GoldWave legacy

GoldWave general discussions and community help
RX9
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GoldWave legacy

Post by RX9 »

I recently started using GoldWave, and became even more enthusiastic about the program upon discovering that it has its roots in ScopeTrax, arguably the best-ever audio editor for DOS. I discovered ScopeTrax in 1993 when I upgraded my then Tandy computer and found that the DeskMate Sound program would no longer function. I soon migrated to Windows 3.1 and various Sonic Foundry products for audio editing, without realizing that there was essentially a Windows version of ScopeTrax all along. Shame on me. Anyway, my point is that the product has a fantastic legacy with solid development from a guy who really knows the ropes. Thanks very much to Chris for his dedication over the years. And BTW, I find that the latest versions of GoldWave still work just fine with Win_98SE despite some information to the contrary.
Last edited by RX9 on Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
GoldWave Inc.
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Re: GoldWave legacy

Post by GoldWave Inc. »

I haven't heard the name "ScopeTrax" in a long time. I seem to remember programming back in those days was a lot more fun (with the exception of DOS, which you could avoid for the most part). You had direct access to the hardware, you had well defined hardware standards, and you knew exactly what you were dealing with.

Today you have almost no idea what is under the hood and have no access to the hardware. You have to depend entirely on the quality of the drivers, which are often well below any hardware standards (especially for sound drivers).

Even my "state-of-the-art" Vista laptop cannot play an audio file or DVD without gaps and stutters in the audio. It is disappointing when modern Windows PC can do sophisticated 3D graphics involving millions of bytes of data, but still can't reliably send a low bandwidth (less than 200 kB/s) stream of data to the sound hardware for some reason. I know the hardware can do it, but I guess Microsoft hasn't figured it out yet. I guess I'll have to wait another 15 years for them to sort it out.

Chris
Last edited by GoldWave Inc. on Tue Aug 05, 2008 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DewDude420
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Post by DewDude420 »

Chris,

I've owned several laptops and never had major issues with sound. my XP laptop worked fine.


my current laptop, as i've stated, is vista. It came with onboard Realtek HD audio and I recently purchased a USB HD audio device. Audio is no problem, any program i feed audio with plays with little problem..i only occasionally run into studdering problems now and then with the network is acting up.

the problem with vista is purely vista. This laptop could play a DVD flawlessly in XP...but in Vista, forget it. If you do manage to get PowerDVD fullscreen, it's not going to be full rate and it's going to look horrible.

I dropped a lot of ram in this puppy. The problem with vista seems to be MS changed the ENTIRE way the OS works with drivers and didn't seem to bother to give anyone enough advanced notice. Most "final" releases of drivers I've seen are no more than gross hacks that have thier own issues...even my MAudio Transit USB drivers are still in beta for vista.

I think the biggest culprit in all of this is MS, who wants to be so dominating in the arena but then locks thier OS down so no hardware manf. is able to produce proper working drivers.

oh, and chris...your computer generally doesn't send compressed audio to the soundcard, it's generally in some kind of either raw PCM or I2S (or some other interface) by then that's MUCH larger than 200kbps. I know redbook audio is 1411kbps.

but, i'm serously about to sit here and go through all my drivers and boot up procedures and figure out why the volume and network icons disappeared from the status notification area...again..for the 18th time

but, yeah, i remember seeing scopetrax on AOL before I discovered Goldwave back when i was searching for audio programs to play around with.... i've got the now slightly-defunct boot magazine shareware disc to thank for gw (boot became Maximum PC)
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Post by GoldWave Inc. »

DewDude420 wrote:...that's MUCH larger than 200kbps. I know redbook audio is 1411kbps.
That was a typo. I wrote "kb/s" instead of "kB/s" (kilobytes per second). I have now corrected it.

What the hardware giveth, Microsoft taketh away.

Chris
RX9
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Post by RX9 »

For those into nostalgia, I should mention that I have found myself playing around with ScopeTrax again recently, thanks to its ability to run successfully through the DOXBox emulator. It was really quite amazing for the time, in that it offered both the waveform w/cursor and the scope displays, as well as a variety of options and sources for the sound output. The only other comparable program I can think of from that era was Creative Lab's Voice Editor (for DOS and the SBPro), but ScopeTrax was superior in every respect. Chris: You should consider putting it somewhere on the site (at least a screen cap), so that your followers can fully appreciate the legacy involved. Just be aware of the fact that it will probably not run on most modern machines without the help of an emulator, and DOSBox is the best choice.
mh
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Post by mh »

I've never seen it, but it sounds like it was a fascinating little program for it's day. I'd vote for a freebie download in a "Nostalgia" section, it can't do any harm to GW sales can it?

