KOIBITO-SAN I tried sending this to freeverse's e-mail... but it doesn't pass their "spam filter." And since I was quite impressed, except with the following, So: I tested the new 3.6 version to see if it would suffice for my needs (I currently require four apps in my chain of work with lossless audio clips). I'd like to reduce that to two... 1. it still destroys ID3 tags: even Apple standardized (i.e., it destroys "show"). Apparently anything not in the info drop-down is killed. It should pass everything through that doesn't appear in that drop-down (this is actually a deal-killer). 2a. There's an odd behavior that happens about 90% of the time with ALAC files. It doesn't seem to recognize that the files were opened from ALAC (apple lossless) files and it attempts to "Save" them as lossy, bringing up an "AAC Options" dialog box. If you choose "Save as…", instead, this is avoided. 2b. After hitting "Cancel" on the "AAC Options" dialog box, SS does a drop-down dialog that states “The document "xxx.m4a" could not be saved.”, and then it wants a click on an "OK" button to continue. Kind of obvious when the user cancels the request. i.e., this drop-down after the cancel should be removed from the program entirely. 3. Normalize should be a one-click process. I'm pretty sure that most people stay with the same settings on an entire project or their entire lives (^_^). The normalize level and options should be relegated to preferences or a menu item. 4. It's really minor, but the dB field does not update the percentage automatically in both the "Normalize" and "Amplify Volume" dialogs. The value should be recalculated on "field change." This value is carried over properly the next time you open said filters, but, you've already had to have executed it. (I don't actually use this readout, but I noticed it was doing it this way.) 5. Really a very minor thing (but until I get a program that doesn't destroy tags, it'll be an issue with our files). Even if dragged-and-dropped onto the icon/dock, SS will not recognize a file if it ends with a non-stamdard extension. It still opens an empty window, but it halts all other activity while it waits for a click on the "OK" button, in the "Could not open this file," dialog. Since all our files are MPEG4, and some are provided in lossy forms, we've been using .m4aL, .m4a3, m4a1, etc, which works real well with our current programs on both Mac and Windows. 6. There still seems to be some sort of memory leak that causes a sudden crash. Couldn't figure out where, but it did a sudden disappearance leaving gigs of files lying around when it did… This was after about an hour worth of testing. 7a. There appears to be a display problem in the overall waveform display (the top one). At the end of all of the files I gave it (where there was silence or near silence), the overall display actually showed bursts of sound after the decay, in the area where it was silent. This was consistent with every file I gave it. This is cosmetic, but confusing. And the scrolling window (bottom) showed proper silence at the same point. 7b In the Scrolling waveform, after some normalization or amplification filtering, the waveform would be distorted into the negative dB area, or spiking severely down into it. The audio sounds fine, but there is no way the actual sound waves in these clips were entirely and significantly below the 0dB mark (which is where several of the waveforms were being displayed after amplification). On the next version I test, I'll try to remember to do a couple of screen-caps to demonstrate this. See you at the next upgrade :) P.S. Sound Studio is way ahead of Fission (the other program I tested over the weekend)... Files I trimmed small bits from and resaved, always came out smaller in SS, in Fission, the same files actually grew in size averaging about 700k of "growth."
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