I watched a YT video of Spectralayers Pro (seems to be promotional by Magix) that shows the heal function in action beginning at 0:35. I took the audio from that video and loaded it into SL6 to try it myself because the result in the video sounded great. Unfortunately I could not get the same result with the heal function. Visually it was similar to the video but my version has left quite some artifacts in the sound where the original hadn´t. Am I doing something wrong or is that a fake in the video?
Link: SOUND FORGE Pro 12 – SpectraLayers Pro Tutorial (2019) - YouTube
I’ve tried this function literally dozens of times on different types of material and haven’t gotten a useful result even once. Not only does it not heal, it usually ruins any audio anywhere in the vicinity. How are you supposed to use this? I thought it might be similar to the Replace function in RX, but since the results are so different, I figured I must have misunderstood how it works.
I think this is another deficiency in this program and in the user manual. In the manual, there appears to be one reference to ‘heal’ and it is just the shortcut key. Even in SLpro5, there are 5 finds for ‘heal,’ but none explain how the process is to be done. In SL5 it says: ‘Heal Click to heal (fill with matching content" the selected area of the selected layer.’ Ok. I haven’t looked at the video yet, but I will later.
I watched the video you referenced. Thanks. I did try this with SLpro5 and did get some useful results with some sounds to be exorcised, but not all. What I found is that in my hands, I could only take small samples of that sound in a limited frequency range, and use ‘Heal’ on that. Then I reviewed the results. If acceptable, I then highlighted another limited range of frequencies, and ‘healed’ that. This seems to work. Unfortunately, as I get into higher frequencies, the result is a swooshing sound. And if I took a vertical sample of many frequencies, the result was this swoosh.
From what I remember in the video, the eagle screech is of a limited frequency range and is not very high, and didn’t appear to have numerous harmonic resonances. I do note that as a sound gets in the higher frequencies and/or has many harmonics, this may not work as well. And if the sound to be healed is in a high frequency range, the surrounding frequencies the tool has to use for healing may become less and less. Perhaps that is where ‘vertical heal’ maybe more useful with a slightly different algorithm.
I will now practice in SLpro6 and see. And again, thanks for referencing the video. This helped me at least understand the use of the tool. I don’t know how this would compare with RX6/7
I tried to get rid of the eagle screech with RX7 Advanced but even there it is quite difficult. So why would Magix put on such a video if the software behaves different from what is shown? I would like to hear more from the dev (Robin) about the usage of the Heal function since the manual doesn´t really give any information.
I believe that Magix video ‘demo’ of SLP’s Heal function to be somewhat misleading. No example I’ve tried has been able to produce anywhere near as clean and clear results, after just one or two swipes of the brush tool… Of course, I could be doing something wrong; but I am following that video to the letter. Such a shame.
I’m presently ‘disappointed’. No proper, in-depth tutorials, demo time running out; 50% discount offer coming to a close in two weeks.
I have tried the heal function repeatedly in SL6. With a few simple, short sounds, I could reduce the sound till it was unnoticeable, but only if there was a lot of background noise. On a more quiet recording, a definite swooshing sound is heard no matter how careful I am.
Seems like I can get better results in RX7 than I can in SL6 for this ‘heal’ process.
I agree. The video results seen in the video mentioned by the OP are impossible to obtain with SL6.
Some clarification on the Heal tool as it is in SL5/6 : it reconstructs background noise given the noise levels surrounding the selection. With Heal Horizontally it will just look for noise levels before and after the selection, Vertical will just look above and below, and Heal Two-dimensionnaly will use both.
For frequency reconstruction, use the Frequency Repair tool - do not attempt to use Heal for that, as it is not the purpose of the Heal algorithm in SL5/6.
Thanks for the tip on using heal vs frequency repair. But I think the whole point of the OP and subsequent comments is that none of us can reproduce the results heard in the OP’s referenced video by using the method described and ‘shown’ in the video. The video specifically refers to the ‘heal’ function, and in the video one hears superb results unheard of since. Which prompt the OP to question whether the results were ‘faked.’ So are you suggesting the video narrator wasn’t using the heal tool?
I really want to like SpectraLayers v6, but I find the total absence of current v6 examples, tutorials, and a meaningful manual referencing SLv6 and its use in Cubase via ARA2 to be lacking. And at this point I really couldn’t recommenced any one buying it except as a curiosity.
I just tried that example from Magix and I confirm it’s fake. The end result audio does not correspond to the spectrogram they show in the example. And it’s not how I would have removed the sound in this scenario, the way they do it will not achieve the intended result.
So please disregard that video, as it’s a bad example. Real examples are coming.
Thanks for your feedback. I´m looking forward to some real examples and I hope that there will also be difficult scenarios like in this example to see how far SpectraLayers can be pushed.
Thank you for your response as well. I do appreciate it!