Do You Need to Pay $400 for an Audio Editor?

The obvious answer is no, but the right answer isn't always obvious. Sony SoundForge 9 is a $400 application and maybe can could get by with the less expensive Sound Forge Audio Studio ($70). For audio professionals, there's no choice: The full version is all there is. But if you're on a budget and all you need to do is basic audio editing, the basic version may be sufficient.

To understand the differences between SoundForge and Audio Studio, see the Sony website. This chart will help you decide which version is the right one for you.

Soundforge 9 offers multi-channel editing and recording, which is a new feature that allows the addition of tracks for accents and extended processing. This version also includes the Noise Reduction 2.0 plug-in, which is useful if you're trying to create archive copies of old records. There's also support for 5.1 AC-3 Dolby digital export. In earlier versions, these were extra-cost add-ons.

Sound Forge (not owned by Sony in those days) dates back to 1991. In those days it was Sonic Foundry, a company that Sony acquired. From then until now, audio professionals griped about Sound Forge's inability to handle more than 2 tracks. Multi-channel is a welcome addition to version 9 and the program supports a variety of multi-channel formats: WAV, AVI, AC3, MXF, OMA, WMA, and WMV.

No, you can't see a view like this from the application. This is a composite view of all top-level menus available to Sound Forge 9 users. In many cases, there are additional selections under the top-level menu. Yes, "Wow!" is an appropriate response to this image.
Click for a larger view.

Video support is present, but limited. Video professionals will find the application lacking, but if you need to edit multi-channel audio for a video track that has already been edited, Sound Forge 9 may be sufficient.

Sound Forge 9 includes more than 40 real-time effects (amplitude modulation, chorus, delay/echo, distortion, dynamics, envelope, flange/wah-wah, noise gate, pitch, and reverb, for example) and you can add your own through a plug-in manager. When you select audio and choose an effect, Sound Forge previews the sound for you. This allows you to tweak the settings before applying for effect for real.

Sound Forge can be installed legally on 3 machines as long as it is active on only one machine at a time. If one of your 3 computers suffers sudden death, you'll have to call Sony for help in reinstalling. I've heard that this is not a major issue.

Remix Magazine puts it this way in terms of good and bad: Pros: Simple, easy-to-use interface. Workflow enhancements. Bundled mastering suite from Izotope. Multi-channel audio editing. Noise-reduction software included. Extended metering and spectrum analysis. Cons: No multi-track capabilities. Comprehensive CD burning not integrated.

 

4 CatsBottom line: Sound Forge 9 is what you need if you're serious about audio and you use a Windows computer.
Don't worry. You won't have to pay $400 for the full package. You can find Sound Forge 9 for $250 to $275 without looking too hard. It's a solid system that performs well. But with all the features comes a lot of complexity, so plan on spending some time with the documentation and more time practicing.
For more information, visit the Sony SoundForge site.

"I Don't Remember Subscribing to that News Alert"

You probably didn't subscribe to it. One of the more recent spammer/scammer tricks involves sending out what looks like a news alert. These have been around since sometime in July and a reader wrote with this question: "In the last week I've seen a generous number of one spam type that puzzles me. It purports to be a CNN Alert. The content looks entirely legitimate and includes the full complement of wording, copyright, privacy policy and terms, all of which have links. The links (none of which I've followed) are all genuine CNN site pages. It comes, however, from a scurrilous NL address. I'm puzzled. Presumably the links are somehow aliased? What's your take?" My take begins with "F" and ends with "raud".

Click for a larger view.I had already looked at these spams in the sandbox where they arrive and knew that the one key link would go to a website that would try to serve an executable designed to convert the receiving machine into a zombie. Hovering the mouse over the link (without clicking!) revealed the game that was afoot. The image above (click for a larger view) shows that I had received 5 such "alerts" within 60 seconds.

Click for a larger view.I found one such message in the sandbox and took a look at it. As you can see clearly in the lower left corner, the link will not take me to CNN. The domains used vary from message to message, but the one thing they have in common is that they are never to CNN. The various other links in the message do go to CNN as a way for the message to show that it's "legitimate".

Click for a larger view.So I used Sam Spade to examine the site. Because Sam Spade isn't a browser, it can show the website's source code without the risk of actually running any malware that may be attached. However, AVG Antivirus monitors all inbound traffic and immediately warned that there was a problem. It also stopped the data transfer, even though Sam Spade could have accepted it without any risk.

Click for a larger view.Click for a larger view.What can we tell from the pieces received? On the left is the obfuscated version of what was sent. On the right is the cleaned version.

It's a bit of Javascript that is supposed to display a Web page that will appear to be CNN's, complete with a video viewer. The video viewer, which you can't see because AVG didn't allow it to download, would also have been in obfuscated code. The "video player" is what would have attempted to infect my machine.

