Soundtrack Pro and Digital Performer... Anyone use this?

[Shooshie]

I've been looking at Soundtrack Pro. For $299, it seems like a steal. I'm not sure what all it does or doesn't do, but it appears to do several things that would be useful to me. First of all, it has access to Apple Loops, which I want, but I can't stand Garageband. It would appear that SP has some pro-oriented features that would make it more tolerable than GB, and give us the ability to export those loops to DP a little more easily. (maybe GB does that now. I haven't opened it in a year or more)

But one thing really grabbed my attention: pops, clicks, hum, noise, phase problems... SP claims it can find them and fix them. Anyone with experience on that? If so, this might be a far better thing to do than buying the Waves Restoration Bundle. The street price of Waves Restoration is about $1000 for Native format; double for TDM. If Soundtrack Pro can do the same job for less than a third of the price, then Waves can kiss my Apple. I love that company's plugins, but their arrogant pricing makes me resent them more than Microsoft or any of the other perceived evils out there.

So, tell me, anyone with experience... how is Soundtrack? Is it easy to take files back and forth between it and DP? Is the noise repair what it's cracked up to be? Compares with Waves?

Shooshie

<small>[ June 21, 2005, 08:14 AM: Message edited by: Shooshie ]</small>

[Jim]

Hey Shooshie! Why don't you try some of the forums devoted to STP. I Googled for "apple sound track forum" and found several. The Creative Cow is a good forum, and the Apple forum looks like a good place to start:

<http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx? ... @.68aca8fa>

[maintiger]

Hi Shooshie-

I can't stand garage band either but I have soundtrack and love it. I send a mix from DP in aiff form to Soundtrack, then add sweetenings with loops and send it back to DP as individual tracks, which I then import back into DP one at a time. I bought it when it first came out for $299 (the pro price now) and I'm planning to upgrade to the pro version for an extra $99-
you are right, if it does what it says the pro version is be a killer

[Shooshie]

Xavier, that's kind of what I had in mind. Sounds good. I think I'll go for it if I don't hear anything really bad between now and then.

Jim, thanks... I'll check out those forums.

Shooshie

[glmusic]

There were some folks over at OSXaudio that had a thread going of STP and most everything was very positive except that in multiple edits across tracks it seemed that most agreed it was a bit slow. Most seemed to think it was worth the price for the loops and effects alone and also that it really was everything functionally that was advertised. Check out the thread.

[maintiger]

and it will work with any loops, including wav, so all the acid libraries are viable. another great thing is that if you export the individual tracks, it will export them all at once and pretty fast- then you can reload them in DP at your leisure. I'm pretty happy with it and I'm thinking the pro version will be that much better, with all the processings and cleaning up tools and what not- I wonder if we can find a way to use the plugings with DP?

[aplanchard]

Regarding Acid Loop compatibility, my understanding is that they will play, but some reduced functionality is involved. I seem to recall that the transpose function does not work without converting the loop to the Apple format. Just a heads up.

[sdfalk]

I just dragged some Acid files into a Soundtrack Pro session
and it appeared to transpose fine.
Mind you I haven't figured out if Soundtrack Pro converts Acid files
into Apple loops on the fly or not.

[maintiger]

Originally posted by Allan Planchard:
Regarding Acid Loop compatibility, my understanding is that they will play, but some reduced functionality is involved. I seem to recall that the transpose function does not work without converting the loop to the Apple format. Just a heads up.

Actually, I have some acid libraries and they do transpose and change tempo just fine- have not had any troble at all- I just ordered the upgrade from Sound track to STP, we'll see if its worth it soon-

[sdfalk]

For getting rid of clicks and pops (and noise) it sure is.

[aplanchard]

Wow. That's great. Makes the program much more appealing, as I have a boatload of Acid loops. I feel my wallet shaking!

<small>[ June 22, 2005, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: Allan Planchard ]</small>

[Shooshie]

Before everyone runs out and spends an unnecessary $300, go read the forums. I read the one Jim referred me to at Apple, and another at OSX Audio (the applications forum), and the experiences reported by others have certainly cooled my jets on the idea for now. I may still get it in a few days, but I'd sure like to see some reports come in that Apple has fixed some bugs.

Here are some SoundTrack Pro issues I've seen reported commonly in the forums so far:

1) Crashes. A LOT.
2) Does not audition all loop libraries easily as the original SoundTrack did. Apparently, it does great with Apple loops, but not with Acid, or something like that.
3) Noise Reduction leaves significant artifacts. At least one person has said that SoundSoap does a much better job, though I'm not convinced based on just one report. You know how forums can be. If everyone says the same thing... then I'd be inclined to believe it.
4) does not open dual-mono SDII files. That's a bummer for us DP users. But we can export to something that it DOES open, and then import those back as necessary. It's just inconvenient; not a deal-killer.
5) various other issues ranging from lag to bugs to instability.

So, I'm still awaiting some encouraging words about Noise Removal, but at this point I'm guessing that it's not going to put Waves out of business.

Shooshie

<small>[ June 22, 2005, 06:09 PM: Message edited by: Shooshie ]</small>

[rknaub]

Hey Shoosie, DP 4.5 supports Apple loops

http://www.motu.com/products/software/dp/features/productivity.html

What are you trying to do?

Randy

[sdfalk]

So, I'm still awaiting some encouraging words about Noise Removal, but at this point I'm guessing that it's not going to put Waves out of business.


The real time noise reduction in Soundtrack Pro (which is the Noise
reduction plugin that Ships with Logic Express) isn't anything to
write home about.
The Offline Noise reduction in the two track editor is wayyyyy
better then SoundSoap (at least to me)

[RMD Music]

Okay. I have Soundtrack Pro, Soundsoap Pro, Waves Resto and
Logic Pro and so on... I too was taken with Soundtrack Pro's feature set, but I'm still up in the air about it. First of all, the Pop Remover
is good, but not as good as Soundsoap Pro. I like to use both now in my restorations. The noise removal does indeed invite artifacts. I tested it with Soundsoap and Soundsoap Pro was better for this. There are a lot of missing features that need to be implemented before STP can really be considered a pro audio app. All the same, I'm still working with it and have emailed Apple support on the STP support for more features and better implementation. I have no doubt that it will become a very powerful app. Also, I don't expect the noise reduction included for $299.99 to that stunning.
If you have any other questions, please ask.

Randy Derchan