My understanding is that redbook audio CD creation will also be in Vegas Audio 3, though that will not be released for a little while yet as they are still adding some extra audio stuff and it isn't finished yet. Presumably the new video stuff was finished first and they wanted to get it out of the door and earning money as soon as it was ready.

When VA3 is released there will be be a free upgrade to VV3 (V.3.0a or whatever) which will add the extra audio features to VV so that the "VV is a superset of VA" situation will be maintained.

If this is correct, us audio types will not have to fork out for extra video stuff we don't really want in order to get the audio enhancements, but it does mean we'll have to wait a bit longer.

Mark

CDA and Vegas are a logical pairing. Vegas owes much of its interface to features that appeared first in CDA. The multitrack capabilities of Vegas will provide a wonderful extension of CDA's features. Just my opinion. - Doug

I guess I could get behind the idea if they had added DAO CD burning to Vegas -AND- SoundForge, and not just to Vegas. The recording process for CD audio from start to finish normally goes:

1) Record individual tracks
2) Add/tweak effects
3) Mix down to stereo
4) Master stereo mix (adjust levels, EQ, fades, noise, compression, etc)
5) Layout CD and burn

In the above process, it seems that steps 1,2,3,5 are now handled by Vegas while step 4 is handled by SoundForge. I think it would be more logical for 1,2,3 to be Vegas and 4,5 to be SoundForge. My 2cents of course :)

I'm not too familiar with using directx plug-ins within Vegas but I know it comes with a bunch of them - which means you must be able to do most of the sound editing you could want on the fly from within the program. Additionally, you can still call Sound Forge from within Vegas to edit files when you need to. I do agree that it would be nice if you could use CDA from either application but, for many of us, Vegas has all the tools needed to accomplish the tasks you mention. Finally, CDA in Vegas 3.0 is somewhat of a misnomer because, although its capabilities are there, CDA as an entity is not. - Doug

Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

Sound Forge is a destructive editor -- that means changes made to enhance the audio stick when the waveform is rendered.

Vegas is non-destructive -- like CD Architect. This means you can adjust volume envelopes, apply track cross-fades, etc. without altering the original audio. Besides, the multitrack functionality of Vegas is perfect for mastering CDs.

I think it is a very good match. Hopefully they'll have great pricing for CD Architect users.

I wrote to Sonic Foundry and complained about this very thing. Below is the reply I recieved. I thought I would post it for all to read.


Dear Wayland

Thanks for writing. The Red Book CD features will also be included in Vegas Audio 3.0 when it is released early next year. It is not that we are not including the functionality in our audio programs, but rather Vegas Video 3.0 is the first program to be released after we have had the functionality ready to be incorporated. It is possible that you could see the same feature included in our other audio applications when they are upgraded.

Also, the CD burning in Vegas Video 3.0 is not at all "thrown in". It gives users the ability to create CD copies of soundtracks directly from the program. Imagine a person making a video project of a live band performance. In Vegas 3.0 they can output an audio CD of the live performance very easily at the same time.

If you have any further questions feel free to contact any of our customer service representatives weekdays from 9am to 5pm CST at 1-800-577-6642.


Thank you,

Brian Puntney
Customer Service
Sonic Foundry

>> Hopefully they'll have great pricing for CD Architect users.

Not likely. According to Ted H:
"Pricing for Vegas Video has not been finalized yet. We have not offered product upgrades from one family to another in the past."

I was going to reply to Ted's post directly from the other post, but...

I was offered an upgrade to Sound Forge 5 from CD-A and took advantage of it. This may have been because of the SF 4.5 XP it came with (I registered both). I didn't have SF 4.5 full version, but received an upgrade notice for 5.0 full version regardless. I also received an upgrade notice for Acid 3.0, which I also took advantage of. I never had a previous version of Acid. Add to that, I also got a notice to upgrade to Video Factory (passed on that one). So, if history repeats itself, you probably will receive an upgrade notice for VV 3.0 when it is available (maybe even VA 3.0) if you have registered *anything*. I may be wrong, of course...