Treat anything you encounter on the Internet with suspicion.

Even if it Appears to be from Microsoft ...

Click for a larger view.Here's a message that claims to be from Microsoft. It wants me to download version 7 of Internet Explorer, which is still in beta and is in no way even close to being ready for general distribution. But the key point is that Microsoft doesn't do business this way.

The purported link is to an executable file, which is something that Microsoft will never do. If Microsoft wants you to download something, the company will provide a Microsoft.com Web URL, not a link to an executable.

Anyone who fell for this trick will now have an infected machine.

The Lunacy

We've had slam spam ("You're an idiot!") and scam spam ("You've won $1,000,000!). Now we have what appears to be spam written by a couple of fired "news" writers, one from Fox "News" and the other from the National Enquirer. These go out with names of legitimate news services, but the headlines are utterly unbelievable.

Some people will, of course, believe them. This is another indication of the trouble we face as a nation. Critical thinking has gone the way of the dinosaur for some.

What happens if you open one of these messages? Your computer will be attacked, subdued, and turned into a bot. It will be subservient to a gang of criminals, probably criminals working from central or eastern Europe. Here's a list of subject lines I received in a single day, and I've omitted the really nasty ones.

And others are getting into the act, but badly:

Before you click, think. And if you're still thinking about clicking, think again.

Allow Me to Introduce You to a Real Idiot

Dumb Phish 1I've just received 4 copies of the same phish. Each one told me:

"Your e-mail has been selected as one of the winning e-mails for the 2008 second quarter Microsoft online awards. You as the e-mail user have therefore been approved to claim the lump sum of seven hundred and fifty thousand Great British Pounds! assigned each, to all the ten winners

whose e-mails were selected in category C'."

(Yes, there was an extra linespace in there.)

Dumb Phish 2

No big deal about the phish. I see bunches of these every week. But this one claims to be from Microsoft.

And the mail came from ...

... a Gmail account.

I know that these guys aren't the sharpest knives in the 6-pack (and why would we want a knife in a 6-pack anyway?) but you'd think that they might at least use a Microsoft e-mail product if they're claiming to be representing Microsoft.

So I created a message from "Bill Gates (gates@fubar.com)" and wrote to them with a suggestion that they might want to try a little harder next time.

Dumb Phish 3

Nerdly News

The Beginning of the End for DRM

A year ago, Sony Ericsson started talking about a download music store that would offer music tracks not encumbered by digital rights management. On Monday, the store goes live with 1 million DRM-free tracks. It will be called PlayNow Arena, which you could probably find on your own, even if I didn't tell you the URL. But I will.

PlayNow Arena (http://www.playnow-arena.com/) expects to have 5 million tracks available by 2009 when the store finally goes global. For now, the first million tracks come from catalogs by Sony BMG, Warner Music, and EMI. The expanded catalog will add The Orchard, IODA, The PocketGroup, Hungama, X5 Music, Bonnier Amigo, and VidZone. If you haven't heard of some of these, that's probably OK. They're non-US companies. Oh, and don't get too excited about being able to use the service on Monday. It will be open only for residents of Nordic countries.

The additional 4 million tracks should be available within a year as PlayNow Arena rolls out through Europe. High-speed Internet penetration is more widespread in Europe, so that might have something to do with the decision. Here in the backwater United States, only about half of us have access. More important is the availability of faster over-the-air WiFi service for telephones because that's the may much of the music will be delivered.

Prices are expected to be the same as those charged by Itunes, about 99 cents per track.

Line Up for Your Iphone

In the bad old days, in the Soviet Bloc countries, people carried cloth bags with them wherever they went. If they spotted a line, they stood there and hoped to get whatever it was at the front of the line. It might have been shoes. It might have been toilet paper. Today, it might be an Iphone. Apparently marketers in Poland are hoping that old memories and old habits die hard.

Trying to increase awareness and interest in the Iphone, Poland's largest mobile phone company paid actors to stand in line at Iphone stores. A spokesman has been quoted as saying that the company has fake lines in front of 20 stores around the country, prior to the Iphone's debut in Poland on the 22nd.

In the United States, people lined up for free. In Poland, you get paid for standing in line (or, for those from the Northeast, "on line"). Poles may be smarter than Americans too. Having done the math, a lot of them have said that they're reluctant to pay the high usage fees associated with the Apple phones.

Orange is the largest mobile phone operator in Poland and the one paying actors to stand out front. T-Mobile, which doesn't rhyme with "orange", also started selling Iphones on Friday. Apparently T-Mobile wasn't willing to pay for lines. They are reported not to have had any.

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