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Sound Forge basic hints
I wrote a small workshop about how to make basic sound editings and operations with Soundforge 6.0 but what is described here will also work with versions below or above 6.0. This program is handy if you need to do some simple editing, cut bad parts in sets out or make some easy transitions for a mixed-CD of your favourite tracks. I will reduce my explanations to a few topics only which don?t need too much time to get in touch with but lead to satisfying results.
To get a restricted demo version of Soundforge, you can visit their homepage Sonic Foundry Soundforge.
1.1 - The easy warm-up introduction : Cutting
You have a set or live broadcast from your favourite band which starts or ends abruptly and when you burn it to CD and listen loud to it, it sounds quite disturbing. Why not either cutting some piece off or fade the tune slowly in?
Run SF, go to the menu entry ?File? (first one to the left in the menu) and say ?open?. In the box which appears now, you can choose which type of file you wanna open (WAV, MP3, CDA ((CD Audio) e. g.)).
SF starts to encode it to a WAV-file (if is is not yet) and creates a file with sound informations which takes a short while. When It is finished you will see both channels of the file.
The file you want to edit has a bad ending (commercials, interviews) and you want to get rid of it. Simply scroll forward using the arrow to the left or to the right to scroll fluently to the file or click the symbols to the left to jump to the start or the end of the file.
Click to the position where you want the file to end and hold the left mouse-button and move the mouse to the right so the part you wanna cut off is highlighted. Either right-click the mouse to open the context-menu and say ?Cut? or point to to the menu entry ?Edit? and say ?Cut? there.
1.2 The easy warm-up introduction : Fade in/fade out
Now you?ve cut the piece off you didn?t want to keep at all but the end is abrupt and not smooth enough for your ears and you need to make a fade-out at the end so you can listen to it without getting fucked up hearing it loudly.
Point again to the position where the fade-out shall start, right-click and drag the mouse while holding the left mouse button to the right to mark the whole sequence from the start to the end. Go to the menu ? ?Process? and then "Fade". You can either do it the lazy way and say fade out which will do an automatic (and depending on the length of the sequence dynamically) fade out from maximum loudness to silence.
Another possibility is to make it indididually by clicking (same menu entry as before) ?Fade? and then ?Graphic?. Now a box opens and you can adjust the sequence as you like it. You can set markers as many as you like to create the fade-out you intend to do. To the left is the start and to the right the ending point of the sequence, 100 % is max loudness, 0 is zero.
When you are finished, click OK and SF will do the rest for you. You can listen to it afterwards and if you don?t like what you?ve done, go to the menu, ?Edit? and say "Undo...."(last operation will be listed) or use the shortcut Ctrl ? Z as in all other windows applications and everything will be as it was before.
1.3 The easy warm-up introduction : Volume
Ok, now you have your file with a fade-out ending but the recorded is to silent at all so you have to raise up the volume on your amplifier and when you forget about it and put the next, louder recorded, CD in you and/or your neighbors get an unwanted surprising moment. :grin:
Use the shortcut Ctrl-A to mark the whole file (you can do this for parts of the file by pointing to the start of the part where you wanna raise or lower the volume, right-click and move the mouse to the right to where the end should be either) and go to the menu entry ?Process? and then the last entry on the popup list ?Volume?. There you can easily put the volume settings below or higher than 0 db (100 %). Clicking OK makes SF do the action for you.
You can also ?ab?-use the fade graphic function of SF to make volume corrections precisely (also helpful when you mix 2 tracks together, see chapter 2,2 "Mixing" for more details). Mark the part that needs to be adjusted and go to the SF-menu, ?Process?, then ?Fade Graphic? and reduce or raise the volume with as many ups and downs as you like. Simply left click to create a new point and drag the mouse up or down to adjust the line. Click ok and that?s it.
2.1 The deeper lessions ? Crossfade
in this section I have some seperate tracks and I wanna create a mixed CD to do a best of or to make a gift to a friend. There are 2 ways you can do this pretty good with SF.
First I will concentrate on the easier way, crossfading the tracks.
Crossfading means to lower the volume of the actual track and bringing the following track in, raising the volume of it until it has reached 100 %. It?s no real mixing but may be enough if you need a fast result or the tracks won?t absolutely fit together when you try to mix them (see chapter 2.2 ?Mixing?)
Open the first file with SF, then open the second one. Mark the second song (Strg-A, as described in chapter 1.3 ?Volume?) and right-click on the file and say ?copy?. Close the second song (SF menu ?File? then "Close?).
Left-click to the point of the file where you wanna start the crossfade and and drag the mouse to the end of the file to the right. Then in the SF-menu ?Edit? go to ?Paste special? and then ?Crossfade?. Then a window pops up. In it you can adjust exactly if the song that enters should start from silent to loud or vice versa, same for the track which fades out.
Click ok and SF will do the rest and you can hear the results and decide whether to undo the crossfade action or to keep it. Now you have your 2 songs crossfaded together and you can do the rest of your nonstop-mixed CD in the same way. Of course you can paste the songs behind each other to get one set, too. Simply open song one, then song two and copy the second song as described before, close the 2nd track and jump to the end of the first song, right click and say ?paste?.
