SUMMARY
that it supports multichannel audio, it should be on the short list of programs for anyone doing professional-quality sound editing.
Target Apps
Audio editing, processing and mastering for a wide range of media projects, including music, video, CDs and DVDs, advertising and corporate productions
What It Costs You
$399.95
What’s Cool
Multichannel audio seamlessly integrated into the program, can edit XDCAM audio, real-time Spectrum Analysis tools update for all the tracks, Phase Scope and Mono Compatibility Meters show phase cancellation problems, removes pull down when opening 24p DV video, includes an AC-3 renderer and selection of plug-in effects
What’s Missing
Can’t edit multiple video tracks along with your multichannel audio tracks, limited MIDI support, can’t alter the parameters of the Dolby Digital AC-3 plug-in unless you pay extra for the Pro version
Specs
Windows Vista, XP or 2000 SP4; 800 MHz processor; 256 MB of system RAM; 150 MB of hard drive space for program installation; Windows compatible sound card
The first version of Sound Forge was released in 1991. Back then an audio-editing program didn’t have to do much to gain approval. These days it takes much more to impress. Case in point: A persistent complaint about Sound Forge has been its two-track limitation. For audio producers who couldn’t see a clear distinction between editing stereo and 5.1, this restriction put Sound Forge increasingly out of sync with their workflow.
With Sound Forge 9, Sony Creative Software (formerly Sony Media Software) has finally delivered the goods on multichannel. Rather than awkwardly tack-on the extra tracks, as some competing programs have done, the additional tracks are fully integrated throughout the various features. For example, the Spectrum Analysis tools now display the shifting frequencies in real time for all the tracks of a mono, stereo, 2.1, quad, 5.1 or 7.1 mix. You instantly see if your tracks lack specific frequencies at any point in the mix. Similarly, the new Phase Scope and Mono Compatibility Meters show phase cancellation problems in real time for each individual track.
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Since when were Cubase and Sonar audio editors? They are sequencers primarily and bear no resemblence whatsoever to Sound Forge, so I think the comments in the review referring to this are unfair. Users of Cubase and Sonar still use wave editor applications like WaveLab or Sound Forge to tweak their audio.
Posted by BFB on Thursday, April 19, 2007 @ 08:23 AM
2.
I had considered referring to SONAR and CUBASE as sequencers or MIDI editors, but they've grown far beyond those narrow categories. It's fair at this point to refer to either one as an audio editor, while keeping in mind they have their limitations, especially when compared with a powerful pure-play audio editor, such as Sound Forge.
Posted by David English on Friday, April 20, 2007 @ 10:48 AM
3.
I fully agree with the first comment. I use the Sony suite of audio and video software for its ease of use. I used to use Cubase and WaveLab, which I found cumbersome. The comparison of Sound Forge to Sonar and Cubase is, well baseless!
Posted by Jon on Friday, April 20, 2007 @ 01:42 PM
4.
Of course, Sound Forge is the superior audio editor. You would have a tough time finding an audio professional who would argue otherwise. I compared SONAR and CUBASE to Sound Forge strictly in terms of MIDI support. Unfortunately, Sound Forge is not well suited for mixes that include multiple MIDI-based synthesizers.
Posted by David English on Sunday, April 22, 2007 @ 02:39 AM
5.
I took David's comment to mean that if you also had some midi work you need to do you may want to go another route...
I agree with David's point - Sound Forge is a purpose built audio editor and a superior one at that, but the newest versions of Cubase, Sonar et al have evolved into quite good audio editors also. The Cubase 4/Nuendo sample editor with Roger Nichols native plugins is a VERY powerful combination. We use Sound Forge, Vegas, Avid, Acid, Pro Tools, Cubase, Nuendo, Logic etc etc etc and many other pieces of software around here, all good tools - I'm very familiar with them. That said, Sound Forge has always been a favorite and multi-channel is a welcome thing! #3- Yes the Sony software is very easy to use and the learning curve is much quicker also. I think it's fair to say that many modern sequencers are also very good audio editors.
Peace
Posted by LMB on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 @ 01:57 PM
6.
I work with proficional audio editing and mixing for years, i used to use sound forge and vegas since they were created.. but, in the musical recordings we used to use SONAR, but not anymore.. :o)
Posted by Ala Khoury on Thursday, April 26, 2007 @ 04:01 AM
7.
Ditto to what Jon said (comment #3.) I've tried Wavelab and though it's visually more appealing to the eye, I still found Sound Forge much much more easier to use. I'm still using Sound Forge 7.0 and will upgrade soon to 9.0.
This may be off-topic but any thoughts on Mac's BIAS?
Posted by Ronnie on Thursday, April 26, 2007 @ 10:20 PM
8.
Sound Forge is the best audio editor I've ever used. Really!!! I just upgraded to 9.0 version.
Posted by Lawrence Shum on Monday, April 30, 2007 @ 03:08 PM
9.
I have "Sound Forge 7". I can do a few things with it but I'm not using to it's
highest. Is there a tutorioal on version 9?
Posted by Clarence E. Alexande on Monday, April 30, 2007 @ 08:07 PM
10.
