Sound Forge seems to be a sinking ship - Poor Support

ReverendLove wrote on 1/26/2017, 5:14 AM

Last year I had a request to the support team.
It was the same as my entry here as it was like this:

The bug which is alive since SF 9 still exists and destroyed files recently. Last one was a 24bit flac at 44.1k.
You can read about it in the folowing links:
http://forum-archive.magix.info/showmessage.asp?messageid=638174
http://forum-archive.magix.info/showmessage.asp?messageid=926310
http://forum-archive.magix.info/showmessage.asp?messageid=906850
http://forum-archive.magix.info/showmessage.asp?messageid=840079

So, if you have a workaround for the issue mentioned above I would be very pleased.

Audacity's recent version like all my other applications have no problems like this with the same file.
So it seems encoded correctly.

Few days later I got an answer by a German support member, that went like this (originally written in German)
German staff member wrote:

Very often it depends on the implementation of FLAC or Ogg Vorbis. Try in case to inactivate FLAC and Ogg Vorbis with the "Tweak Tool" or the "Radlight Filter Manager".


http://www.chip.de/downloads/K-Lite-Codec-Tweak-Tool_39170316.html

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/radlight_filter_manager.htm

Please install then https://www.xiph.org/dshow/
 

Regards

xy

It was exactly this short and . I wondered if that would help but while I want to give this "solution" a chance I tried and nothing changed but I installed useless crap to my machine. Sound Forge has the same strange behaviour.

So I responded to this answer like this (Even translated fro my German post)

I wrote:

Dr Mr. XY

It is not likely that. There weren't any direct stream codecs for flac or ogg vorbis. Whatever: I run the fixing service of "Tweak Tools" which doesn't find any errors. I could not switch off any codecs because there weren't any for 32 or 64 bit.

Then I installed the DS filter of xiph.org, which were represented in "Tweak Tools" now as proper working.

But the behaviour I described earlier - Sound Forge muting obviously and randomly parts of the FLAC file - still exists. And as I wrote earlier other applications (Audacity, Cubase 9, Spectralayers, sox...) do not destroy those files. That is exactly what happens with Sound Forge.

I would have been surprised, that th DS codecs were the culprits, because thos files were created with the internaland own export function of Sound Forge. Sound Forge has its own Codec.
In the links I submitted this behaviour is documented several times.

Application: Sound Forge Pro 11.345
OS: Windows 10 64bit, service update December 2016

Regards

Jörg Burandt

As you can see, I was very accurate and faithful.
I got no answer from 3rd of January and wrote a reminder on 9th of January asking friendly if I can expect an answer.
Nothing happened until yesterday. More than three weeks ago I get this absolute irrelevant, unkind and botched answer.
I got this email in English from a German member of the German support, while my conversation was with exception of the first support question entirely in Geman. Simply embarrassing.

Dear Mr. Burandt,

Thank you for your message.

When saving the file, a small bit of silence is inserted at the beginning and end of the file.  This is a side effect of the format, and there is no way to fix it.  You will find that the same thing happens when using any software that utilizes the Fraunhofer MP3 codec.

--
Thank you for contacting Magix Support.

Best regards,
XY

I wrote back, but the answer I sent to this message was rejected because this case was closed by this guy. What a overbearing behavious is that? Only the customer who has an issue should decide if his case is closed. So it works in support teams I contacted from other companies and so it worked in support teams I worked for. Yes I was a support agent for many years and with a behaviour like this I would have risked my job seriously.

So I was left speechless for a moment again and I want let you know what I wrote because when you need professional support you are left by this company and you can only hope that there are some experienced users who can help you.

I wrote (The rejected mail):
 

Dear Mr XY,

I am shocked by your answer. Obviously you're guessing I am a complete idiot, you didn't read my messages or you simply know less about your product than me the customer. My question was regarded to FLAC which is an acronym for Free Losless Audio Coding and has nothing to do with the Fraunhofer Institute which holds patents for the mpeg encoding (aka mp3). Their encoder encodes to mp3 files. In the application folder of sound forge is a dedicated encoder for flac files.  Your last answer is all where you come to in a time of two weeks? Seriously?

 

But I will give up now asking you anything because it is not worth any second more. I was patient. The last weeks having not only this completely unsatisfying conversation left me with this conclusions: Changing as fast as possible to competitors who take serious and competent measures for their customers, because I depend on valuable support, is the first and another one is to make both well documented cases (This one and that with the bad joke on Spectralayers) as public as possible.

 

It is simply irresponsible how you destroy my trust on you I had more than eight years and the good reputation Sound Forge and Spectra Layers once had.

 

Sincerely

Jörg Burandt

I really don't know what is going on here, but I assume they are milking the cow called customer for the last drop as they did with their "upgrade offer" on Spectralayers 4 last year and give a f*** on us. And when they sucked the old SF and SL development dry and implemented the parts they need for their other products SF and SL will only be history.

Very sad

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