Trying to find alternatives

Ozy wrote on 7/10/2024, 10:46 PM

I've been looking for weeks and I've found 2 programs to settle on, but they each have little things of their own that I'm not fond of. I'm switching from Adobe (already canceled my monthly plan). I got used to the way it records which it seems very few DAWs, audio editors, recording software does it this way. It's recording behavior is the exact same as Sound Forge and OcenAudio, but when I search for alternatives, Reaper and Audacity come up for the best ones, but they are very different. The recording behavior I'm looking for is that it doesn't split the wave into multiple clips when you stop a recording and start it back up. I do not want it to split the file at all. I would immediately purchase Sound Forge if I could find a decent noise removal for it, but the one included is not even as good as Audacity's. I can't seem to find a VST/addon that removes noise either. So if anyone has any suggestions, I am open to them whether that be a different program to try out that has all my requirements (which I'll list below so it's easier to see) or somehow allows me to fix Sound Forge in the way that I need it to be. It's just lacking a decent noise removal, and yes, I've looked up how to use it and it just doesn't quite do it for me. I don't want to have to use 2 programs to make up for what Adobe could do.
My requirements:
1. Recording behavior where I can record and replace existing audio within the same wave without it splitting into clips.
2. Noise removal that actually removes noise
3. (I'll just put these on the same one) 30 band EQ, single band compressor, normalization configurable to -1
4. LOL scrollable timeline (this has absolutely been a problem)
I'd appreciate any help or insight.

Comments

SP. wrote on 7/11/2024, 4:01 AM

@Ozy Are you talking about Sound Forge Audio Cleaning Lab or Sound Forge Pro? Both are completely different programs. Cleaning Lab only uses the Sound Forge brand.

There are free audio cleaning tools as VST plugins available, for example the Accusonus Era Bundle. You can get it from archive.org. It went freeware after Facebook bought the developers, better said it went "abandonware" because the developers removed the DRM and released it without further updates before shutting the servers down.

 https://archive.org/details/era-bundle-v-6.2.00-voice-changer-v-1.3.10

 https://archive.org/download/era-bundle-v-6.2.00-voice-changer-v-1.3.10

I'm not sure about the EQ, Compressor and scrolling because I use an older version of Sound Forge Pro. I suggest the 30 days trial version of the current version 18.

Ozy wrote on 7/11/2024, 6:48 AM

@Ozy Are you talking about Sound Forge Audio Cleaning Lab or Sound Forge Pro? Both are completely different programs. Cleaning Lab only uses the Sound Forge brand.

There are free audio cleaning tools as VST plugins available, for example the Accusonus Era Bundle. You can get it from archive.org. It went freeware after Facebook bought the developers, better said it went "abandonware" because the developers removed the DRM and released it without further updates before shutting the servers down.

 https://archive.org/details/era-bundle-v-6.2.00-voice-changer-v-1.3.10

 https://archive.org/download/era-bundle-v-6.2.00-voice-changer-v-1.3.10

I'm not sure about the EQ, Compressor and scrolling because I use an older version of Sound Forge Pro. I suggest the 30 days trial version of the current version 18.

I am talking about Sound Forge Pro 18. I'm trying it out with the trial version. The program is awesome, and I love the fact that I can even change the waveform colors. I can use the scroll wheel exactly how I want and everything in the program feels nice to use alongside my muscle memory for Adobe Premiere. It's got recording behavior that I want in such that I can record over mistakes and replace the audio without it creating another "clip" or "take" as other programs call it. That being said.. it's sound reduction is absolutely terrible comparing with even freeware like Audacity which strips the noise completely out of the wave without harming the quality one bit. I can't detect any noise at all visually or with headphones audibly. Sound Forge's process leaves the audio/noise untouched unless I crank the settings to max where it will start distorting the audio. There seems to be no in-between. Everything else seems to work, but the normalizer in SF18 is a slider and I can't quite have it land on -1 but close and while that might not be a total game breaking problem, it's still a bit annoying lol. But anyways, thank you for your reply and I will look into those VSTs and maybe they will help. I do want to keep this discussion going though in case anyone else has any more insights.

SP. wrote on 7/11/2024, 7:11 AM

@Ozy With Sound Forge Pro Suite(!) also comes SpectraLayers Pro which you can use for denoising. Check Steinberg's website for more information.

You can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to fine tune the sliders.

rraud wrote on 7/11/2024, 9:54 AM

Exactly what type of 'noise' are you referring to? SF Pro 18 includes the legacy Noise Reduction Pack (aka, NR-2.0) and iZotope's RX Elements qhixh ia goos doe sin typw noise reduction, clicks and pops and clipped peak restoration. For comprehensive restoration work, SpectraLayers Pro which is included with the SF Pro Suite as @SP. stated. SpectraLayers Pro has many automatic (unmix) tools, however editing the spectral graph manually has somewhat of a learning curve. SLP canbe used as a plug-in within Sound Forge or as a standalone app. SLP is nothering shot of amazing and well worth the upgrade price IMO. iZ's RX Advanced has great tools as well but is rather costly ($1000+ usd)

The SF record settings can be configured so recording will continue after pause or 'rewind' and overwrite what was just previously recorded. There is also a settings to create region markers to ID when recording was paused and re-started, and/or automatically start a new file.

btw, welcome to the Magix Sound Forge users community @Ozy.
 

Ozy wrote on 7/11/2024, 10:12 AM

Exactly what type of 'noise' are you referring to? SF Pro 18 includes the legacy Noise Reduction Pack (aka, NR-2.0) and iZotope's RX Elements qhixh ia goos doe sin typw noise reduction, clicks and pops and clipped peak restoration. For comprehensive restoration work, SpectraLayers Pro which is included with the SF Pro Suite as @SP. stated. SpectraLayers Pro has many automatic (unmix) tools, however editing the spectral graph manually has somewhat of a learning curve. SLP canbe used as a plug-in within Sound Forge or as a standalone app. SLP is nothering shot of amazing and well worth the upgrade price IMO. iZ's RX Advanced has great tools as well but is rather costly ($1000+ usd)

The SF record settings can be configured so recording will continue after pause or 'rewind' and overwrite what was just previously recorded. There is also a settings to create region markers to ID when recording was paused and re-started, and/or automatically start a new file.

btw, welcome to the Magix Sound Forge users community @Ozy.
 

Thank you for the welcome. I was just talking about the soft room noise you get in a recording. With my settings in Audacity, it really rips out all of the noise leaving only complete silence and not ruining the quality. I haven't been able to achieve that with SF18's noise reduction. I'm a bit new to add-ons and having to use VSTs, but I understand them as "mods". My recordings don't even have that much noise in them since I use an AKG P220 with a mixer as an interface in an extremely quiet room, but I do need it to be "Audacity level" silent when I hit it with other things like normalize and compress or it brings up the noise with it. That's my whole problem for being reluctant to purchase the program over using OcenAudio (which is a perfect program except for no auto macro). If I can achieve my sound in SF18, I'll buy it no questions asked, but I really don't want to have to buy multiple things.

rraud wrote on 7/11/2024, 6:04 PM

Both the Noise Reduction Pack (NR-2,0) and iZ's RX Elements can attenuate background din type noise adequately in all but extreme cases. I am not sure if NR-2.0 has a fully automatic tool, but grabbing a 'noise print' first is quick, easy and works better than other auto modes. AFAIK, RX Elements can not be activated without purchasing SFP, but I think NR-2.0 can be installed and used in the SFP trial version.