What I want to know is why in the world didn't they make SF5.0 a non-destructive editor? Can you imagine the powerful editing/mastering tool they would have by incorporating the detailed & technical aspects already present in Sound Forge AND the flexibility and speed of the non-destructive capabilities of CDA, Vegas and EVEN ACID?!? I use Vegas Audio LE for nearly all of my 2-track editing now just because of its non-destructive editing capabilies. I have even mastered a few CD projects on it using the Plug-in Chainer and rendering to a 16 bit, 44.1kHz, stereo file. I do need to pop it into SF occaisionally to do some time compression stuff and use the spectrum analyzer, batch converter, etc. (I miss the dB level scale & the little level window in SF - the one that you can set to read dB level, sample value, etc. @ cursor.) Plus, you still need to render it down in order to use CDA (or even burn a real-time CD-R if you're working in high res.).
My guess is that it would take an awful lot of CPU/RAM power to use a Vegas file (chocked full of bussess, FX, envelopes, edits, etc. on how many tracks?) in addition to placing track IDs and spacing and so on in order to use Vegas alone to create Redbook audio CDs.
I vote for a NON-DESTRUCTIVE 2-track editor with CDA incorporated into it as the perfect complement to either Vegas and EVEN ACID.

Jeff Lowes
On-Track Recording

>>I vote for a NON-DESTRUCTIVE 2-track editor with CDA incorporated into it as the perfect complement to either Vegas and EVEN ACID.

Peter said:
>>But Vegas can be used as a 2 track non-destructive editor. Just because it has unlimited tracks doesn't mean you have to use them.
As I said, I use Vegas Audio LE for nearly ALL of my 2-track editing simply because is has that powerful edge over Sound Forge in NON-DESTRUCTIVE editing. I guess I really don't fully understand the purpose for DESTRUCTIVE editing. It's pitifully slow, especially when you have to delete material anywhere near the beginning of a long file (even on my 600MHz PIII w/128M RAM - so it's not my computer's fault); and if you mess up - forget it. Enacting multiple undos from the Undo List is awesome (unlike CDA) but if you pick too many of them, you might as well go take a potty break while you wait. (Why does it have to go thru the undo thing twice for each level of undo you pick?) Doing & Undoing in the NON-DESTRUCTIVE realm is basically instantaneous - even when you pick multiple levels of undo.
I know, I know - you can set-up Sound Forge to ACT like a non-destructive editor. Simply change the playlist to cutlist and pick 'Delete Cut Regions' or 'Convert to New'. Have you ever tried to use the cutlist to edit a 2 1/2 hour speech file? You get Soooooooooo many edits built up in the list that when you go to process the edits (they aren't really there until you pick one of the two processes mentioned above) you could go take a shower and get ready for bed before its done. No, I can't just play the file using the 'Play as Cutlist' button and dump it down to a DAT or CD-R, I need to Master it (process it further - EQ, compression, normalize, etc.) and then break it down into multiple track indexes to make a master CD-R. Can you imagine the studio time bill your client would receive for an editing session like this?!!! Yes, you were working and yes, your editor was tied up on his project - but how can you justify charging your client for all that extra time? You can't!
Point is:
Don't get me wrong. I really like Sound Forge (4.5). Very detailed and technically-oriented and boasts all the great tools (Batch Conv., Spec. Analyzer, CDA integration, Preset Mgr., etc., etc.). I really like Vegas, too - even though it won't do some of the things that SF will do (I sure wish you could re-draw the wave in Vegas!). But can you imagine if SF was NON-DESTRUCTIVE?!?!?! It would literally blow away so many other editors out there and place itself into an entirely new class of Digital Audio Editors. Let's use Vegas for what Vegas was intended to be used for - multi-track recording & mixing - and Sound Forge & CDA for what Sound Forge & CDA were intended to be used for - 2-track editing and mastering.
Come on Sonic Foundry, if you want to play with the big boys (Pro Tools, Sonic Solutions, Sadie, Sierra, etc. - all non-destructive editors by the way) you are gonna have to be willing to crawl into the sandbox and kick some sand!!! Have a nice day! JL

Just for the record - I'm sorry.

I owe Sonic Foundry an apology. In my last post, I made some awful comments about Sound Forge - the (almost) awesome product that it is - being a DESTRUCTIVE (hard-disc based) editor and how I didn't understand the use for such.

Well, I did my homework and this is what I learned:

First off - I looked into the inception of Sound Forge (via the Help|About SF menu in my SF4.5h window). I'm not real sure what the original Sound Forge was called, but when I purchased my first rendition of the program (SF4.0) back in 1996, I recall that there was some upgrade information included for owners of the previous SF3.0 version. According to the information in the 'About Sound Forge' window, the copyright date for the Sound Forge program is 1991-2000). [Hey!, this program is celebrating its 10th anniversary!! Everyone cheer!!!] 1991....now, computeristically speaking (computerifically?, computerologically? - whatever), wasn't that "the dark ages". Really. CPU speeds are practically doubling every month or so now.

