VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[Dave]

[scooter2]

Lisa,

being a non techie by trade I find Sound Forge just grand fior what you do..it's also what I do. Simple, yet clean edits

scott.

[allensco]

I use Sound Forge XP for recording the voice tracks, processing, etc. and Cool Edit Pro for the multi-tracking.

[ballenberg]

Lisa--I use Cool Edit 2000 and it's pretty doggone easy, cause I have no production background and it had a very short learning curve. It's been replaced by Adobe Audition, which I understand is the same program as its big brother Cool Edit Pro. It has the capacity to do all kinds of things I'll never deal with ( I don't even know what an envelope is, except for the kind you put stamps on) , but the basic functions are just like using a word processor. I haven't used other programs, but I've been very pleased with this one.

[Deirdre]

I've got Pro Tools on my lap top and it is just the easiest darned thing I have ever tried to use. Its setup is simple as heck and it's only as complicated as you need it to be.

I'm able to share filters with other PT users, too. I have the best danged Pop Filter now! Just a group of setting for the 4-band EQ--- but it means I don't have to re-record whole sections of stuff because of an occasional explosive "P".

I use PT the same way I use Photoshop. These are immesely powerful programs of which I probably use only 7%.

I do, however use the heck out of that 7%
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DBCooperVO.com

[lisaloo]

Thanks, folks. I appreciate the suggestions. I remember years ago when I downloaded the free demo of PT. One look at the interface and my eyes rolled back in my head.

But I gotta say that I know more and more folks using it who are as techno-phobic as I am, so . . . we'll see.

My main concern is dropping coin on it and not using it, ya know? I can just see me scuttling back to the safety of my little Roxio program, re-recording as much as necessary until the take is perfect on its own.

Some days I feel like an 80 year-old hillbilly woman, beating her clothes against a rock in the creek because she's afraid of that newfangled "warshing con-trap-shun" sittin' yonder on the front porch.



Yours,

Granny Clampett

[Andy]

According to my wife, I still have no clue as to the correct use of a washin' musheen. If only Adobe Audition could do the rinse cycle, I'd be goin' places.

[brianforrester]

Pro Tools LE for me... I've used Nuendo and Audition previously, both very easy to use and for price to quality, pretty good. However, the functionality of pro-tools is in my opinion far superior.

Many more high quality plugins (most of which I can't afford and wouldn't know what to do with anyway), more functionality at the finger tips, and like DB, I'd be hard pressed to use more than 7% of the toys, but the biggest selling point for me was the quality of the peripheral hardware... I don't need a 12 channel mixer with aux busses, peripheral inputs, blah, blah, blah... for what I do, and I can only assume that most of you are in the same boat... I need record one microphone on a mono channel, maybe 2 the odd time. Therefore the mbox's 2 mono inputs do the trick for me.

The mbox handles my application better than any setup I've used in the past (in my home studio environment that is) and has proven to be the most economical, I picked the package up for less than $350 CAD including the factory bundle of plugins.

Maybe once I'm pulling in some bigger $$$ I'll be able to afford all of the individual peripheral gear, but for now I'm happy to depreciate my $350 investment.

Let me know if I'm off my rocker here, but so far I'm happy with PT.

Cheers
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Brian Forrester Voice Overs
www.brianforrester.com
brian@brianforrester.com
778.668.5715

[Bill]

Lisa,

the easiest I have found for that is Goldwave, the shareware. it has some ince built in features, I especially treasure the ability to copy a bit of room sound to the clipboard and use that as the noise filter. cleans things up very nicely. I'm sure some of the others have similar features, but goldwave was the first package I used to I keep going back to it just for that.

Audacity is good and inexpensive as well. While it does multi track and I have Audition for that, sometimes I like just being able to hit the red button and have it start recording. It's a free download, and if you use if for commercial purposes (and I'm uh guessing you would) you have to register it for like $50.

[Bailey]

[mikemckenzie]

The bottom line is, regardless if it's Cool Edit, Pro-Tools, SAW, etc....unless you've got a decent sound card, it's not going to matter.

[Deirdre]

Beg ye pardon, Mike, but the recent Pro Tools apps don't use an on-board sound card. They're using either USB or Firwire to digitally transfer sound info from their own proprietary interface.
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DBCooperVO.com

[kgenus]

Lisa,

Much like Microsoft, if you know how to use Word it's not a big switch to use PowerPoint or Excel. Once they get you thinking their way, they've got you. The difficulty for most people is making the switch to a new product and keeping an open mind, without bringing or expecting the functions of the previous product to exist in the one they are currently sitting in front of.

I've used ProTools, Nuendo, CEP/Audition and SoundForge. They're all great programs. In the grand scheme, everyone is trying to come up with their suite of products built around video and audio editors - Avid owns DigiDesign (ProTools), Steinbery with Nuendo (which does it all), Adobe with Premiere and Audition, and last but not least, Sony with Vegas and SoundForge.

That being said, if you're after "industry standards" then ProTools. In ProTools you create a track, assign the audio input and hit record. They've even got a DVD instructional tool you can order that's really cheap. Nuendo is simply over kill. After paying $3000 for the software, you still have to buy the hardware and the editor isn't the most user friendly, but the mix engine sounds much better than everything else. Audition and SoundForge have simple interfaces for editting mono/stereo tracks.

I know it's "not" an answer, but if you work with the other products, it may help you decide which is "easier" to get in to.

Kevin
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Genus

[mikemckenzie]

[lisaloo]

Well, here's what I did:

I shopped around, asked around some more and then called the dudes at Sweetwater. Ya really can't go wrong with them when all is said and done.

The guy I'm dealing with could not be nicer (especially after I explained that it's impossible to dumb things down too much for me) and I ordered the Digidesign mBox bundle doo-dad with some extra PT tutorial DVDs, etc. Got the whole shebang for around $430 (free shipping, too) - yeehah. The price, as they say, is right.

In anticipation, yesterday I added another 512 of RAM to my PC and now I await the arrival of the 21st century . . . kinda had to figure that the future would come via FedEx, huh?

Anyhow, over the next few weeks, prepare to see posts from me that are nothing but tiny, tiny teardrops rolling down the page. (The joke here being that if I could actually figure out how to insert those, I would. But I can't.)



THANKS AGAIN TO ALL WHO CHIMED IN, and continued prayers and advice (not to mention tissues) are welcome . . .

Lisa Loo,
Terrified