Should I edit individule VA1 tracks in Sound Forge?

naclhead wrote on 1/25/2002, 11:04 AM

I'm still trying to get a handle on how to get the best final CD product out fo my recordings. Lot's of times the tracks I record seem to be very low in volume. Sound Forge seems to have what it takes to increase volume as well as compress, eq, and all that other good stuff.

So, I'm thinking why not take each individule track into SF5, bring it up to workable volume, eq it the way I want it to sound at mix time, compress if necessary. Then when I mix I should be able to get a nice even, high level final mix to then master, again in SF5.

Does this sound like a good idea or am I actually degrading too much digital data as I do all this digital tweaking? I know I should try to get the best possible quality out of my insturments and onto the disk in the first place. But so often it doesn't happen that way and it seems easy to correct in SF.

Should I try to avoid to much digital tweaking or is that what it's there for and it can do more good than harm?

Thanks
Todd
NaCL

Comments

Cheesehole wrote on 1/25/2002, 11:46 AM

your method will work fine, but careful not to make your individual tracks too loud if you're taking them back into Vegas and mixing them with other tracks. the more tracks you put together in a mix, the louder the mix will get. if each one of your tracks are adjusted to be loud, you'll start clipping as soon as you combine them with another track, then you'll have to turn down the track's volume, which _subtracts_ information from your digital recording. you want to avoid that when you can.

but my question is, why don't you just use the Eq/compressors built into Vegas? what is the point of bringing each track into SF5?

naclhead wrote on 1/25/2002, 12:53 PM

I suppose I could do that. I'm just thinking my tracks will be riddled with envelopes. That may not be a bad thing. Is it? To be honest I haven't tried track eq on an entire vocal track, for instance. I guess they're (VA1 and SF) using the same directX effects so I should get the same quality in either VA or SF.

Thanks,
Todd

Cheesehole wrote on 1/25/2002, 2:06 PM

the big advantage of working within vegas is that you can change things later on. once you apply an effect in SF, it's permanent.

for EQ and compression, the quality is probably the same in either program, but for the real CPU intensive stuff, like time compression or expansion, Sound Forge is going to give you better quality because it isn't trying to do it in 'real-time'.