Some Good News Just For A Change, a SAD (iE) saga with a happy ending Options

[Saoirse O'Shea]

Some of you know that I work as an independent mastering/post production audio engineer and my wife is an independent radio producer. Apart from CDA red book we also do a lot of broadcast audio - radio plays/documentaries and so on, which often need a lot of editing - often 800+ edits in a 1 hour program. So we use SADiE because it has a very good X-Fade editor and EDL control.

For a long time we've used SADiE and its LRX audio interface for location work and the above. Anyway last year Prism/SADiE finally decided that v6 would go Native. For us this could be great since it would mean we were no longer tied to the LRX interface on a laptop but could use our main desktop pc with Lavry etc. and we wouldn't need the LRC - which is often out on location - to run SADiE. (At the mo we have to drop the SADiE file into a BWL and import the audio wave on to the main.)

Then came a long wait as to how much Prism would charge to upgrade from V5 to V6. Late November and they email me to say 500UKS for an upgrade. That's ok but they then also said that a Native i.e not requiring the LRX to authorise - might need a completely new full license to get the dongle and not cheap. Ouch.

So we started a process of looking at alternatives:

Wavelab 6- don't like the workflow, audio engine is poor, can't do DDP as standard, i/o is so-so, X-fades weak, Redbook ok. 600UKS
Sequoia - nice workflow and audio engine, does DDP, i/o ok, X-fades so-so, Red book ok. 2200UKS
Samplitude - as Seq except no DDP and X-fades not as good. 1000UKS
Pyramix 6 mastering - As Seq but X-Fades very good, as good as SADiE, with separate windowed X-Fade editor, does red and scarlet/SACD. 2500UKS.

So we decided to really test out Seq and Pyramix assuming SADiE native would be too expensive. After a lot of testing Pyramix won out because of the X-Fade editor. Pyra tested fine on our back up pc (we do all our initial trials on a back up. old pc and not the laptop or main desktop just in case. Software only gets transferred to those if it doesn't crash the backup). Looks good so we transfer to the main for a final check before ordering. Pyramix refuses to load - it's dependent on a C++ x86 runtime engine and our main is 64 bit. Looks like it's going to have to be Seq which is OK but not ideal.

That was last Sunday and my wife then went to the UK and whilst there she spoke to the guys from Prism and they offered us a massive discount on the Native version. Not sure how much yet but significantly less than a standard license .

Oh and the sun has come out here after what seems like continual rain since November .

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This post has been edited by tonymiro: Apr 11 2010, 10:58 AM