Does WL7 have this Soundforge feature?

Hello,

I attended an online presentation from Sony today on cutting narratives in Soundforge and saw that it has a feature that blew me away. The command was CTRL-K and the feature is called Preview Cut…where you make a selection on some audio - with the intent to remove it from the file. This feature starts playback with a bit of a pre-roll, plays up to the start of the selection, jumps over it and continues on - making for a perfect preview of what the piece will sound like with the highlighted section gone.

Since I am cutting like this constantly - this would be invaluable to my workflow. I checked the WL PDF manual and saw a number of playback shortcuts…but none seem to be like this one…unless the manual is phrasing it differently…I am off to check it out but hopefully someone can chime in…

Cheers,

VP

You can do almost the same in WaveLab:

Set the mode “Skip selection” from the transport bar.
Then:

  • Select the audio
  • Press Win+Shift+F6 to play before and after the selection, but excluding the selection, thanks to the transport setting. The function is available from the Transport menu too.
  • Delete selection if desired, with one of the 2 available modes (xfade or not)

It would be nice to add to WaveLab a shortcut to skip without having to set the mode in the transport bar. This was already noted, in fact.

PG,

Thanks! I finally found the Skip Selection item after poking around last night…

But the Win-SHIFT-F6 is not what I would call “comfortable” at all as far as a shortcut goes. After looking system wide CTRL-F6 is not used anywhere and would be perfect for this as it stays right within the “F6” paradigm and would be so much faster and easier to remember.

I have reassigned this and now it’s working great.

Longer term (maybe next update) - if you could consider a new Transport mode called Skip Region with Pre-roll/Post-roll with CTRL-F6 as a shortcut (and of course make it “Skip Selection” on the fly) - this would be one of the handiest things this software could do for editors.

Q: Is it possible to adjust the amount of pre-roll/post-roll anywhere in the system? I would like a bit more time if possible.

I can hardly believe I just discovered it now and in a competitor of all things. I have literally spent days worth of man hours over the years fishing around trying to correct gaffs and mistakes by “lucky” cursor placement…but now that I can hear how the natural cadence and pace will be effected by a cut AND be able to adjust the selection to know exactly WHERE to cut with unbelievable precision - is really going have a positive impact on my workflow.

Thank you for your consideration on this item.

Cheers,

VP

This is planned.

I think (?) Ctrl + F6 was not possible on the Mac, hence not retained.

For the pre/post roll, adjust it in the Audio Streaming preferences.

PG,

Thanks again! I adjusted the post-pre roll to 2 secs and it works great!

Regarding CTRL-F6…when you get round to implementing this requested transport option - please continue to allow us to reassign it freely as we can now.

I am on WIndows and CTRL-F6 is absolutely perfect for this for shortcut. Super speedy…plus since it’s directly related to all the other F6 transport commands - very easy to remember.

Cheers,

VP

I’m also looking for this feature to prelisten a cut on the fly with pressing only one button. The need to change the transport mode is not very comfortable and slows the workflow. So I’m still using another audio editor for these edits.
Because I edit interviews, I’d really welcome this feature in Wavelab. It would make my workflow a lot faster and would lead me to make the changeover to Wavelab.

PG, it’s now about one year since this threat was opened. Is there any information about implementation of this feature to WL? I’m on Mac, but I hope there is a possibility to assign a shortcut.

Thanks in advance.

Best
Matthias

As already mentionned, set the mode “Skip selection” from the transport bar.
Then:

  • Select the audio
  • On the mac, Press Ctrl+Shift+F6 to play before and after the selection, but excluding the selection, thanks to the transport setting.
  • Delete selection if desired, with one of the 2 available modes (xfade or not)

It is noted to have this feature available in WaveLab 8, without the need to be in a special mode.

I am guilty as someone who has been pushing for this since trying WL6. I am pleased to see this feature finally on the road map for WL. I have been using Sound Forge for over 13 years (since 4.5) I think CTRL-K came in 5.0. As a lot of my work is speech editing, it is the ultimate way of working for ‘de-umming’ and ‘de-erring’, especially against a deadline. So maybe 2013 is when WL(8?) comes into the ‘preferred’ category in this regard.

But while we are thinking about this, why not look at whether it can be implemented even better. What I am doing in ‘de-erring’ mode is tweaking the edges of the selection with the mouse and then previewing using CTRL-K. Now the spacing between CTRL and K is an uncomfortable span for two finger operation on the left hand, so it is drop the mouse, CTRL with the left hand, K with the right, then right hand back to the mouse (unless you’ve hit the spot, and then the right hand goes to the delete key). Left-handers, please reverse the descriptors above. (Alternatively, in SF this can all be done from the keyboard - adjusting the selection edges with left and right arrows, Num 5 to swap the active edge - which reduces hand movements and can increase speed.)

Now I realise that most WL users are in the music genre, but I do know that our national broadcaster uses WL nationwide, including news and interview preparation, so there is a clientele that is interested. So a feature like this is of interest and I appreciate that it will eventually make the feature list in WL. But I think its implementation should make possible the use of a single handed operation, to avoid the hand-swapping mentioned above. It can either be native or customisable, but one hand for mouse/one hand for keyboard seems like a useful improvement, not just a copying of someone else’s feature.

Perhaps others would like to express ideas on the way in which this feature would be used, to allow it to be implemented in a way that delivers greatest efficiency to the user.

Right, I will remember the importance of “easy access” shortcuts for potentialy repetitive tasks.