This brings us to lesson #2:

Second - In the Contents of the Sound Forge Help file is a section entitled 'Introduction' which contains a heading called 'Getting Started' under which four sub-headings are listed. One of these sub-headings is 'System Requirements'. (A-hah!! - just what I'm looking for!) The (minimum) system requirements for using Sound Forge on your computer are listed within this window. The 2 requirements that are relevant to my inquiry are as follows: (and I quote)
• Intel Pentium or Alpha AXP microprocessor and
• 16 MB RAM
Hmmm, it said 'Pentium'. Not Pentium IV or Pentium III - not even Pentium II. Just Pentium microprocessor. And get this - just 16M RAM! What in the name of digital audio could you possibly do with only 16M RAM?!? (Side note: the first computer onto which I installed my brand new SF4.0 was a Pentium 166 w/32M RAM - and it worked, slowly - until DirectX came along.)

But wait, there's more:

Lastly - I decided to dig just a little bit deeper into this DESTRCUTIVE editor thing. I went for the big guns this time - 'Optimizing Sound Forge'!! In this section I hit the motherlode - 'Hard Drive Use'. (Jackpot!!!) [This is great! I feel like Indiana Jones or Crockodile Dundee!] I began reading: 'Sound Forge is a disk-based sound editor, which means that all editing operations are performed on your hard drive rather than in your computer's memory.' Shhh-bammm! Right off the bat - first sentence (appropriate word - sentence). I continued reading: 'Sound Forge also stores undo/redo information ... on the hard drive.' Hmmm, "undo" sounds awfully familiar (from earlier post). It goes on to explain about how Sound Forge utilizes (or should I say uses; abuses?) your computer's hard drive instead of RAM since hard drives have larger storage capacity and are much cheaper. They also inform us that we should periodically defragment our hard drive(s) in order for Sound Forge to be able to retrieve the digital audio data off of our hard drives more efficiently (very sound advice, by the way). [Get it? SOUND advice.]

Conclusion [finally!]: Ok, I can see their point here. A guy on a limited budget can go out & buy a good digital audio editor and begin editing sound files using "average" computer equipment and obtain "professional" results (on a PC, no doubt!). Good business strategy. Besides, back in "the dark ages", RAM really was high $$. You could get more HD for the money.

But, guess what guys? These times, they are a-changin'! Computers are cheap, HDs are cheap, RAM is cheap and CPUs are FAST - VERY FAST. We don't need to put all the burden on the HD anymore - we have memory & speed, and lots of it! A computer friend of mine told me recently: 'It's all about RAM and buss speed. Programs aren't so much HD intensive anymore, but rather RAM & buss intensive.'
So.... Okay, Sonic Foundry - we all know you can do it. Sound Forge has vastly improved over the years with the inclusion of DirectX support (4.0d), added features in 4.5 such as Batch Conv., Spectrum Anal., Preset Mgr. & Acid tools and the leap into the hi-res. (24/192) market by 5.0. You've also shown us your technical prowess in the NON-DESTRUCTIVE realm of digital audio editing in such awesome programs as CD Architect (the original NON-DESTRUCTIVE editor created by SF) and Vegas. [I actually used CDA to do my non-destructive editing for awhile - until I got too frustrated that I couldn't do amplitude zooms on the wave view; I couldn't see the waveform well enough to make accurate edits.] Even the EARLY versions of Acid (another awesome program) sported N-D technology.

So, come on guys - whadda ya say!? Please, please, PLEASE! convert Sound Forge into a NON-DESTRUCTIVE editor. Let's bring it out of "the dark ages" & into the light!
And on that note, I bid you all "Good-night!"

JL
OTR

Hello, Sonic Foundry. Anybody home?
Sure would like to hear your feedback on this NON-DESTRUCTIVE editing subject.

JL
OTR

We do not release info on future products, feature sets, or release dates. Your arguments are certainly valid, and many engineers here have read your posts.

The answer appears to be obvious:

Because Sonic Foundry has changed its 'marketing strategy' as a company to develop 'Media'(as in VIDEO/GRAPHICS) applications instead of Audio (Sonic?) applications. Only problem is, they didn't consider that most of their loyal clientele for the decade+ they've been around are in the AUDIO business. Too bad they haven't learned from Macromedia, Adobe and Avid(Digidesign's parent) that the key to success in any market is CUSTOMER LOYALTY.

'nuff said