I was expecting stuff like easily draw/select an example(eg a C# that is ia bit too loud and has sharp overtones) and reduce every third harmonic and higher by 2 dB’s in the verse…
Or grab just the guitar riff in this part and extract to its own layer. Not easy in Cubase/ARA.
The magic wand tool doesn’t do much magic, as opposed to the PS tool that I use often for retouching photo’s.
Plus, it’s slow(analyzing a 16 bar bass part) takes minutes. It doesn’t seem to use any serious CPU power of which I have plenty. And it crashes. And it can’t be used in 64-bit mode.
As for more artistic purposes(sound design), it’s hard to dial in to the ‘right’ stuff for transforming.
The manual is quite brief. Examples are trivial.
There’s a lot of potential in this(FFT based stuff with pattern recognition) but right now I am looking at Izotope for the next step.
Just about every example of the morph feature takes the intersection of a spoken track and some big harmonic carpet, resulting in something akin to a really bad case of AutoTune. It looks like a concept with a lot of potential, but mostly a plaything, rather than a serious production tool at the moment. Maybe I am misjudging, but I would have thought if there were really good production uses for the tool, there surely would have been some good examples of this sometime in the first 5 releases.
[Yawn] … yes, remember this from back-in-the-day with Sequoia /Samplitude; was ok and interesting as a ‘built in’ editing option - and in the context of object oriented editing. In this case now as a relatively expensive add-on to Nuendo, seems underwhelming. ARA2 may go somewhere, DOP is not usable (unlike OOE). Less hype and greater usability /examples would be far more attractive. Maybe just needs a little more time and work from those who want to sell it to us. For now, the demo is staying as just that, then uninstalled.
Guy’s it’s okay, don’t be so discouraging to this dev - maybe the reason to switch to Steinberg/Yamaha, was to obtain more resources and help, better DAW integration, etc, etc. It’s early, and I was happy to invest in it just to help the developer even if it’s not prime yet. It’s a huge job this stuff.
I do think and hope though, that they give demo period extensions for each update of the software, because that will help sell it if people can try it again after every update.
As a user, who follows this product since its beginning I can say that Spectralayers is outstanding for surgical jobs like restoration or extracting sound from noisy backgrounds. This tool grows with your experience. For field recordings it is a heaven send. You can literally extract the egg from the pie once you got the workflow.
I really shines integrated with Sound Forge. I hope the Wavelab folks get the same feature. Then I can jump off Sound Forge too, because I definerely don’t upgrade from 11.
Casting and molding are features I use rarely and only for experiments in sound design.
So I think a Demo period of 30 days is short.
BTW: I am glad that the developers found a new home at SB. I missed SL5 die to the awful upgrade policy of Magix. The new possibilities like ARA, external editor, advanced selection, the transient tool are welcomed. So I upgraded from 4 to 6.
The only concern are the colours and borders of th selections. That looked better in SL4.
I had assumed that after 5 releases, this would be a production-grade product. I really want to love it, but I just don’t have any time for products that are still apparently in alpha or beta status.
I would like to see Steinberg extend the introductory pricing until the product is actually ready for regular everyday production use. I will gladly buy a license then at the introductory price. I’m not interested in funding a beta.
It is a production grade product, I’m using it right now on multiple productions, a few kinks to work around… but it’s still useful beyond its kinks. saving me a lot of time not having to go to RX for simple fixes
Has anybody ever compared SpectraLayers to the Algorythmix reNOVAtor software??
I’ve done incredible jobs with ReNOVAtor with really great results like cutting out instruments and noise, e.g.,
and leaving the music/atmo/sound otherwise virtually untouched. That was about 10 years ago, mind you…
I don’t want to give any final opinion about SL as long as I haven’t fully wrapped my head around it,
but so far SL is not making my blood boil, yet.
The problem… as in all posts… is that it was released without proper docs or examples.
But since that is 100% par for the course with SB products (WL being the one notable exception), I can’t get too upset.
OTOH, I was one of the original adopters of Halion… a GREAT product that was also released without proper docs or marketing support). And today what are there… 5 or is it 6 people left using Halion?
That’s my worst case scenario for SL6… another SB product that dies on the vine.
Extending the intro pricing time limit would be good - along with an additional length to the demo period; mine runs out in about a week. And so far, without tutorials or ANY actual audio examples demonstrating the capabilities and applications of the tool, there’s no way I’ve been able to make an informed purchasing decision.
Why don’t you check the tutorials for SL4 + 5?
It is almost the same workflow. The added features like transient tool and the more extended selection modes are easy to grasp with the manual. https://lmgtfy.com/?q=spectralayers+pro+5+tutorial
Even on the product page are some helpful introductions.
