2017-09-30 11:12:38

hi all,
so, when I I want to record something in gold wave, ok I say something, then When I switch to an other window recording for some stupid reason stops. I have seen someone doing the intire
recording with it even he was switching witween programs. Is there anything that I am doing rong?

thanks in advance

If life gives you communism, become a communist dictator.

2017-09-30 18:12:59

I think the problem isn't switching windows, as that has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on Goldwave's ability to record. The problem is most likely that you have a situation where the preset file length runs out, and so it stops recording. If you press F11, and go to the recording tab, the last thing before the OK button is a set of radio buttons. You want that on unbounded selection. What this means is that when you do the recording, it doesn't stop at a predetermined length, it grows the file as it needs to. The reason for this is that Goldwave is meant as an editor to do things like digitize music from cassette or vinyl, and often times, if you know the playtime of the album, you can simply set that in the recording time, then record, press play on your deck or turntable, and walk away. After that, you can press F9 as per usual, and enter and nothing else needs done with that initial time dialog.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
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2017-09-30 22:32:47

Hi Biggun.
Well ironcross got here before me, but he's exactly right. This happened to me with goldwave I do a lot of things with it so I've had a lot of practice over the years. I hope you got this sorted out. Goldwave is my favorite audio editor!

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-09-30 23:46:43

thanks for the help, all. I only thought that because it seems just when I had switched to an other application that recording stopped, but it seems that it was a total co incidence. smile

If life gives you communism, become a communist dictator.

2017-10-01 04:33:39

On the subject of goldwave though. I can't remember if this has been asked  here before or not, but does anybody know if it's possible to make seamless loops using it? I can make the loops perfectly fine using the whole song or recording, but it seems like if I save said loop as anything other than a wav, there's a tiny bit of silence added to the beginning of the resulting file. I know there are ways to save these wavs in other formats and keep the seamlessness using other programs, but is it possible to cut out the middle step as it were? Or am I just SOL and goldwave can't do that.
Thanks.

"You know nothing of death... allow me to teach you!" Dreadlich Tamsin
Download the latest version of my Bokura no Daibouken 3 guide here.

2017-10-01 06:24:34

interesting that its happening with wavs, I would have thought that the MP3's would get the padding, hmm, I don't know about that one.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
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2017-10-01 13:10:46

@5
Wavs are funny in my experience.  Save as ogg/flac and they should loop fine if you trim well enough.

Regards,
Sightless Kombat.
***If you wish to refer to me in @replies, use Sightless***

2017-10-01 20:54:28

dd wrote:

I can't remember if this has been asked  here before or not, but does anybody know if it's possible to make seamless loops using it? I can make the loops perfectly fine using the whole song or recording, but it seems like if I save said loop as anything other than a wav, there's a tiny bit of silence added to the beginning of the resulting file. I know there are ways to save these wavs in other formats and keep the seamlessness using other programs, but is it possible to cut out the middle step as it were?

You asked this last year. The short and simple answer is: Wav, flac, and any other lossless format is your safest bet for producing seamless loops. Ogg often is gapless but sometimes produces small defects. Formats like mp3, m4a, etc. *may* work, under certain conditions. I'll talk about this in more detail below.

Wav is gapless simply by its simplistic design: just write down 0s and 1s, no algorithmic compression is done. Any time you introduce a sophistocated compression algorithm (or an encoder), it gets more complicated. Most encoders split the audio into frames and process each one. The gaps you hear at the beginnings and ends of files are, put simply, partial encoder frames being filled, and perhaps padding.

Decoders convert encoded data like flac, mp3, m4a, etc. into a conventional audio stream very similar in fact to a wav file. Decoders can be instructed, with the help of the encoder, to eliminate gaps introduced by the algorithm, which for lossless formats like flac is mandatory. Ogg also is gapless. I wouldn't completely depend on it though, since Ogg is a lossy format, meaning it removes portions of the audio signal it deems inaudible. This tends to modify the audio just enough to make a carefully crafted seamless loop start clicking again, especially if the sound contains very distinct effects sensitive to the slightest of disturbances. Sound effects for a game, or samples for a digital musical instrument, are the most vulnerable to this. If it's a song or a full mix, however, using Ogg should be fine most of the time. Opus, a recent audio format which I think soon will replace Ogg, is similar. Some decoders and implementations aren't gapless, at least I used to use one that wasn't. But I think most are now. I still would be careful with it though, for the same reasons as Ogg.