Can the Sound Forge 9.0 remove hiss and noise better than Adobe Audition 2.0?
Posted by Santosh on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 @ 01:21 AM
11.
So, I can stop mixing my voice and music tracks in Vegas and do it all in Sound Forge 9? Terrific!
Posted by Jack Josey on Friday, May 4, 2007 @ 07:20 PM
12.
Does this new version work with Windows Vista?
Posted by R Soos on Tuesday, May 8, 2007 @ 02:03 PM
13.
If you want to remove hiss and do some excellent audio restoration with some very powerful tools, try Wavepurity. And no, I do not work for them.. they are in Germany and I live in the USA. It\'s just a fine tool if you really want to comb your audio. http://www.wavepurity.com/
Posted by Thom Bone on Friday, May 11, 2007 @ 11:11 PM
14.
Soundforge 9 is a great value...unless you have Soundforge 8, already own NR 2.0, Cd Architect, and Izotope's Ozone. There's virtually no reason for me to spend $129 for next to nothing!
Posted by Miket on Monday, May 14, 2007 @ 02:40 PM
15.
sound forge 9 claims to have Izotope. Included in it. Does that mean it has multiband mastering link the Ozone 3 package?
Posted by brent on Monday, May 14, 2007 @ 05:48 PM
16.
Unfortunately, SF9 falls short for effective multi-channel editing for video. The #1 problem is lack of a multi-channel pan tool such as you find in ACID. It's very hard to locate a sound relative to 6 (or 8) speakers by manually setting the pan and volume per track. Then #2 problem is lack of the Pro AC-3 encoder. You need to be able to at least control the encoding bitrate for AC-3 and the Studio AC-3 plugin is set at a specific rate.
Posted by Dave S. on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 @ 12:59 AM
17.
I'd like to be able to use it on an Apple. What's the scoop?
Posted by frank on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 @ 10:41 PM
18.
ON BIAS:
I have used SF for years and a studio I work in recently got Bias and I found it VERY hard to adjust to. It has a nice plug in chainer you can easily see and adjust all at once that is very nice but like Cubase and amature tools you need to export your files to put them on disc or burn them. SF doesn't care what you got on screen 192 in 24 bit, it will save the file any way you want to, mp3, wav of any kind, what ever... and burning is much easier in SF for the same reason. Bias is a "canvas" again where everything open has to be the same sample and bit rate, The only thing SF asks is that they be the same bit and sample rate when you paste then onto one another..Sorry for the rambling, I'd give SF 9 overall a 9 and Bias a 6 or 7.
Posted by Paul W. on Friday, May 18, 2007 @ 12:02 PM
19.
Unfortunately, Sony chose to incorporate "multi-channel" but not real-time mixer, multi-track recording capability into SF 9.0 -- a feature Adobe Audition 2.0 does have. Here's the info I got from Sony:
Thank you for contacting Sony Creative Software. Sound Forge 9 like 8 is only for post production it does not have the capability to do "real time mixing." I hope this information is helpful. If you have follow up questions or need further assistance with this issue, please update this incident.
Sincerely,
_____________________________
Caleb A.
Customer Service
Sony Creative Software Inc
1617 Sherman Ave.
Madison, WI USA 53704
I bought SF 8.0, but, as another poster, see no need to get SF 9.0.
Posted by Neil Williams on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 @ 03:48 PM
20.
have been using Sonar and Sound Forge forever ... is there anything else ?? looking forward to the upgrade. :)
Posted by halsound on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 @ 07:46 PM
21.
Hey is SOund Forge available on MAC?
Posted by BV on Monday, May 28, 2007 @ 09:10 AM
22.
It's a pitty you can't set the bitrate in the AC3 encoder, I wonder what the factory setting is, if it is set in a highQ range I will consider buying SF9, because the full Dolby AC3 encoder will cost the double.
Posted by Ramon on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 @ 06:00 AM
23.
I bought now SF9.How can I mix voice and music? I would like to have the music accompaniment the voice. I don't want fade in to the voice.
Thank you
Posted by ANASTASIA on Saturday, June 2, 2007 @ 05:39 AM
24.
I have a Mac and just purchased SF9 because there's just no equivalent for Mac (Bias Peak doesn't come close). All you need to do is run it on Windows via Parallels (http://www.parallels.com) - works fine.
Posted by WraithApe on Thursday, June 7, 2007 @ 08:31 AM
25.
I have vegas video 5.0D can i upload any of my vegas files into SF9?I used it for audio editing in my studio is this a good piece of software as i am wanting to take it to the next level of recording?
Posted by Tom on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 @ 09:19 AM
26.
As a sound designer who has been using SF since the sonic foundry days I can't for the life of me understand why they have changed the basic editing functionality. The selection bar is annoying to say the least and they have changed some of the standard shortcuts (yes, I know I can customise them but I haven't had to do that for 3 versions)it's made my current project a little frustrating but I hope as I get used to a different way of working that I will grow to like it but why would you change the things that don't need changing? At the moment it gets a thumbs down from me. One of the things I love about SF is the speed at which I can use it but version 9, if anything has slowed me down
Posted by dB on Thursday, June 21, 2007 @ 10:54 AM
27.