2.2 The deeper lessions ? Mixing
Now for the last and most interesting but also most difficult part. You wanna make a real mix-CD with your favourite tracks.
As described in chapter 2.1, open the first file with SF, then open the second one. Mark the second song (Strg-A, as described in chapter 1.3 ?Volume?) and right-click on the file and say ?Copy?. Close the second song (SF menu ?File? then "Close?).
After you have listened and figured out what the most accurate position will be where the mixing-in of the second track should start, left-click on the point of the file where you want it to happen and again, drag the mouse while holding the mouse button pressed to the right end of the track and go to the SF-menu ?Edit?, then ?Paste Special?, then ?Mix?.
In the upcoming box you can adjust at what volume the mixing will start and end. You can do this seperated for both the ending and the starting song. Click ok and SF starts mixing it.
This action will (same with crossfading) take some time, the longer the part you wanna mix in is, the longer it takes. (an half an hour long file takes about 1 min 30 for me on AMD Athlon 1200, the faster your processor is, the faster the mixing will be done)
Don?t be dissapointed when your first tries lead to strange or bad results. It?s quite hard sometimes to find the right place where you put the track in. Preparing the second, to be mixed in, track with a smooth graphic fade in before you copy and mix it in can be helpful.
If you notice that the 2 beats of the tracks you have mixed don?t go synchrone, you can undo the mixing action (menu SF ?Edit? then ?Undo Mix?) and SF will get you back and leaves the part you marked highlighted. Now you can use the magnifiers and raise the size to see a more detailed version of the file and drag the mouse, holding the left mouse button, to the right or to the left to mix it let?s say 1/10 second later or earlier in. As you can see in the pic below, with Soundforge you can arrange it very precisely if it is needed.
3. Finishing moves ? Saving and choosing the bitrate
When you have done the work and wanna save the results, Soundforge offers you some good options because SF can handle different sound standards.
Whenever you load a file to Soundforge or record with it, SF creates a WAV-file so you have free choice what to do with it. Go to the menu, then "File", then say "Save file as", in the upcoming window chose the filetype mp3 or wav (or whatever you want it to be. If you choose mp3 you can go 2 lines down where it says "Template" and there you can choose whatever resolution you may like (Warning! : the standard resolution for SF is 64 kb and whenever you change the saving method from wav to mp3 or whatever, it will turn again to 64kb which will lead to a sucking and inacceptable sound quality).
I wrote a small workshop about how to make basic sound editings and operations with Soundforge 6.0 but what is described here will also work with versions below or above 6.0. This program is handy if you need to do some simple editing, cut bad parts in sets out or make some easy transitions for a mixed-CD of your favourite tracks. I will reduce my explanations to a few topics only which don?t need too much time to get in touch with but lead to satisfying results.
To get a restricted demo version of Soundforge, you can visit their homepage Sonic Foundry Soundforge.
1.1 - The easy warm-up introduction : Cutting
You have a set or live broadcast from your favourite band which starts or ends abruptly and when you burn it to CD and listen loud to it, it sounds quite disturbing. Why not either cutting some piece off or fade the tune slowly in?
Run SF, go to the menu entry ?File? (first one to the left in the menu) and say ?open?. In the box which appears now, you can choose which type of file you wanna open (WAV, MP3, CDA ((CD Audio) e. g.)).
SF starts to encode it to a WAV-file (if is is not yet) and creates a file with sound informations which takes a short while. When It is finished you will see both channels of the file.
The file you want to edit has a bad ending (commercials, interviews) and you want to get rid of it. Simply scroll forward using the arrow to the left or to the right to scroll fluently to the file or click the symbols to the left to jump to the start or the end of the file.
Click to the position where you want the file to end and hold the left mouse-button and move the mouse to the right so the part you wanna cut off is highlighted. Either right-click the mouse to open the context-menu and say ?Cut? or point to to the menu entry ?Edit? and say ?Cut? there.
1.2 The easy warm-up introduction : Fade in/fade out
Now you?ve cut the piece off you didn?t want to keep at all but the end is abrupt and not smooth enough for your ears and you need to make a fade-out at the end so you can listen to it without getting fucked up hearing it loudly.
Point again to the position where the fade-out shall start, right-click and drag the mouse while holding the left mouse button to the right to mark the whole sequence from the start to the end. Go to the menu ? ?Process? and then "Fade". You can either do it the lazy way and say fade out which will do an automatic (and depending on the length of the sequence dynamically) fade out from maximum loudness to silence.
Another possibility is to make it indididually by clicking (same menu entry as before) ?Fade? and then ?Graphic?. Now a box opens and you can adjust the sequence as you like it. You can set markers as many as you like to create the fade-out you intend to do. To the left is the start and to the right the ending point of the sequence, 100 % is max loudness, 0 is zero.
