Very frustrated sound designer

[TVPostSound]

I agree with Mark W . Actually hes the one who turned me on to SoundMiner.

Doing a search for "DOG" on a database of over 300 gigs in sound effects, Soundminer returned 346 results in under 2 seconds!!!!!

Well worth the $895.00

[Jonathan Wales]

Couldn't agree more - Soundminer is the best thing going.

And yes, Digibase is very slow - even if the drives are attached to your machine it is much slower than a regular search.

JW

[Strider]

I balked at the price of Soundminer at first, but since I installed it in January, it has paid for itself in efficiency a few times.

Downside. This efficiency may cause job instability 'cause less guys can do the same work. Just make sure that YOU'RE the guy that stays! [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

Good luck.

[stormtrooperpez]

Hi everyone.

I am very familiar with SoundMiner, and I've demoed the app for several 'decision makers' here but, as with many corporations, they're looking for a studiowide and worldwide solution, and there's a lot of discord within the ranks; some people want mTools, some want SoundMiner, some want Sonomic - reaching a decision will take quite some time, I fear.

In the meantime, I'm stuck with Digibase; and my real concern is that Digibase doesn't do the job it was designed and advertised to do. Many people on this forum claim to use it without any problems, and a few others say that it is too slow. I'm sure the difference boils down to people who have a few hundred megs of sound files on a local drive versus people who have a couple hundred gigs of files on networked drives.

But if Digibase can't support the needs of the 'power users' then who is it for? This is ProTools, is it not? Why bother developing the software if the people who need it most can't use it efficiently? I find it pretty alarming that I can look for a file with the OSX Finder search, navigate to the folder in 'import audio' and import the file faster than I can run the same search and import with Digibase. If only I could drag and drop from the Finder into ProTools...

AB

[Strider]

I'm in OS 9, so I don't know if it will work in OSX, but I can drag and drop a file from the finder level onto a PT alias on my desktop and it automatically imports it into PT at the correct specs. Hard to beat when you're in the finder.

Maybe it's worth a try.

Good luck.

[stormtrooperpez]

Hi Paul,

You're right, I did find a workaround, but it meant that I had to disable certain features of Digibase (like auditioning with a waveform view). I just want to be able to work with it as designed. I don't want to have to adopt something like Soundminer to be able to do what Digibase should be able to do.

My frustration stems from not being able to use Digibase to it's full potential. I think the main areas for improvement are overall search speed, waveform calculation & storage, built in CD/Library recognition, and long filename support.

You know, back in the ProTools 4/OS 8.6 days, I used to be able to do a find within the import window with something called Action Utilities. Even this simple search was faster and more intuitive than Digibase (you couldn't see a waveform but you could use the little audition slider in the import window to jump around in the file). Unfortunately, this feature of Action Utilities stopped working in OS9, and was never reintroduced.

The disadvantage of my current workaround is that it doesn't allow you to jump ahead in long files. How hard would it be to add a search button to the import window?

AB

[Paul Greyson]

I can understand you're being frustrated by having to work around the overview problem with network volumes.

wrt overall search speed, it seems like the 2 second response time you mention in the other thread is good enough, no? Or are you still referring to the slow searches with the overviews displayed?

wrt adding a search button to the import window, I'm not sure I see what that would give you. You'd have to go to a modal dialog (takes time) everytime you wanted to import a file. You wouldn't have the extended display information that you get with DigiBase. You wouldn't have the search-by-comments feature you get with DigiBase. Seems to me it would be slower and less functional than what you've got with DigiBase.

[Paul Greyson]

stormtrooperpez, I'm confused by your latest comments.

Earlier, in another thread (Slow Searches with Digibase), you seemed to have identified a workaround for the slow search results and I asked "So with the workaround are you finding DigiBase to be useful?" and you answered "Quite useful, yes."

Are you still seeing unacceptable performance even with the workaround?

[stormtrooperpez]

Thanks for the reply Paul,

Yes, the search speed issue is wrt the waveform display slowdown.

As far as having a search function within the import window, I don't see that so much as competing with Digibase as making the import window more useful. With Action Utilities, I could actually type Apple-F and I would get an action utilities find window - the results of the search would be displayed as a list in the import window, and then I could audition and import from there; it was fast, easy and very useful. Unfortunatley it died when Nav Services replaced the older dialog box functions.

Digibase is obviously more powerful, but it also requires a rather large browser interface, and the drag and drop function is a little bit awkward on single monitor systems.

I'm not suggesting this as a replacement for Digibase, just as an enhancement to the import window. Before Digibase came along, I was always befuddled as to why there was no search function in the very window that was supposed to help you find your files. it still seems like a logical addition - just a little button that says 'find'.

AB

[gallery]

In response to Stormtrooper's performance problems with displaying waveform overviews in Digibase:

If you want a very fast search over very large sound libraries, stored on network volumes, and you want to browse and audition by waveform, then you should consider mTOOLS, which works on OS9 and OSX.

Amongst other user-customisable layouts, It has a 'Waveform' view layout for search results, which contains the waveforms for each found file, in a full width size, below the text description for the result. This mode allows experienced sound designers to immediately recognise the character of the sound they are looking for, simply by browsing the waveform overviews. You would be surprised how quickly you stop reading the text descriptions, and start using the overviews as your primary 'glance-reference'. Unlike digibase, the waveforms are very large with lots of detail, and including them in the search results has only a very small effect on the time take to display the results, and does not affect the search speed at all.

mTOOLS was created from the beginning to be used for very large libraries on networks, and since the waveforms are cached in the database file itself, there is no need to read them (or calculate them) from every found file each time you search. One mTOOLS based facilities group has 250 mTOOLS clients on a trans-global network with more than 7 TeraBytes of storage hosted in Hollywood, and accessed from Hollywood, Burbank, NewYork, London and Singapore.

If you want any more information on this please check out the mTOOLS website http://www.mtools.info, or contact Gallery via email. [email protected]