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Posted by: articles Sat 1 Oct 2005, 04:50

Comments about:

http://www.macmusic.org/articles/view.php?lang=EN&id=103

Posted by: Jibreel Sat 1 Oct 2005, 04:50

Yeah

Shame on Apple for been like Microsoft by going after the money like Microsoft does over cheesy Office Products, And worse of Apple does this with creative products.

Sound Track Pro A/K/A "STP" should be called "STD" (Sexually Transmitted Disease) and air born.

Posted by: lepetitmartien Sat 1 Oct 2005, 06:24

I have personally a strong feeling against any app that need to be named "Pro" to mark its professionalism… Either they are up the trade, or not, Pro is just a stupid marketing gimmick.

Logic was a professional class software before Apple added the Pro and inserted into it some GB elements to make the place friendlier. I'm still not sure it's the way to do things.

To get back on STP, the lack of some of the features expected in a reasonable app this type is rather disturbing. Please, the Apple guys, get your act together, it could be a really great program if… because not far are still AVID/Digidesign and Yamaha/Steinberg (not counting others dedicated systems like Pyramix etc.) and they are dead serious at the job even if not everything is perfect. There are de facto standards STP is compared to and you must be at least good as InDesign if you want to annoy Xpress

Posted by: Jibreel Sat 1 Oct 2005, 08:46

Apple has been selling itself out since 9/11 from the fears of loosing market to the far east Developers like every other U.S. company.
A bit understandable, but 9/11 was back in 2001 and it is 2005 now.

My point is that they have over 4 Audio Applications,
1-GarageBand,
2-Logic Express,
3-Logic Pro
4-Soundtrack Pro.

Logic Alone should handle Soundtracks, but "Soundtrack Pro" was what Apple promised would answer Logic's problem's with audio editing in the arrange page, which i think would be a revolutionary move if they can get anything close to Pro Tools,

Also, it would be nice to see a new sampler from Apple Magic, but with a new interface to catch up with the"software generation", since all software samplers have gone beyond the car radio looks the esx24 has now.

But when will they invest in this rather then marketing is beyond me?

Posted by: MacAudioGuy Mon 3 Oct 2005, 03:23

I finally have a dual 2GHz G5 on order and I'll update this review if STP's perfomance is greatly enhanced by the more powerful machine.
Overall I agree with everyone's comments, we are salivating for a good post-production audio program, it's up to Apple to play down the hype and up the features.

Posted by: lepetitmartien Mon 3 Oct 2005, 03:37

And stop listening only to the marketing sweet songs. There are users out there and they ask for specific things.

if you want the pros: ask the pros!

Posted by: edfenner Fri 7 Oct 2005, 20:31

I think it will be interesting to see what the review is after your new machine. It runs great on my G5 and is a good tool in the mix - especially when used as intended - to create soundtracks for video.

I use logic pro 7 for most of my work, but it is often overkill for adding a few sound effects, a music bed etc. STP allows this and a lot more quickly and easily with great integration wil FCP 5.

I agree sometimes putting "Pro" on an apps name is strange, but in this case where apple has a line of pro apps, Final Cut, SoundTrack, Logic - makes sense to me. Also let's not forgetthis review wondered if it was a PROtools killer.

I also wonder when people without enough horsepower complain about products (this happens with motion - another part of the Final Cut Pro suite) so yeah, it doesn't run great on your old G3.... well, that is part of being a pro, keeping your gear up to date. And that is not just in the computer world - if you haven't bought HD gear, guess what, HD isn't going to fly in your video workflow either.

If you really want apples all around pro audio solution - then pony up and buy logic - if your looking for a tool to give you a LOT more than the built in audio of FCP at a good price - then STP does pretty much as advertised.

So if you keep trying to make garageband or STP into something it's not - your going to end up spending a lot of time complaining. I don't know of much out there that gives you this much for that price.

Posted by: Jibreel Fri 7 Oct 2005, 21:31

many PC products can for that price, but we really like apple but feel bad about apple taking advantage by focusing on iPods all the time.

Apple has a good position in the merket, but you can not go so far been this greedy, apple should start listening to its Pro users a bit more, there are loyal apple fans and not all have the money to spend on apple screwing them for so long as well.

Apple could be a truly great company if they just dropped the greed and invested there time in R&D instead of hyped out marketing.

Posted by: MacAudioGuy Sat 8 Oct 2005, 04:00

Posted by: tubbsj713 Wed 2 Nov 2005, 15:23

My big complaint is the lack of keyboard shortcuts for editing narration/dialog. There's nothing I can find in the manual. Again this is where Protools is the leader. Between the EDIT MODES, the super tool (or whatever it's called when all tools are available with the mouse) and the keyboard commands/focus the editor can move fast. I'm not going to grab the mouse to place IN/OUT's and delete stuff. I do hundreds of edits per hour and STP just isn't making it.

If there's a hidden keyboard shortcut guide please let me know!
tubbsj713@mac.com

Posted by: makuakane Wed 2 Nov 2005, 18:10

I must admit, I was very underwhelmed with this new software. It's a little better than the original Soundtracks I purchased, but not to any nth degree. Of course I own a bunch of audio software including Digital Performer, ProTools, Reason and others, so adding this to my collection seemed like a good idea. However, this thing doesn't do very much more than my free Garage Band. So far, the only worthwhile thing are the samples.

I do like the fact that at least there is someone out there trying to build an all-in-one box for "professional use". Heck I've used far less "pro" equipment in my studio and accomplished incredible stuff like taking an old Fostex A2 - recording a sound, then slowing it down a tad - adding it to my tracks and having the client smiling in amazement at a simple trick. I just keep on reminding myself that these are ONLY tools and the intellectual genius are people like us.

Posted by: HaroldJohnson Wed 2 Nov 2005, 23:37

Dang; I was looking for something to replace Audacity on my G4. Audacity runs horribly on my G4, although it works well engough on my PC (and even better on the Linux systems I've tried it on). For some reason, the software has a ton of issues on OS X. I know it's a problem with OS X because Audacity runs very well on a Linux installation on the same Mac.

So Soundtrack Pro...I'm still going to try using Soundtrack or Soundtrack Pro to see what kind of performance I can get. I won't be paying for it, though, until I know it works well on my G4. I don't need a ton of features, but I'd like something that's a step up from GarageBand. Does anyone know if the original Sountrack program(s) perform better than Soundtrack Pro? I don't need all the extra features Soundtrack Pro has to offer; I just need something that runs well on a Blue & White G3-upgraded-to-Sonnet-G4 with about 700MB RAM.

Posted by: edfenner Fri 6 Jan 2006, 03:10

Well since this "review" came out, I have wondered - is it just me? - STP has worked great for me and for small projects I use it instead of Logic Pro and have never had a problem.
I was struck this week while thumbing through some of the latest music magazines when I saw:
Electronic Musician Editor Choice: Audio Editing Software - SoundTrack Pro.
Remix Technology Awards: Most Innovative Sofware : yup SoundTrack Pro.

Again - is it protools - no - it isn't suppose to be. So will someone be disappointed when their couple hundred bucks doesn't buy them a thousands worth of software... yeah probably.

I still think that entire premise to the review was ludicrous - and reminds us to evaluate just where a review is coming from. Somone doing enough business to buy the tools they really need or an "audio guy"