KVR Audio

FrankT · Post by **FrankT** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 4:44 am

I am currently looking at a range of NLE video editing packages. Sony Vegas Pro Suite comes with a range of tools, including Soundforge 11. I am wondering if Soundforge gives me anything that I couldn't do with Cubase or Studio One ?!

cryophonik · Post by **cryophonik** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 4:56 am

It's designed primarily as a .wav editor, like Wavelab. It's great for mastering or any sort of editing that you may want to do with a mono or stereo . wav. It used to come bundled with CD Architect, but I'm not sure if that's still the case. It's not really a replacement for Cubase or S1 and, actually, S1's mastering mode covers some of SF's mastering capabilities and both DAWs cover some of its .wav editing capabilities, but neither do it as elegantly IMO.

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 5:21 am

cryophonik wrote:It's designed primarily as a .wav editor, like Wavelab. It's great for mastering or any sort of editing that you may want to do with a mono or stereo . wav. It used to come bundled with CD Architect, but I'm not sure if that's still the case. It's not really a replacement for Cubase or S1 and, actually, S1's mastering mode covers some of SF's mastering capabilities and both DAWs cover some of its .wav editing capabilities, but neither do it as elegantly IMO.

I'll second that. SoundForge can load your mastering VSTs, and works great as a two-track audio editor. It also has many features that Sonar doesn't have for preparing .WAV files for CD; much better (and deeper) dithering options; better loudness metering; many more audio file types for exporting...and a whole lot more.

Steve

FrankT · Post by **FrankT** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 5:31 am

Ok, so apparently it can add value to my audio arsenal then. It is not a 64bit app though, but I guess that ain't so important at the stage where you're only working with Wavs ?!

msorrels · Post by **msorrels** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 6:06 am

Soundforge is still my primary wav file editor and has been for years, but it's lack of a 64bit version can be a real pain with using plugins. In order to use Wave plugins I had to use a VST shell expander system, but perhaps newer Soundforge versions (I'm still running version 9) have improved that. I think I spend more time trying to make Soundforge happy with 32bit versions of plugins than is healthy.

mandolarian · Post by **mandolarian** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 6:43 am

What's frustrating is that the 64bit version of Vegas supports, yup, 64 bit VSTs. Just not totally stable, but still, not sure why they can't throw the big compiler switch and deliver a 64bit version of SF. Until then...it's razor blades, splicing tape and shaky hands for me.

Dearly Deported · Post by **Dearly Deported** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 10:29 am

Can you use a bridge program to run 64bit plugins in SF? If not, what're the options?

msorrels · Post by **msorrels** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 1:16 pm

Converting anything to 64bits isn't just a matter of a compiler switch. An app like SoundForge would involve getting dozens of software libraries converted as well, some of which they may have only access to binary versions (SoundForge was built back when Sonic Foundry wasn't owned by Sony, they didn't have infinite resources and may have made decisions that now seem like bad ideas). There really isn't any reason they couldn't have done that work by now though, even if they had to replace many libraries. At this point I have to believe that it's all part of the fog that has infested Sony Media Software. They haven't updated Acid, Soundforge is still 32bit, etc.

You certainly can bridge things (both directions) but in general most effect VSTs (Soundforge doesn't do instruments) have 32bit versions. You just have to install them, maintain them, update them, authorize them, etc. And Soundforge does include a bunch of very nice effects, though they are getting a little long in the tooth now.

For me at least Soundforge is the last 32bit audio app I'm still regularly running.

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 4:43 pm

Sound Forge was my wave editor of ultimate preference for almost always. The only reason I'm no longer using it is that I'm on Mac now and the Mac version is a pale hollow ghost of the Windows version (though I bet the GUI is less flaky)

Sound Forge was awesome. Nothing compared. Everything paled.

But not so much any more. I stopped upgrading my license when it was clear that Sony had no interest in rebuilding it in 64-bit. Clearly the Windows API addiction and lack of access to source code in much of the product's features has brought its development to a dead end. The Mac version seems a half-hearted attempt to either rebuild the product from the ground-up as a cross platform product, or just cash in on Mac OS X's new popularity in the current decade. If it's the latter, I'll never go back. If it's the former, I will wait until the thing is a lot further along than it is now.

Currently I use Adobe Audition CS6. I'll not be subscribing to the newer stuff. When I can no longer use that, I'll move to the Mac-only product from Audiofile Engineering.

But as it is on Windows, Sound Forge is still largely peerless. The editor is not pretty but it is precise and fast. The GUI is plain old Windows 98 look, and has glitching like most Windows API environments using custom graphical areas and scrolling regions (hello Sonar), but they don't affect the editing process other than to make you sigh at the poor screen redraw, if you care about that sort of thing. Frankly, I'm glad it doesn't have antialiased waveform graphics or other decoration. I'd rather see bit accuracy in the waveform, rather than pretty decoration. Zooming is fast and easy (scroll wheel, focusing the zooming at the cursor).

