I’m looking for a multitrack editor to master my tracks in that uses 32-bit float resolution and loads the Waves Linear Phase plugins without crashing. I currently have ACID Pro 4.0, but it only supports up to 24-bit whereas my Renoise-rendered wave files are 32-bit float, which I’d only like to round down to 16-bit or 24-bit at the end using Waves’ L2 UltraMaximizer. Then the other thing is that I find Acid PRO 4.0 always crashes when I try to load Waves’ Linear Phase EQ or Linear Phase MultiBand plugins, which I’m really wanting to use.
I’ve had a look at Wavelab 4.0 as well but by the looks of it I can only load VST effects as effect plugins, whereas the Waves effects are DX. Is there any other multitrack editor out there that performs these functions, or should I start looking into sequencers like Pro Tools to master my works (I assume I can load DX effects into there)?
What programs are others using? And does anyone else get this access violation error when attempting to load Waves’ Linear Phase plugins as well?
Thanks, I’ll definitely check out this Adobe Audition. Yeah I think I remember reading an explanation on the forums here a long time ago about using a wrapper to make the plugs work in Renoise, though I never really looked into it. But if this Audition can do both then I’m definitely interested. Thanks.
Looks good, but then I’d still like to have 32-bit output so I guess it’ll be Audition. I’ve just always like the interface and way of working in Sony Sound Forge over Cool Edit, but it’s just taking them too long to update ACID Pro.
well… there is more than one type of 32 bit float WAVs; ReNoise writes on of that types, but I didn’t ever found a multitrack program which wasn’t able to load WAVs written by ReNoise, so I think your problem is not a problem actually .
Not exactly. Short version: 24bit integer waves have the same accuracy as
32bit floating point waves, but floating point values have other nice
properties when processing audio (easier to work with, no clipping, …).
Long version:
8/16/24 bit waves use integers, ie whole numbers. For example the values
0,1,2,3…255 for 8bit numbers. The 0’s and 1’s of an integer each add a power of 2 to the number, 4 bit examples:
Floating point values are represented in a completely different way.
Roughly, a bit inaccurately, speaking they’re represented like this:
a * 2^b
32 bit IEEE (the name of the most widely used standard) floats use 8 bits for
b and 24 bits for a. The accuracy is given by the size of a, and the max/min is
most affected by the size of b.
So 32bit waves which use only the range +/- 1.0 have the same accuracy as
24bit waves, but they can hold larger values than 1.0 and thus reduce or
remove the clipping problem integers give us.
The floating point representation is similar to a common scientific notation:
a * 10^b, often written as “a e b”. Examples:
So you see the number a “floats” up and down the number scale
depending on the order of magnitude given by b. This way it is possible
to represent both very large and very small numbers with a very limited
number of digits. But large numbers loose accuracy in the smallest digits.
Whereas integers are always 100% accurate, but have a more limited range.
So this does make 32-bit float a more accurate resolution then? So essentially I should be rendering my waves in 32-bit float, starting a new multitrack project in 32-bit in Adobe Audition, and the Waves plugins will pass the signal along in 32-bit as well?
Well I had a look at Audition but as with Cool Edit I’m really not all that impressed. Plus I couldn’t even figure how to load VST of DX effects, but Pysj, I notice you say the new version will support them. Only I can’t wait that long.
So I’ve tried this FFX-4 DX Manager plugin and it seems this is exactly what I needed. I can now load the Waves Linear Phase effects into ACID Pro without it crashing and I can then set all the plugins’ parameters in a program I’m familiar and comfortably working with. At the end I can then always take my presets and apply them in 32-bit using Sound Forge.
The bottom line: cheers for the link, splajn! This should save me a lot of hassles. Only now I’ve been intrigued by Waves’ IR-1 Parametric Convolution Reverb, whereas initially I had my eyesset on SpinAudio’s RoomVerb M2 2.0, so I’ll have to see about getting hold of that. Actually, is anyone familiar with either of these plugins and know which one is better in terms of quality? My instinct just seems to trust Waves better, especially in that it supports 96 KHz audio.
Ok, I take that back. I’m getting very odd timing errors when using FFX-4 DX in ACID Pro or Wavelab to load the Waves DX effects - like a very bad ‘swing’ effect in the tempo. How hard is it to just have a program that does just these simple few things? Sentry, you say Wavelab can load DX effecs? I have version 4.0 and it only comes up with VST effects. Would I need to upgrade for that?
Come to think of it, all I actually need is just a simple mulitrack editor that doesn’t crash when I try to load the Waves LinMB or LinEQ plugins, as I could then always apply the presets I make in a better quality editor like Sound Forge later on. This seems like something Renoise should be able to do, but I tried and I run into this same timing problem. Does anyone know how to overcome this? And I apologise for all the questions but I’m really starting to feel stuck here.
What dont impress you?
I have no problems whatsoever to use AA and the wave plugins.
Never had a crash using them.
And, Renoise supports the vst shell from waves, meaning you can load the waves plugins directly as VST fx in renoise.
On master track this should work great. On singel tracks some of the fx has a prosessing delay, and renoise dont support vst compensation delay yet. But again… all this work just great for me in AA.
Just the whole interface and the way things are set up. I guess I’ve always been a Sound Forge fan and so ACID Pro just came naturally. But, ok, I’m gonna have another attempt at loading external VST or DX effects in AA then. And if that fails, I’m also in the process of downloading a trial of Vegas 5.0 which seems promising, so I’ll see how that goes as well.
Ah I see, good to know there’s a reason for the delay when using the Waves plugs. Didn’t know about the waveshell though…will have to try that some time too.
It’s quite frustrating since I’ve been away from the music world for so long now and everything has changed and all these new products are available, making it really hard to get started again.
Ok so I realised the DirectX effects were just under a designated node in the tree (don’t know how I could’ve missed that before), but anyway, I get the same access violation when trying to load the LinMB or LinEQ plugs. The image of the plugin is half displayed on the screen and then the host crashes. The strange thing is that I just tried it again in ACID though and it seems to work fine now. I really don’t get what’s going on here.
Well, I’m using Sony Vegas 5.0 now and all my problems are solved. The interface is brilliant and so far no crashes. I guess I’ll get back on a couple of questions on bit depth later on, but for now I’m just workingin 16-bit anyway to speed up the processing required for the linear phase plugins while I set all the parameters.
And uh, sorry for a bit of a rambling topic. But thanks for the help.
You dont have to use it for the Wave plugins.
Renoise support the waveshell.dll , meaning that you can load the Waves plugins nativly as vst plugins into renoise.
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