When you are finished, click OK and SF will do the rest for you. You can listen to it afterwards and if you don?t like what you?ve done, go to the menu, ?Edit? and say "Undo...."(last operation will be listed) or use the shortcut Ctrl ? Z as in all other windows applications and everything will be as it was before.
1.3 The easy warm-up introduction : Volume
Ok, now you have your file with a fade-out ending but the recorded is to silent at all so you have to raise up the volume on your amplifier and when you forget about it and put the next, louder recorded, CD in you and/or your neighbors get an unwanted surprising moment. :grin:
Use the shortcut Ctrl-A to mark the whole file (you can do this for parts of the file by pointing to the start of the part where you wanna raise or lower the volume, right-click and move the mouse to the right to where the end should be either) and go to the menu entry ?Process? and then the last entry on the popup list ?Volume?. There you can easily put the volume settings below or higher than 0 db (100 %). Clicking OK makes SF do the action for you.
You can also ?ab?-use the fade graphic function of SF to make volume corrections precisely (also helpful when you mix 2 tracks together, see chapter 2,2 "Mixing" for more details). Mark the part that needs to be adjusted and go to the SF-menu, ?Process?, then ?Fade Graphic? and reduce or raise the volume with as many ups and downs as you like. Simply left click to create a new point and drag the mouse up or down to adjust the line. Click ok and that?s it.
2.1 The deeper lessions ? Crossfade
in this section I have some seperate tracks and I wanna create a mixed CD to do a best of or to make a gift to a friend. There are 2 ways you can do this pretty good with SF.
First I will concentrate on the easier way, crossfading the tracks.
Crossfading means to lower the volume of the actual track and bringing the following track in, raising the volume of it until it has reached 100 %. It?s no real mixing but may be enough if you need a fast result or the tracks won?t absolutely fit together when you try to mix them (see chapter 2.2 ?Mixing?)
Open the first file with SF, then open the second one. Mark the second song (Strg-A, as described in chapter 1.3 ?Volume?) and right-click on the file and say ?copy?. Close the second song (SF menu ?File? then "Close?).
Left-click to the point of the file where you wanna start the crossfade and and drag the mouse to the end of the file to the right. Then in the SF-menu ?Edit? go to ?Paste special? and then ?Crossfade?. Then a window pops up. In it you can adjust exactly if the song that enters should start from silent to loud or vice versa, same for the track which fades out.
Click ok and SF will do the rest and you can hear the results and decide whether to undo the crossfade action or to keep it. Now you have your 2 songs crossfaded together and you can do the rest of your nonstop-mixed CD in the same way. Of course you can paste the songs behind each other to get one set, too. Simply open song one, then song two and copy the second song as described before, close the 2nd track and jump to the end of the first song, right click and say ?paste?.
2.2 The deeper lessions ? Mixing
Now for the last and most interesting but also most difficult part. You wanna make a real mix-CD with your favourite tracks.
As described in chapter 2.1, open the first file with SF, then open the second one. Mark the second song (Strg-A, as described in chapter 1.3 ?Volume?) and right-click on the file and say ?Copy?. Close the second song (SF menu ?File? then "Close?).
After you have listened and figured out what the most accurate position will be where the mixing-in of the second track should start, left-click on the point of the file where you want it to happen and again, drag the mouse while holding the mouse button pressed to the right end of the track and go to the SF-menu ?Edit?, then ?Paste Special?, then ?Mix?.
In the upcoming box you can adjust at what volume the mixing will start and end. You can do this seperated for both the ending and the starting song. Click ok and SF starts mixing it.
This action will (same with crossfading) take some time, the longer the part you wanna mix in is, the longer it takes. (an half an hour long file takes about 1 min 30 for me on AMD Athlon 1200, the faster your processor is, the faster the mixing will be done)
Don?t be dissapointed when your first tries lead to strange or bad results. It?s quite hard sometimes to find the right place where you put the track in. Preparing the second, to be mixed in, track with a smooth graphic fade in before you copy and mix it in can be helpful.
If you notice that the 2 beats of the tracks you have mixed don?t go synchrone, you can undo the mixing action (menu SF ?Edit? then ?Undo Mix?) and SF will get you back and leaves the part you marked highlighted. Now you can use the magnifiers and raise the size to see a more detailed version of the file and drag the mouse, holding the left mouse button, to the right or to the left to mix it let?s say 1/10 second later or earlier in. As you can see in the pic below, with Soundforge you can arrange it very precisely if it is needed.
3. Finishing moves ? Saving and choosing the bitrate
When you have done the work and wanna save the results, Soundforge offers you some good options because SF can handle different sound standards.
Whenever you load a file to Soundforge or record with it, SF creates a WAV-file so you have free choice what to do with it. Go to the menu, then "File", then say "Save file as", in the upcoming window chose the filetype mp3 or wav (or whatever you want it to be. If you choose mp3 you can go 2 lines down where it says "Template" and there you can choose whatever resolution you may like (Warning! : the standard resolution for SF is 64 kb and whenever you change the saving method from wav to mp3 or whatever, it will turn again to 64kb which will lead to a sucking and inacceptable sound quality).
