Hi guys, Is there a "standard" program to use to make sound effects ? Kind of like Adobe Photoshop is the "standard" graphics program ? Do people still use CSound ? I''m looking for something more on the technical side since I''m a great computer programmer; also, I don''t have any instruments and want to use my sound card. I''m just looking to make ambient sounds and drones for my new game but also want to persue this as a hobby. Thanks.

Sonic Foundry - "Sound Forge 6.0"
399$

Trust me its worth every penny.
Sonic Foundry is the "Adobe" of audio as far as im concerned.

You can buy a striped down version for 179$ I think its called "sound forge STUDIO 6.0" I believe.

Try the demo out: http://www.sonicfoundry.com

In the same way that one may scan/open and edit images in Photoshop, one may record/open and edit sounds in Sound Forge.

But while an artist may use a tablet or mouse to draw directly into Photoshop, there is no analogue for creating naturalistic sound.

Your references to musical instruments, drones and CSound give the impression that the kind of sounds you have in mind are perhaps more musical than naturalistic.

What have you got in mind, exactly?!

I still think they are equals...
You can paint in photoshop and then edit...
You can use the internal simple synths to make audio and then edit it...

You can take an existing picture and alter it in PS.
You can take an existing audio file and alter it in SF.

You can make everything he said directly in SF with the internal synths with a lil know how...

Buy the book Sound Forge 6 Power, its basicly a hardcore manual for SF6.0...

Wavelab is pretty good too

Hi guys,

Thanks for the response. I''ll check out SoundForge; I just got the trial version of Fruity Loops and it''s nice, I don''t understand it well but I did manage to make some cool droning sounds, too bad I can''t save them with the trial version.

If any of you have the game Freelancer the ambient sounds in space are what I''m looking for, something very deep. Plus I want to make some impact sound effects.

I think sound is much more complicated than graphics because unlike a still image sound flows and there are so many more variables.

I''m gonna download the trial version of SoundForge now.

If your soundcard supports it you may be able to play the sounds you created in Fruity Loops into a recording app, thus bypassing the disabled saves.

No need. Even with the FruityLoops demo you can still render music to mp3/wav/midi. You just cant save your songs, but thats only necessary if you need to close fruityloops and at some point reload your work and continue from where you left off. But if you can manage to create something in one lick, you can just export it and you''ll have your mp3/wav/midi

Hi !

Do you recommend Sound Forge just because you work with it or is it realy the "standard" ? And what do you think about Wavelab 4.0 or Cool Edit ?

Sound Forge is an excellent, rock-steady program. That is why I use it, why I recommend it, and why it is the standard.

I haven''t used wavelab for about 4 years. I haven''t heard anything bad about it. Check out the user forums for both products and see what the common problems are.

I think Cool Edit is inferior to Sound Forge, but it is a fraction of the price. But If I had to choose between the more expensive C.E.Pro and S.F., then C.E.Pro would win for the multitrack feature alone.

Given the choice, I would stick with my current setup of Sound Forge and Vegas (but I must admit I haven''t used CEP 2).

Sound Forge 6 has NEVER crashed. Vegas 3 slows to a halt after a few hours of constant work whence I must save and restart it, other than that it doesn''t crash either. The video capture app that comes with Vegas is somewhat fragile though...