With other formats it gets tricky. WMA Professional is gapless, but WMA standard isn't. And when you get to Mp3 and M4a, it gets worse. Neither format is gapless by design, nor are there any standards to make them gapless. So any implementations of those formats that do offer gapless playback are doing so via their own means. They're not really breaking the standard, as the extra information they use for their gapless playback will just be skipped by other decoders that don't support it, but it does make things look bleak. The Lame MP3 encoder does have gapless support so far as I'm aware, but I don't think Gold Wave supports it. It may be possible to make it do, but I've not looked into it since I don't use mp3 very often these days, nor do I use lossy formats for looping so much.

M4A is also tricky, as you've seen firsthand. ITunes can create gapless files which work fine on Apple decoders, but Gold Wave uses different decoders that can't interpret that. Furthermore, the Media Foundation encoder that Gold Wave uses isn't great, and very likely never will be gapless. Using gold Wave to create gapless m4a or mp3 files is probably futile.

The good news is that there are ways to make external encoders and decoders easy to use. They unfortunately won't work within Gold Wave, but they will be easier to use than, say, going into ITunes and converting files in there. I'll admit I'm really not sure how well that would work, I'm only proposing an idea that I'll elaborate on in a future post if you are interested. I'd firstly though need to know what filetypes you wanted to make and where you wanted to use them, before I get too far into it.

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2017-10-01 21:46:27

Hi.
Wow I'm learning so much. I never use goldwave for sound design since I'm not good at that, mostly I use it to change file formats. I have a question of my own. What is the smallest sized audio file I can get with goldwave? I heard mp3 was the smallest audio compression but I'm not sure if it's true. What I need is a file format that has a small size, but still maintains high audio quality.
Thanks.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-10-01 22:09:17

If you want to convert files, use SoX. It is a command line tool, but once you get the way of using it, it is fast and powerful.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
End racism
End division
Become united

2017-10-01 22:11:08

@ironcross and sightless, the wavs aren't actually the problem, they remain fine but the problem lies in if I want to actually be able to use them for what I want, in this case being ringtones, which I currently need to convert to M4A because apple is stupid. I can trim and loop the wavs themselves perfectly fine though... so after my planned switch to an android I'll hopefully just be able to use that.
@raygrote Wow thanks for typing that, lol lots of info there. I'm mainly just making loops for minor things, songs for ringtones, occasional partial track for other things, etc. But it seems like it might just be easier to save the perfect loops for after I switch phones, lol because I'm assuming with an android hopefully in my future, I won't be limited to a single file type for my stuff. It's not really anything to make too big of a deal over, I'm just a perfectionist when it comes to this kind of thing, luckily I don't do it often... tongue

"You know nothing of death... allow me to teach you!" Dreadlich Tamsin
Download the latest version of my Bokura no Daibouken 3 guide here.

2017-10-02 17:35:08 (edited by musicalman 2017-10-02 21:03:55)

@DD and Guitarman:

dd wrote:

The problem lies in if I want to actually be able to use them for what I want, in this case being ringtones, which I currently need to convert to M4A because apple is stupid. I can trim and loop the wavs themselves perfectly fine though... so after my planned switch to an android I'll hopefully just be able to use that.

I'm surprised you can't use aif or alac for ringtones, but in the 5 years I've had an Apple device I ashamedly never tried to create my own ringtones. And I've heard with IOS 11 it's even harder to do, though I'm not sure. If you wanted, I could hook you up with a command line program and a GUI to control it, which uses the Quick Time encoder which I think is the same one used by ITunes. It sounds complicated, but it's simple to set up. All you'd do is add files to a list, set some parameters and press start. This seems easier than ITunes. But it sounds like you're more ready for Android than to do that. I don't know much about Android's file formats either. I do have an Android tablet, but i don't have it connected to a cellular network so I don't know if I culd test ringtones with it. I'd not need to get calls, just to hear if the ringtones play and loop correctly. I may work on that in future if I get bored.

dd wrote:

It's not really anything to make too big of a deal over, I'm just a perfectionist when it comes to this kind of thing, luckily I don't do it often... tongue

I am a perfectionist too, probably way more than you are. So I definitely understand that feeling of wanting to know how to fix it smile.

