Soundtrack Pro 3 limits

[Frederick Giles]

Has anyone else ran into issues with STP 3 and the amount of RAM it uses? The program just freezes or warns you that you are running out of resources once it soaks up 2.33Gb of Ram space. I'm using a new octacore mac pro with 11GB of RAM and I was hoping to edit a features sound (85min) without having to break it down into 10 minute sections, which I have been doing thus far. I'm really surprised that apple pushes SPT so much for use with FCP and my experience has not been a smooth as apple advertises. There are a couple of other annoyances that apple really needs to work out too on the next version but I find this RAM limit the most pressing.

 

[Brandon Kraemer]

It's limited in my experience, and buggy. In theory it's great but it does not behave as advertised 50% of the time. I've attempted pretty extensive sound design for a website in Soundtrack and it was painful at times, some big crashes, etc.

Exporting OMF's and sending to a program like ProTools, Digital Performer or even Logic might be more stable and in the end more productive way of working.

good luck!

 

[Rick Burnett]

So let me tell you about the time I got burned with Soundtrack Pro. I too had the same problem, although I could get 30min files to work for at least an hour of editing till RAM filled up and starting locking up (because RAM was full).

That was only one problem though. I had set up a bunch of aux channels with reverb on them that I automated a bunch of ADR into scene by scene. When I wrote out the files, STP failed to follow the automation correctly. Sometimes it would not apply the automation curve. Sometimes it was apply the curve to the wrong send!

But, it gets even worse than that. As it is also bouncing out the files, it does not consistently follow the volume curves either. I'd write out and have a foley effect be SUPER loud. I'd go listen and it was fine. I'd write it out AGAIN and different sounds would be at different volumes.

I got very frustrated and then tried the project in Logic and Digital Performer.

With Logic, which I write all my music in, it did not handle an hour and 30 minutes of audio very well. It crashed a lot. Digital Performer however handled it with NO problem.

Since then, I've purchased ProTools Native for the simple reason other people after me need my projects and it makes it easier to give them. That said, for the money, Digital Performer is a lot cheaper and gives you more bussing and 5.1 without having to add the Complete Production Toolkit, and the freedom of using other hardware interfaces.

My advice to you is do not use STP! Either PT or DP!

 

[Robert Frank]

Since then, I've purchased ProTools Native for the simple reason other people after me need my projects and it makes it easier to give them. That said, for the money, Digital Performer is a lot cheaper and gives you more bussing and 5.1 without having to add the Complete Production Toolkit, and the freedom of using other hardware interfaces.

I have Soundtrack, Peak, Pro Tools Le (used to have PT Mix Plus+), Logic 9, and Digital Performer 7.

The feature set for DP is excellent, whether you use it for music production, audio-for-video, film scoring, SFX etc. FCP integration with XML support and Video post tools are included.

"Digital Performer can superimpose streamers, punches and flutters directly on a QuickTime movie playing in Digital Performer’s movie window. This allows film and TV composers to collaborate more efficiently with music editors and better prepare for and conduct live orchestra sound stage scoring sessions. By bringing these visual cues to the native desktop, without expensive and cumbersome additional hardware, Digital Performer also paves the way for anyone to conduct small- to medium-scale scoring sessions in their personal and project studios."

I know Pro Tools is the "standard" for audio post, but IMO both DP and Logic have surpassed it long ago. If PT weren't tied to Digidesign hardware, (sorry I mean AVID), I might use it more often, but without spending extra $$ for basic functionality included in lower cost apps, and the fact that PT uses a proprietary format for plug-ins, and has an artificially limited playback track count, keeps me from getting too involved with it anymore.

Like Rick, I have a native PT interface for the purpose of opening PT sessions when needed, and usually wind up moving projects into DP.

I have to add though, I've haven't spent as much time in Logic, but that is changing. Now that Logic is 64 bit opens a whole world of usefulness with plugins and VI's.
Logics' audio engine was more efficient than DP to begin with, but the Garageband style interface turned me off to it, and I worried may look too toylike to clients.

 

[Chris Henze]

I've had no joy with STP, I also didn't find out that it got real wiggy until the night before I was supposed to deliver elements for a mix in a big room here in NYC. Boy that was a long night. I managed to output each buss as a strip then re-import them into a new timeline and finish my work. It's a shame because I liked STP's ability non-destructivley edit individual instances of audio. It worked great on a few mixes that were for shorter pieces. The movie that showed it's limitations was a 2 hour rock and roll doc with live music performances.

I'm leaning to use Pro Tools next time.

 

[Brandon Kraemer]

I have had great luck with Digital Performer, mixed two albums with it for my band, post scored tv spots with it, etc. It's very reliable and as Rick or Robert mentioned, it has tons of flexibility in bussing and aux sends. I like MOTU's hardware too if your in the need, and as a system goes (software or hardware) it's way cheaper than ProTools. Just fyi.

 

[Rick Burnett]

Totally Agreed. I use Logic more only because it is more efficient for plugins, by A LOT. I use a lot of soft synths and sample libraries (like symphobia) which eat up a lot of RAM and processor space.

I also use 2 MOTU 896HD interfaces for my hardware synth inputs, an Apogee Rosetta 200 for my acoustic guitar and mic input, and a Digirack 003 to just work in PT.

I've used DP since version 3 so I have YEARS of experience knowing that it is VERY dependable. I honestly think it is years better than PT as well for a variety of reasons, the main one being that in Native PT it does not have automatic delay compensation AT ALL. Also, it can only bounce real time. I only use PT because it makes my life easy outside of my life

I did forget to mention that ProTools doesn't support AU either, which definitely cuts out a chunk of plug-ins.

I think the advice here is use ANYTHING but STP

 

[Sam Eilertsen]

I edited the dialog for an uber-low-budget project I worked on, The Circle in Soundtrack Pro. It was pretty painful, very slow, lots of crashes. The only reason I used Soundtrack was the easy integration with FCP.

Speaking of which, those of you use ProTools, what is your workflow from FCP to ProTools for sync sound? Do you put each character's lines on a separate track in FCP and export them one-by-one or something else?

 

[Frederick Giles]

Thanks all for your replies, I ended up cutting the mix into 11 parts in STP 3, only way it would work as I was bent on using software I had used before for short film making. Logic is great but I'm just not as handy with it as STP. My big guess is that STP 4 or whatever apple does with the next version of FCP a fix is coming for these obvious shortcomings.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I use Cubase...

STP looks pretty cool, but allmost allways F*** up when you need to mix down...

 

[David Battistella]

Yep.

Logic for all music and OMF work. Very solid and much more professional. Soundtrack just replaced soundsoap for me interms of cleaning very noisy clips.

David

 

[Frederick Giles]

Yeah most of the issues I had to deal with were with noisy clips, all music and OMF had been done by a great sound friend of mine who used logic. I've used logic a few times but only for making music.