Some interesting insights into the audio changes in Vista here: http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/arc ... fault.aspx
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Post by DewDude420 »

I think for a more nostalgic feeling about goldwave, someone (probably meaning me), should take some screenshots of GW 1.0 - seriously doubt it'd even remotely run in Vista, so i'd have to run 3.11 in VMware (the 3.11 for Workgroups ISO is only 11 megs)

I can't say i ever used 1.0...I don't really remember what version was out when I started...I wanna say it was somwehere in the 3's, but i suppose it COULD have been the 2's..i seriously don't remember and I know i've long since lost that version of bootdisc and i've not found a complete "release" history that far back.

But no, I'm gonna toss something in VMware and play with the old programs.
McFortner
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Post by McFortner »

OldVersion.com has back to version 2.1 in their archive (and only 0.3 MB!).

I started back around version 4.26 myself, and bought it when 5.0 came out and I really started to use it then.

Michael
I liked Gold Wave so much, I bought the program! :wink:
DewDude420
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Post by DewDude420 »

nice...

I seriously don't remember when i started/purchased the program. I used it maybe three or four times before I realized that was the program I wanted and purchased it...that was wayyy back in I think 1997 (although 1996 could have been the year....that was a long time ago)..

I remember 4.26 being released, so I know it was prior to that..I want to say something like 3.24...but as i said, it's been so long ago I never really gave it much thought.....i've just enjoyed the ride :)
mh
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Post by mh »

Happy memories indeed! First discovered in I think 1998, roundabout the time that wave editing became a realistic proposition on then-current hardware so far as full songs were concerned. It just fit my requirements perfectly, with the correct combination of power and ease of use. Haven't found anything to touch it since; sure, other apps score higher in individual areas, but right now I've become a creature of habit, and GW does exactly what I want the way I want it to. I've recommended it to others too, from novice to experienced, and everyone I've spoken to who's tried it out has loved it.

I remember (confession time! :oops: ) finding a sneaky workaround for the commands restriction in version 4 (which I won't publish, so don't ask) but eventually made an honest man of myself and paid up some years back. One very happy customer ever since! :D
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Post by DewDude420 »

Well, I ran goldwave on my first PC-based windows machine and on every system i've owned since then. Prior to getting that machine in late 95, I really dont know what audio editing was like. I do remember my old Apple IIe playing back sampled PCM software in a program one of the SoftDisk disks and was seriously amazed..mostly because all i'd ever heard that thing do was produce bland tones and clicks.

When i first got goldwave, my system wasn't fast enough to do 44.1/16. It would play back ok...but if you tried to record from line-in...you'd wind up getting skipping at various intervals. That was back like, when i FIRST FIRST started and was still playing around with basic effects...back when i was still making mixtapes and would use goldwave to run a fadeout a bit earlier so everything would fit on tape...of course i also tried to play back a mp3 on that same system (TI 80486/DX2 66Mhz - 16mb ram) in Winamp and only succedded after giving it realtime priority and all the buffering in the world.

but no, seriously, it's gotten much better over the years...I did get 2.12 to open in Vista, but i can't load a file because of "memory issues"...i'll have to get that vmware install of 3.1 working and try there.
RX9
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Post by RX9 »

For those of you just can't seem to get enough of this nostalgia stuff, here is a link to the one that started it all: ScopeTrax, released by Chis in early 1992. If you have access to a Win_98 computer, it will work with a reboot to DOS only. If you don't, be prepared to fire up a copy of the DOSBox emulator to get this program going. http://www.filewatcher.com/m/scoptrax.z ... 4.0.0.html

Also, here is a link to the first version of GoldWave, released the following year. Scroll down to "gldwav10.zip." http://www.negatron.org/software.php/G
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Post by Nigga 4 Life »

This is one hell of a trip down memory lane (LOL).
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Post by The Great Watbol! »

I used to use Bmaster in dos (blaster master, for sound blasters),
and when windows took over (1993-1995), depending on the sound
driver, bmaster wouldn't work on some of my friend's computers.
I finally had to get a 'windows' editor and found gwave on a bbs
(shareware) {before the internet was popular}. I then turned right
over to g-wave. My first gwave version was 4.02.
Ps... if anyone still has the old soundblaster disks, mine are on 5.25"
and I no longer have a drive for them, I'm looking for that 'parrot'
program that came with the blaster drivers. Le'me know if you have
a simular program and want to share with me.
------------------------------
¿¿¿-:·}~ «-{Watbol}-» ©2000® ☆*★*☆
(•¿•)
RX9
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Post by RX9 »

Here is a link to a page on the DOSBox forum. You will notice that it contains various Sound Blaster related links, one of which is the Parrot program. I seem to recall, however, that this program would run only with an 8 bit SB card, such as the SB Pro.
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=8634
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