Guitarman wrote:

What is the smallest sized audio file I can get with goldwave? I heard mp3 was the smallest audio compression but I'm not sure if it's true. What I need is a file format that has a small size, but still maintains high audio quality.
Thanks.

What you are looking for is not necessarily a format and its size, but how good a format sounds at a particular bit rate. IF you have, say, a 128 kbps WMA file that's a minute long, and a 128 KBPS MP3 that's also a minute long, both will be of similar size. That size will decrease either if the length is shortened, or the bitrate is lowered, or both. If you compress to a low bit rate, the sound quality will be worse than if you compressed to a higher rate. This applies to all formats.

If you want the best-sounding files at the lowest bit rates, then I will list my preference here. If, however, you find that bit rates of 128, 160 or even higher are manageable, then any of these formats should sound decent at those rates, and the one you choose can be more of a compatibility choice. It's only if you want lower that the sound quality is worth considering imho.

Out of the five lossy formats that Gold Wave supports, I'd say Opus is your best bet. It is a new format gaining popularity and compatibility, and sounds good at pretty much all bit rates. Where it shines imho is in the 48 kbps and up range of rates. Many people use 64 or 96 kbps Opus for things that they need to sound reasonable. So I'd say that if your stuff can play opus files, use that. Test different bit rates until you find one that sounds acceptable to you.

Ogg isn't far behind in its compatibility and quality, though I think it doesn't quite sound as good below 96 kbps. At 64 and down, the audio gets too blurry and rough, and I find this more objectionable than the sort of gritty spacy tinkling of Opus. Both formats give me small headaches if I listen to low bit rate audio for an extended period.  Still, to some people, these artifacts are acceptable, and ogg is I think more recognized than Opus and is still being used a lot. I do think though that Opus will eventually replace it.

WMA (Windows Media Audio) is kinda interesting because there are two versions of the format which come with most installations of Windows and which Gold Wave can access. WMA 9.2 and WMA 10 Professional are the ones most suited for your goals. I wouldn't bother with 9.2; most players can handle the pro format, although you may have to install codecs to update the default ones. On my system anyway, the audio sounds a little muffled unless you install updated codecs. I personally like WMA Pro at low rates, almost as much as Opus. Anything above 48 kbps sounds half decent to me, considering the low rate anyway. I'm not as big a fan at higher rates. WMA has artifacts that are occasionally left behind. They can't be heard often, but sometimes they can be more obvious.

MP3 and M4a are probably the most compatible formats, but they don't sound good with low rates. The lowest I'd recommend with any of them is 128, and that's in an emergency. I can still hear artifacts at 128 with mp3 at least. There are external converters which can do better, especially for m4a where additional compression modes are available, but Gold Wave can't use those converters.

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2017-10-03 11:22:17

Hi all.
Since we are discussing goldwave I have got a question as well.
I use goldwave for the last year. Before I was using adobe audition 3.0 on windows xp. Since audition 3 is old and doesn't run well on windows 10 I decided to give goldwave a go.

I like everything on goldwave.
The fact that is responsive, and perhaps the most accessible of all.
The only thing that I don't like on goldwave is the dynamic compression.
I tried with all the presets, and I even tried changing some of the settings myself but I can't keep an even level to my recordings.
The level keeps going up and down very quickly with goldwave and I don't have much success.

I am talking about talking material like audio books.

I admit I don't understand well the different settings like ratio, threshold etc.
In adobe audition there was a preset called classic soft knee which was working really well for my needs.
Also in goldwave there is a dynamics option which seams to work better than the compression, but I think the settings seam to be visual and we can't adjust them easily. At least I didn't understand how it works.
Sorry if I asked this question in this forum before.
I remember that I mentioned it somewhere but I am not sure if it was here or not.
If you could help me it would be much appreciated. I am very confused with all these settings and numbers.
Thanks
Nikos

Visit www.freesound.org/people/NikosDemetriou/sounds/ to hear some of my recordings.

2017-10-03 21:13:15 (edited by musicalman 2017-10-03 21:16:30)

nikosdemetriou wrote:

In adobe audition there was a preset called classic soft knee which was working really well for my needs.
Also in goldwave there is a dynamics option which seams to work better than the compression, but I think the settings seam to be visual and we can't adjust them easily. At least I didn't understand how it works.
If you could help me it would be much appreciated. I am very confused with all these settings and numbers.