I am putting together podcasts and have been frustrated in the use of Sympletude and Audacity - both of which were recommended. Then someone tells me that I should use Adobe Audition, while another says sound forge. All I\'m doing is recording voice after a pre-recorded music and voice intro (which is the same each week). I\'m using a Rode Podcaster USB mike and don\'t have the greatest room for recording. My biggest complaint up to now is complexity and being able to get consistent levels. Any suggestions?
Posted by Andrew on Thursday, June 28, 2007 @ 12:05 AM
28.
I'm a mobile sound designer who has been using SF8 with great results but the lack of AAC and M4A audio support has really hurt. So with SF9 that has been added but I wonder if it depends too heavily on Quicktime?
Posted by John on Friday, June 29, 2007 @ 12:00 PM
29.
Though I'm a Mac user (who's rather fond of Soundtrack Pro), I might have to run dual boot Windows just for this program. Looks great so far.
Posted by JC on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 @ 07:35 PM
30.
Agree with BFB. What sort of a tyro compares SoundForge with Sonar and Cubase? One is a dedicated audio editor and the other is a full fledged DAW. Midi editing not up to the mark, eh? Well Mr. Audio Pro, an audio editor is not supposed to handle MIDI. It's amazing how stupid users can be, and thank goodness software companies don't always listen to all the outrageous demands of these imbeciles. "Why don't you do it like..." "Why don't you include that feature". Here we have some chump demanding more MIDI features in an audio editor. Very impressive.
Posted by Godling on Wednesday, September 5, 2007 @ 02:58 AM
31.
I have sound forge 4.5 and can only record in mono, even though the PC is receiving and playing stereo...does anyone know why?
thx
Posted by Kevin on Thursday, September 6, 2007 @ 11:24 PM
32.
2 question. can i use sound forge 9 on a mac pro,and also where can i buy sound forge 9
Posted by ivan pearce on Monday, September 10, 2007 @ 06:51 AM
33.
I've been using Sound Forge 5 and Vegas 4 for several years in my home studio & produced several albums this way but it's definitely time for an upgrade! I'm wondering... does SF9's "multichannel" capabilities compare to Vegas' multi-track audio recording? Is the number of tracks you can record/playback simultaneously limited only by your processer/RAM as with Vegas??? I'd love to kill two birds with one stone and use only SF9 instead of toggling back/forth between two outdated apps! Plus all the extra features make it a dream come true... say it is so!
Posted by poprobot on Saturday, September 22, 2007 @ 11:45 AM
34.
There are free tools that support AC3 better than this tool. It's +$199 if you want dd 5.1 and bitrate support--ridiculous.
Posted by Joe on Friday, September 28, 2007 @ 02:25 PM
35.
I bought new pkg of SF audio studio 8 for 5 bucks at a Goodwill and see 9.0 upgrade is only 29 bucks wow
Posted by P SMooth on Monday, February 11, 2008 @ 07:30 PM
36.
Hey you guys, does anybody know if SF9 can extract audio from cassettes? I\\\'ve been traying but no luck any sugestions? Please help!
Posted by Ninette on Monday, March 24, 2008 @ 10:55 AM
37.
I really prefer the midi in sound forge to sonar or cubase. I do like the audio editing in cubase and sonar much better than sound forge. If you place a caseyte tape in front of your keyboard and click the rip caseyte icon, soundforge will rip the audio from the cassette tape via osmosis.
Posted by Konji on Thursday, April 3, 2008 @ 01:02 AM
38.
ripping from a cassette isn't possible.it must be recorded through a sound card in real time.
Posted by Ricke on Monday, April 14, 2008 @ 01:29 AM
39.
how and where can i get the serial number of sound forge 9.0 free trial?
Posted by ricca on Saturday, June 21, 2008 @ 02:01 PM
40.
I awn an iPod and I want to level the volume so that I don't have to constantly be adjusting the volume.I want a program that will compress the dynamic range and normalize all my tunes.Will Sound Forge do it?
Posted by ivan on Sunday, August 10, 2008 @ 05:09 PM
41.
have this problem with sony soundforge 9 about "the sys DLL user32.dll was relocated in memory. The application will not run properly. The relocation occured becouse the DLL c:\windows\system32\shell32.dll occopied an address range reserved for windows system DLLs. The vendor supplying the DLL should be contracted for a new DLL"
that message always appear everytime i attempt to run soundforge damn! i cant use the software!! please need help badly. thank u!
Posted by kellroi on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 @ 03:43 AM
42.
kellroi, I think you will have to reload the program. It sounds like a virus to me. This has happened to me before. If your using a downloaded bootleg copy of SF then you most definately have a virus or trojan.
Posted by Mr.E.K.O on Friday, December 5, 2008 @ 01:05 PM
43.
Why SONY not release SoundForge For Macintosh? We need it for MAcintosh! :( :( Please! :)
Posted by cosmoLV on Sunday, February 15, 2009 @ 09:40 PM
