I've had some occasion to be working with Adobe Soundbooth, and I've been having some serious trouble with it. Sometimes it will just up and stop playing. Yes, you heard me right, a sound app that stops playing sounds.

It's wonderful when you have a deadline, and have to edit some audio files, and suddenly your primary sound software decides that sounds are too difficult for it to play.

What's worse, is that there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the problems. The fix is weird: trash a pref called "com.apple.audio.AggregateDevices.plist", then login as ROOT, launch the app as root, then log back in as your main user/admin and hope and pray that it works.

And sometimes it does work. But this app continues my sneaking suspicion that with Mac OSX, app performance degrades with time and use. The more you use the app, the more you fill and unfill the clipboard, or whatever, or twiddle windows, the more likely it is that the application will grind to a halt.

Adobe is friggin' no help. People are obviously having this problem, but there's no answer forthcoming.

Hey, when it works, the app is great. It does what I need it to do, and more, and it's got a fairly pro interface. But I cross myself every time I open a new MP3 or Wav file. You never know when Soundbooth is just going to completely refuse to play a sound file. Totally irritating.

I don't know anything about Soundbooth but I do know that Adobe sucks the big one when it comes to file management. They blow out the ass and they don't give a damn about it. Basically they have the user over a barrel.

Can you use the Cubase software that came with that gadget you got several years ago to do voice recordings to do quick sound edits?

Yeah, somewhere I've got other sound editing software, but I figure wow, I spent all this money on CS5... you'd figure it would be cutting edge. And in fairness, it IS. It's a great program when it's working.

But it's unreliable. It suddenly stops working for no good reason. This has been my experience with so many apps for OS X. But it's friggin' ADOBE. Come on. They can't expect us to sit idly by while we buy these big expensive suites that don't work. They have to make it work. I won't take suck for an answer from them. Same as Apple. It's our duty to hold their feet to the fire. I shouldn't HAVE to dig up some old sound software because my expensive suite has an app in it that's a dog. Nah-ah.

Are you still using those Sound sticks? Aren't they a USB device? They could be a possible culprit.

Like I have said many times Adobe has a monopoly on creative design apps hence they fuck the user with shitty implementation all the time. Adobe sees no need that their apps work properly as the user has no real other alternative.

I thought of that. They are USB, why should that make a difference? But I did confirm that they caused an issue with the DVD player app on the original radiator. They sound great, but maybe it is time to retire them. But why would my friggin' SPEAKERS cause an expensive sound app to fail? I mean, the thing works with the Mac internal crappy speaker. And when the thing stops working, I've tried to set it to that, just to test. I can't definitively say that the inability to play sounds comes from the speaker hardware I've chosen for output.

My guess is, it's some permission issue. Why else would logging in as ROOT and running the app from there suddenly start it working?

If the POS fails and you're in trouble you can still use Audacity 1.32 (beta). Yeah, Beta sounds awful, but it works. I've used it many times, no issues so far.

Sound files are funny as they are codec type files which rely on hardware. I don't think it is a permissions problem as that deals with something totally different. You are getting a preference file corrupted which can be caused due to a hardware glitch. The pref file looks like one that deals with devices. Those speakers are a USB sound device from ten years ago.

Naturally you could make a case that it is a nefarious attempt by Apple to force users towards GarageBand.

I think Adobe has every type of design app under their hats. You would think this would create better cohesion between Adobe applications bringing less problems. The facts are Adobe is juggling multiple objects were each object is different. To often what happens is similar to when NASA's Mars observer along with several other craft were lost because one group of engineers was using the metric system and the others were not. It is the same thing with programming but worse. They are basically all just willy nilly with their practices and standards.

OK, but if it is a hardware problem, corrupting the preference file... why on earth would it make a difference to login to root and start the app up before using it in my main user account? That makes not the slightest lick of sense to me.

But that's what works.
Here's the updated Sound Sticks III... looks exactly the same as what I have, except no USB. I guess the speakers go in through the headphone jack in the front of the Radiator Pro? That's better?

Do you think it's worth getting a newer version of these speakers when the old ones still seem to work fine with everything except SoundBooth?


I have garageband... I don't even know if that does what I need to do. Certainly doesn't sound like a pro tool. Maybe if I wanted to "jam" while editing my sound files? lol

I am not sure what is going on with the root login logout deal. It could mean there is something wrong with your main user account.

Did you confirm that it is the Sound Sticks? The new Sound Sticks would plug into the line out mini jack on the back of your new machine. You could always give mother thalo the old ones.

GarageBand might actually work for your needs. It is a sound editing app.

quote:

I am not sure what is going on with the root login logout deal. It could mean there is something wrong with your main user account.

No, that's what the Adobe knowledge base says to do, so it's not just my user account. They suggest doing this. So who the hell knows.

I am not sure mother thalo has a free USB port on her PPC mac mini, but that's a good idea. I'll get the new model (seems to have gotten a top rating on the apple site) and give her the old ones.



There's a line out mini jack on the back? Hang on, gotta dive below the desk... groan, my fifty year old back... oh yeah, there is. Two minijacks, in and out I guess. There's also these two nifty optical ports for audio... where are the friggin' speakers that use THOSE?

My Alessia sound board that I got for making podcasts, is USB. The software that came with that, I haven't been upgrading.

Soundbooth is really the app I want to be using. Good interface, and it does exactly what I need to do (things like bumping up the volume, cleaning up MP3s to use in Flash pieces)... it just needs to get fixed. With all of Adobe's powerful new updating features, I'm going to keep after them. Like I said, I'm not going to take suck for an answer from them. Not after spending the kind of money I did on their software. Not on the newest Mac Pro. It's just unacceptable to make me jump through hoops when their app gives up the ghost for no good reason.

If it's the soundsticks, they need to say that. "Not compatible with Harmon Kardon Soundsticks." Boom, that's all it takes.

Soundbooth continues to bend me over the sound booth and fuck me in the ass.

A new bug is sometimes the volume balance gets thrown out of whack if you are moving quickly saving through your sound files, and not giving the app a chance to catch up (I think that's what it is)... it's something I used to call "out performing the system" where you get kind of an imperfect save if you use keyboard commands like command-s and command-w (to close the active window) in rapid succession. I think in OS X if you are impatient, and do this, sometimes the documents you are working on, get saved incorrectly. Just a theory at this point, but there are apps I KNOW it happens in, like GoLive. The document window will close, and truncate code, if you are batch processing things and working too fast. The symptom in Soundbooth is that a file I save after editing will be much QUIETER than the orignal. The wave forms actually reduce in height by about 50%. It doesn't seem to happen if I work slow. I wonder if this too is the Soundsticks, but it makes no sense to me that the sound output device would have any influence whatsoever on a sound file on a hard drive. Output is just for playback.

I haven't gotten the new SoundSticks yet, I'm hoping that will correct things. I find that if I mess around with the hardware preferences, then go to the system preferences "Sound" panel, and twiddle... then play something on iTunes (to make sure the sound is getting through the Soundsticks)... I can get Soundbooth working again without having to logout, login as root, and open the app in there. It's clumsy, but at least I've been able to function.

I also think the more memory will help. I just have to get some cash before I jump on that.