The numbers and settings can indeed be confusing. I won't explain what they all mean now, I'll save that for later if you want. But if you learn about how compressors work, you'll have a better understanding of what the compressors you've used are doing, and this will help you make decisions about what settings might work in a particular situation. Such knowledge will also help you tweak settings if something isn't sounding right.

What I'll tell you now is that Gold Wave's compression effect is not really that great imho. It's one of Gold Wave's weak areas. The dynamics effect in Gold Wave is really not meant for compression either. It often introduces distortion and other strange effects because it's more of a waveform shaper of sorts that can do crude volume processes. The graphs it uses can be edited with a screen reader, but only with a ton of patience. I'd not use it for what you're trying to do. If you find the dynamics effect is actually giving you good results, it's probably because you've picked one of several presets that simply amplify the audio. Amplifying the audio can be done with the change volume effect, or with an external compressor/limiter discussed below.

What you need is probably a vst plug-in for high quality compression or limiting. Gold Wave can support vst plug-ins, so using one isn't hard once set up. BTW the difference between a compressor and a limiter is simply the aggressiveness of processing. Compressors are meant for gentle volume leveling, limiters are meant for aggressive leveling, and some compressors or limiters can be adjusted over a wide range of aggressiveness if you will, making them pretty versatile.

There are many free compressors and limiters that are usable. The VST I like most for simplicity is called Classic Mastering Limiter or something like that. It often can be found as part of a pack of vst plug-ins. The plug-in works by boosting quiet sounds and lowering loud sounds, kinda like an automatic volume control. Its main purpose is to keep loud sounds in check, but it can be set over a fairly wide range of operation. Best of all, it only has one setting which adjusts how much the levels will be controlled. The lower you go, the more sensitive the volume adjustments will be. If you set it too low, then the audio will be too compressed and loud, if you set it too high, there won't be enough compression and the volumes wont' be adjusted or boosted enough. That's it, no parameters to mess with. And because it's reducing loud sounds, you won't get distortion from things being too loud, at least you won't in most circumstances anyway. That plug-in may work well for you.

I myself prefer more settings. Cockos has old vst effects. The modern versions of these effects come packaged with Reaper, but old VST versions of some of them are still offered for use outside of Reaper. Among these VSTs are two compressors, reacomp and reaxcomp. The former, Reacomp, is the simpler of the two, but it still has a ton of settings that can be adjusted. Reaxcomp is used for multiband compression (affecting the volumes of different frequencies), which often produces that famous bassy radio DJ sound if used with extreme settings. It offers more flexibility in controlling the sound if you want. I normally use both reacomp and reaxcomp in combination to adjust the sound of my mic.

There are other compressors and limiters out there. WE could test 10 plug-ins a day for an  entire year and probably still have at least a few year's worth left over. Some compressors and limiters are good, others are not. Some try to emulate analog equipment so they have their own type of coloration and sound they add to the audio. Others, like the ones I mentioned, go for a clean sound. It's worth trying a couple and seeing what you think. Admittedly I haven't tried many compressor plug-ins yet.

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2017-10-03 23:07:04

Thanks a lot raygrote for the advice.
I like the sound of classic master limiter. I hope I can find it somewhere because I don't need something too complicated.

I installed reacomp but nvda seams to get stuck somewhere when we tab around the settings and then goldwave becomes unresponsive and we can't close it or anything.
I tried it on a windows 10 64 bit machine.
By the way goldwave seams to accept only 32 bit vsts even it runs on 64 bit windows. I don't know why.
Thanks again
Nikos

Visit www.freesound.org/people/NikosDemetriou/sounds/ to hear some of my recordings.

2017-10-04 19:59:06

Classic Master limiter can be a bit hard to find these days, and I was about to upload it and post a link here. However, I did still manage to find a working link so I don't have to upload it. Try it, and let me know what you think. If you don't like it and want other options, or need help, let me know.

It sounds like you're already familiar with how Gold Wave VST plug-ins work. One thing I'd recommend is, when you go into the plug-in window, and you tab around, when you find the thing that says press alt b for basic view, do that. A lot of vsts support basic parameter adjustment and that is how I prefer to work with vsts.