What is a demo period for?
An important question is: Do I get it? Or do I have the patience to get into it? If you don’t it is not for you. Decision done. Great. If you don’t take the concept of layers in like in a image processor like gimp or photo shop where the spectrogram is the image no tutorial or introduction will help you.
But one month is a pretty long time to test and experiment if you have all features available. I guess if you don’t get it then you will never do.
All that is well and good, but the application seems to assume that people have used, or are familiar with PhotoShop. I am not, and I’m sure I’m not the only newbie who wants to step their audio game up.
Please let’s have the tutorials that are geared to us newbies.
So what you’re saying is, to all those who (still) ‘don’t get it’, no amount of tutorials, hand-holding, audio examples, manuals, instructions, advice, are going to help you become a potential customer. This app is not for you. End.
Look, I do understand the Photoshop image layer editing concept/practice. I’m already performing similar with audio, mixing and matching (layering) different sources, all day long, using filters/FX/gain/editing techniques/overall volume, etc…
Bottom line is I’ve looked at the SLP4+5 examples and following those, not been impressed with my results achieved so far using SLP6.
None of my efforts have come close to that simple Magix ‘restoration’ video example, posted elsewhere (‘eagle screech/campfire’ sounds). You’ll see other users have struggled too. The sound design/creative stuff (mixing layers in the app) I can take or leave. Audio ‘ducking’ of kick/bass…? Really, got that one covered already.
Conclusion, maybe I’m doing something wrong; maybe I’m not using the app properly. Maybe I’m just no good; maybe, the app itself is actually no good and is just a lot of clever marketing guff.! Is it fun to use.? Will it help my workflow.? Is it value for money.?
I really like the integration with Cubase/ARA; I like the idea of what it can achieve… I need more convincing.
Yeah probably I’ve chosen a rough kind to encourage people to try Spectralayers but it actually was my aim. When I read words like underwhelmed I mostly suspect wrong expectations. Spectralayers as I got into it even is no audio editor like wavelab or soundforge. There are no VSTs, no automation tasks, mastering tools, bells and whistles. That scared me a bit when I stepped into it. But then I understood that it makes absolutely sense, when I got the basic paradigm. But then it was a little relevation and the next steps in learning were really easy.
Sadly there is a recent phenomenon of simple solutions for complex issues claimed not only
by the audio production market.
And by the way; I advocate the appeal for tutorials and extending the 50% deal as the demo period absolutely.
Well,
This conversation was needed for a long time. I have been with SL from version 1 and several of the points stated above needed to be acknowledged since then.
The good news are that what we have now in terms of the scope and finesse of the tool, plus the receptive and willing developers together with this COMMUNITY, have been hard to create and get together. Let’s have in mind that SL has several usage niches which very eagerly need SL´s specific solutions, however not many of them users have been willing so far to share their hard discovered tricks of the trade.
Therefore, first a welcome to those willing to participate in this community, including those who will ask minute, specific, practical questions and also those who bring ideas, feature requests, workarounds and answers. The possibilities are massive and as it has been said above, there is not a lot of help for newbies or either an articulated knowledge base where to look for those who want to dive into the many steepy learning curves associated to various usages.
For those yet not impressed with the Demo, I’d direct them to those early Gary Rebholtz videos (for V2 and V3), even if you watch the first -step-by-step ones, you could see the real power of SL Spectral editing. Unluckily these videos (a series of 12 or more) were taken off line since Sony Creative migration times. However there still are some interesting ones online to look at SpectraLayers Tutorials - Voice extraction from a movie - YouTube
Do it just to have an idea, because the tools have become quite more sophisticated and powerful since version 4.
///That said, I partly agree with Konrath’s question above to potential users; “do I have the patience to get into it?”. Together with a question to Steinberg, to the developers and to ourselves; Are we willing to create and facilitate a communication space and provide the means in order to share, inform and contribute to the better usage and application of Spectralayers?
With a plethora of possibilities, many segregated usage cases, sophisticated multiple tools and all of these mutating everyday. The response that Steinberg, Developers and ourselves as a community forum give to those two questions is crucial.
As far as it goes here, it looks fine to me.
Yeah probably I’ve chosen a rough kind to encourage people to try Spectralayers but it actually was my aim. When I read words like underwhelmed I mostly suspect wrong expectations. Spectralayers as I got into it even is no audio editor like wavelab or soundforge. There are no VSTs, no automation tasks, mastering tools, bells and whistles. That scared me a bit when I stepped into it. But then I understood that it makes absolutely sense, when I got the basic paradigm. But then it was a little relevation and the next steps in learning were really easy.