wanna buy it right now.

hahahahaha Jonny, stop your still killing me  

[nic]

"when you talk about using plugins for compression, eq and whatnot, i kind of balk at the idea of using them with sf or wavelab.  that stuff for me occurs within protools."

SF and Wavelab has their own native plugins, just like ProTools and Digital Performer, however, practically everyone agrees that the 3rd party plugins from Steinberg are much better than the native plugins that come with each app

[jpschust]

rob, strange as you may have it, i actually have been buying my own software!

[jpschust]

oh and maybe its the studio guy in me but i just dont want to apply compression and limiters to a paired down two track, it just kills me to do it on the overall level, though it has to be done sometimes (ie radio prep and whatnot).  i just hate doing it though- im one of those people who is just super anti compression.

[zowie]

oh and maybe its the studio guy in me but i just dont want to apply compression and limiters to a paired down two track, it just kills me to do it on the overall level, though it has to be done sometimes (ie radio prep and whatnot).  i just hate doing it though- im one of those people who is just super anti compression.

I don't enjoy an overly compressed sound.  But with accoustic and classical music I sometimes record, w/o compression you get too wide a dynamic range with too low an average volume for the CD to be enjoyed on a car stereo, discman, etc. without annoyingly having to ride the playback volume.

If you're recording pro house sound, it's being compressed before it gets to you, so there considerably less need for adding more afterwards.

[jpschust]

so ive been playing with some of the eq functions of soundforge, some of their presets are nice, but most have to be customized for any real use.  their low pass filter is pretty decent and sounds ok... more to come on my tests :-)

[RRobar]

rob, strange as you may have it, i actually have been buying my own software!

Sorry, jonny not implying anything. Good that one of us actually have a real version.

[Nick Culbreth]

hey jonny is there any way you could help me demo wavelab 4.0?  

[jpschust]

sorry, dont have a keygen or anything like that :-(

[jpschust]

no worries rob, you know its really worth it- not only in that i get support on it, but also because i know i like to be rewarded for my work, why shouldnt others.