In Gold Wave, each parameter that becomes visible is an edit box. Sometimes you'll get lucky and the screen reader will read the parameter labels out, but if not, you can object nav or mouse around in your screen reader to find labels near these boxes. Just be careful you find the correct label for the box. It's easy to find the label to the next box instead of the current one.

All parameters in all vsts go from 0.0 to 1.0, that's how the basic view works in most daws and vst programs. Some vsts do show real values near the box, so you can see what the setting is set to. For example if you type 0.5 in the box, you may be able to see a number near your cursor, let's just say 300. If you know what setting you're adjusting, and what 300 means, then you'll have a much better idea of what's going on. Again, just be sure you don't get the boxes mixed up. Sorry I can't help further with that, it's been a long time since I explored this in detail. If you need more specific direction, let me know and I can refresh my memory and get back to you.

As to why Gold Wave only supports 32 bit plug-ins, it's because adding support for 64 bit plug-ins takes some work. Whether you can run 32 or 64 bit plug-ins isn't completely dependent on your Windows architecture, it also has to do with the design of the program and what architectures it supports as well. Most developers who want to support both 32 and 64 bit plug-ins make a separate version of their program optimized for one or the other. Reaper, for instance, has a 32 and a 64 bit version. Reaper does offer bridging so that you can take a 32 bit plug-in and run it in a 64 bit Reaper or vice versa, but bridging can sometimes create problems. So as a general rule, if I am going to use a lot of 32 bit plug-ins, I'll use a 32 bit program, even though I'm on Win 10 64 bit. While Gold Wave could certainly have support for both architectures, I guess the dev(s) have chosen not to worry about bridging and only support 32 bit plug-ins for now, since 99 percent of plug-ins you'll ever want have a 32 bit version. Even commercial ones.

Make more of less, that way you won't make less of more!
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2017-10-05 07:40:34

Hi raygrote
Thanks for the download link.
I found it as well from a youtube video. There was a link in the description but I wasn't sure if it was the right one.
It seams to be the same.

I tried it with goldwave and it works with no problems.
But unfortunately it doesn't seam to help me for my needs.
The plugin seams to be good with loud sounds. It doesn't let them becoming too loud. But it doesn't seam to work well when sounds get quieter.

I will give you a real example.
One of our readers at work starts speaking at her normal tone, but as the recording goes on, her voice gradually becomes quieter.
You don't realise this much if you listen from beginning to end. But if you listen to a few seconds at the beginning and then a few seconds at the end you realise the volume change.
The problem is that I can't tell when exactly she starts speaking softer so I can tern it up manually.
Maybe in situations like this sighted people have more advantage, because they can see the waves on the screen and adjust them as they wish.

Thanks again for all your tips and help.
I learned many things from you.
Nikos

Visit www.freesound.org/people/NikosDemetriou/sounds/ to hear some of my recordings.

2017-10-05 15:49:18

Hmm. I believe I have an old copy of Adobe Audition lying around. Would it help you if I looked at the soft ne preset you described above, and try to come up with settings for something like Reacomp that you can use in Gold Wave that would accomplish that? I'm almost positive Reacomp could emulate most any digital compressor or limiter, it's just a matter of adjusting settings. I'd be willing to do this but it will take a while since I'll be busy with other things over the next few days.
Let me know what you think.

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2017-10-06 07:51:33 (edited by nikosdemetriou 2017-10-06 07:53:56)

Hi.
Sounds a good idea.
If you find the time you could try it. I hope we can find something similar. I will play a bit more with Reacomp as well now that I know about the alt+B shortcut. Maybe it will become more responsive.
Thanks again for all your useful tips
Nikos

Visit www.freesound.org/people/NikosDemetriou/sounds/ to hear some of my recordings.

2017-10-06 12:56:49

Hi again.
Just to let you know that I also tried classic compressor from the same company that made classic master limiter.
It is very impressive how vsts from 2005 work so well with goldwave.
These classic vsts also come with a few presets which might not be what I am looking for, but they help me to understand how the different settings can effect the sound.

With Reacomp I am so lost without any available presets to play with.
Fortunately the alt+B command for the basic settings works well with Reacomp so it doesn't crash on me.
Thanks again for everything
Nikos

Visit www.freesound.org/people/NikosDemetriou/sounds/ to hear some of my recordings.