External Audio Editor

[Eric Solomon 13]

I'm not sure if this is already a thing or not but the ability to open audio files in a external editor would be killer.  Like being able to right click on a clip or clips, select open in a "external editor"; such as audacity(or one your choosing) make edits and then bring edited audio back on tracks. Reaper has that feature and it is awesome when I record vocals and need to do some noise reduction and remove clicks and pops.  May be asking a lot for a free DAW but some advance features like that would knock Reaper out the box for me; being someone who got started recording in Sonar back in the day.

[scook 4,380]

It is possible today. I wrote a utility called Tools Editor to make it easier to add any program including audio editors (and almost anything else including pdf and html documents) to the tools section of the CbB utility menu. It is available on my google page. Help is built into the program and there is a readme pdf with illustrations including the setup for adding a version of SoundForge.

Once added to the tools menu, to edit a clip, select a clip and launch the audio editor from the menu.

Not sure if Audacity will work as an audio editor though. For a program to work, it must be able to take a wav file as a command line argument. That is how CbB (and many other DAWs) send files to external editors. There are quite a few free and paid editors that do take wav files on their command line.

[Eric Solomon 13]

Yea, couldn't seem to get Audacity to work (very disappointed) but was able to get WavePad. Not as good as Audacity so I may look into Soundforge. 

[Variorum 174]

Now if somebody would grab the source for Audacity and add a VST3 wrapper and ARA2 support... 😉

[Jim Fogle 671]

49 minutes ago, Variorum said:

Now if somebody would grab the source for Audacity and add a VST3 wrapper and ARA2 support... 😉

I love Audacity.

[msmcleod 3,422]

Acoustica basic edition is a free audio editor that works well with CbB:

https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/3-Studio-Tools/48-Audio-Editor/1956-Acoustica-6-Basic-Edition

I used @scook 's Tools Editor to add it to my Tools menu. Works a treat.

Edited July 31, 2019 by msmcleod

[Some Guy 83]

On 7/30/2019 at 7:21 PM, Eric Solomon said:

Yea, couldn't seem to get Audacity to work (very disappointed) but was able to get WavePad. Not as good as Audacity so I may look into Soundforge. 

That's likely due to how Audacity works with Audio Files.  It works in Projects, like a DAW, and not directly on the file like a destructive wave editor.  Wave Editors like Sound Forge, WaveLab, WavePad, etc. will work out of the box, because they allow you to just Open and Save to overwrite the source file (destructive by default).  This is the common workflow when using them in conjunction with a DAW or NLE.  They open the source file directly, the way Notepad opens up a Text document.  Most DAWs and NLEs have settings to release file locks when they lose focus, so that this workflow can be enabled.   When you go back to the DAW or NLE, they automatically load the edited file and regenerate the waveform.

Audacity, basically, creates a "New Project" when you open an Audio File, so the only way to save over the original file is to Save As... and use the same location and file name, then overwrite it -  if possible.  Clicking Save just brings up a Save As... dialog in Audacity, because the Project is New.  This is more comparable to what a DAW does (for example, opening up an Audio File in Samplitude creates a Waveform Project for that file, instead of editing it directly (and destructively) by default... contrary to Sound Forge).

Audacity is basically Reaper with 1/20th of the development resources/attention 😛 

I wish Cakewalk would add context menus to Audio Events to open them up in a configured audio editor.  You can probably set a keyboard shortcut to the entry you add to the tools menu, though...

Sound Forge Pro 12 can be gotten off Humble Bundle for $25, so anyone in need of a Wave Editor should jump on that deal.

Only annoying this is that after installation, all of Sound Forge's DirectX Audio Plug-ins show up as "Uncategorized" in CbB…  They're usable, but generally I just disable them in Cakewalk with the Plug-In Manager... If I didn't, I'd be forced to categorize all 50+ of them, because I'm really  testy about organization!

Edited August 25, 2019 by SomeGuy

[Eric Solomon 13]

Must have missed the $25 sale. D.....m

[scook 4,380]

The deal has a few more days to go

[Some Guy 83]

On 6/27/2019 at 2:53 PM, Eric Solomon said:

I'm not sure if this is already a thing or not but the ability to open audio files in a external editor would be killer.  Like being able to right click on a clip or clips, select open in a "external editor"; such as audacity(or one your choosing) make edits and then bring edited audio back on tracks. Reaper has that feature and it is awesome when I record vocals and need to do some noise reduction and remove clicks and pops.  May be asking a lot for a free DAW but some advance features like that would knock Reaper out the box for me; being someone who got started recording in Sonar back in the day.

You can add an audio editor to the Utilities/Tools menu by  editing the registry...

But the developers need to add something in Preferences to configure this, and an entry in the Context Menu for Audio Clips to match (i.e. Edit in Sound Forge Pro/WaveLab/etc.).  Every other DAW that I've used does this, except this one.

Perhaps you can set a keyboard shortcut in CbB, after editing the registry, to make it more "convenient."

I just find it odd that this has been ignored so long, since you basically depend on external wave editors for any decent audio editing in Cakewalk/SONAR.  Plus, it's such a huge QoL improvement on top of being such a simple thing to remedy.

[John 443]

In the past if you had Sound Forge it would automatically install in the tools menu. However, I think one had to have SF installed first to have that happen.  

[Some Guy 83]

12 hours ago, John said:

In the past if you had Sound Forge it would automatically install in the tools menu. However, I think one had to have SF installed first to have that happen.  

Yes, it looked for the executable in a known [default] installation location.

However, MAGIX changed the default installation path for Sound Forge Pro 11, and then again for SOUND FORGE Pro 12, so this won't work unless the applications using this are updated when new version release, or ownership changes.  MAGIX tends to install apps in versioned directory entries, to enable simultaneous installation of multiple versions.  Some other applications don't do this, so you don't have to deal with v10 being forge100.exe, v11 being forge110.exe, and v12 being forge120.exe.

This is broken in MAGIX products like VEGAS Pro 15, Samplitude Pro X4, etc. when you install versions of Sound Forge Pro > 11, for the same reason (ACID Pro will detect v12, but likely because they were in the same general release cycle).

Edited September 6, 2019 by SomeGuy

[John 443]

Interesting information.

[terrain hostile 0]

Does it work with Sound Forge 8 ?

He says (how we say in french): "Impossible de créer le processus / Cannot create process".

Thanks.

[scook 4,380]

"Cannot Create Process" usually means there is a permissions mismatch between the program that is running and the program being launched.

IIRC, SF8 must run as administrator. Try running the DAW as administrator.

 

[william barton 0]

In Sonar 1, I was able to find Cool Edit Pro in my "Utilities" section.  Sonar 3 and Bandlab have not offered that option.  Any current ideas on how to remedy?  Thanks.

[scook 4,380]

Yes, use the Tools Editor mentioned in my first post above

Here is a thread about it and other tools I have written. Please post any questions about them in that thread.

 

[Josh Wolfer 110]

The Tools Editor is AMAZING. I couldn't get RX7 editor working (hacked registry), but the tool got it working first try. Scook, I owe you a beer if you're ever in Austin TX

[Mark Morgon-Shaw 495]

I must be going nuts I thought Cakewalk used to have this feature ?

 

[scook 4,380]

Quite a while ago (pre X Series) there was a discovery process as part of the installer which added certain editors to the Tools section of the the Utilities menu.

The hooks were retained in the program so the registry entries still work.

I wrote the Tools Editor to simplify the process and remove the need to directly edit the registry.