It does not host 64-bit plugins, to my knowledge, which is out of date. It's included effects and tools are excellent, complete, and effective. They could use some updating to improve realtime previews but I don't have any other complaints there. The Acoustic Mirror plugin is an older impulse response convolution effect, so it isn't as robust as modern ones, but it can do very high quality processing or lower quality processing, and these settings give very different and still useful sounds. The Noise Reduction audio correction tools are very useful. Not as complex as iZotope, but effective and bundled (not an expensive 3rd party add-on).

Despite its flaws and 32-bit shame, I do recommend it over other Windows-based wave editors. It has everything in the box, as they say, and does it well, if not with the most visual finesse.

By the way, CD Architect was awesome. They stopped developing it so they could integrate its features into Sound Forge (probably so they could have anything at all to promote as new features in new versions, since the thing is already so complete and mature that all it really needs is to be 64-bit, but Sony... see above). I'm not sure how successful that process has been since I've not compiled any CDs with the newer Sound Forge.

Breeze · Post by **Breeze** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:01 pm

I keep using Vegas for managing video mostly personal stuff, and I took advantage of the suite offer because it got me SF11 as well.

I've been working with SF10 for the past few years because it handles multi-channel audio files which is an important part of my work. It generally works well, but of course it's 32-bit and I need to work with extremely long audio files (15min to 8 hours). When I have several of these open, it takes a long time to get things done and it often becomes temporarily unresponsive. I also agree with Jace-BeOS that it appears Sony has put the audio dev team time on a reduced calorie diet; their video products are getting a lot more attention probably because of the large hardware home video market they have. Funny that Vegas used to be an audio app. The response time on support tickets is rediculous and they're not nearly as present on the support forums for SF as they used to be.

I also have Wavelab 8, but my problem with it is that it can't import and edit multi-channel audio files. But there's a lot to like about WL8 besides the fact that it is is 64-bit and is a lot smoother when handling long audio files. WL would be ideal if it weren't for the multi-channel issue. So I'm between a rock and a hard place. I admit I haven't looked at Adobe Audition in a long time.

So back to SF11: right now I can't even use it because it can't complete the VST plugin scan once! And the official solution is to remove all the VI dll's from the VST folders, which for many reasons is completely rediculous especially if you have lots of plugins like me. You assign a VST folder, it starts scanning, at some point it crashes, and when it restarts it's forgotten the folder and starts over from scratch; there's apparently no black list, no memory of where it left off. I've reported this to support but no answer yet.

I didn't expect miracles from SF11, but I didn't expect it to go backwards. Every version of SF up to 10 can eventually manage to get through the VST scan despite any crashes. This is like some high level manager at Sony decided to just rip out this mechanism because it was too time-consuming to manage and replaced it with a hack that the user has to manage. Rediculous.

But here's the punch line: Vegas 13's VST plugin scan now behaves exactly the same way. One possible solution is to hand pick a bunch of plugins I need to use and create a copy of the VST plugin folder for use exclusively with these products, which also means manual management of them for uninstalls and updates, but I would use a limited subset of my plugins with these programs anyway.

In terms of usability, SF is normally the fasted most efficient editor I've used on the PC. WL 8 has a certain idiosyncratic style to it that needs some getting used to; SF is more direct and logical. Most of the built-in processing is ages old (which is why it's important to me to use my VSTs) but it does include iZotope's best SRC and bit-depth processing as well as script-based macros and dependable batch processing. It just needs a little TLC, but they just can't seem to find the resources.

Since Sony bought out Sonic Foundry, I've seen prices rise and support fall. They've failed in making Forge cross-platform which would have been the right way to do it. Despite their clout, Sony has been losing money for over a decade so there isn't much hope that things will change anytime soon. Caveat emptor.

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:56 pm

They could solve that losing money problem by investing money in their product!! Actually getting off their asses and rebuilding their dying audio products, would make them competitive again.

Self-inflicted wounds are just so telling of corporate stupidity and rank capitalism. Almost no one wants to seed. They're all stuck in harvest mode. You can't harvest a barren field.

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 1:29 am

Oh the coincidental irony...

i'm working on porting one of the last few projects in my Sonar folder to Logic, and i needed to open an audio file in Sound Forge. Some how i hadn't authorized it since reinstalling this machine with Win 8.1. Now i can't get it authorized. The error is utterly nonspecific. The forum bitching i could find mentions that people run out of authorizations and have to get more via customer service. Lovely. Here i sit with useless software i paid to license because it's the weekend and there's no customer support to fix the damned copy protection scheme that doesn't affect pirates who just download key gens but hurts legit customers like myself.

Breeze · Post by **Breeze** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 4:31 am

Sony hasn't completely been sitting on their asses. Spectralayers is actually quite interesting and looks quite powerful though the price of admission is pretty high for an editor (actually it's in the iZotope range of pricing, now also corporate driven). But for sure they haven't been tending their garden as much as they should. Or at least as much as someone who really cared about their garden would.

And as for the authorization coincidence, well, things like that often seem to happen at the wrong time mainly because there's never a good time for them to happen.

You can call them up tomorrow direct; they used to be quite quick to respond to situations like that.

digitalboytn · Post by **digitalboytn** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 4:52 am

msorrels wrote:Soundforge is still my primary wav file editor and has been for years, but it's lack of a 64bit version can be a real pain with using plugins.

Exactly the same story here...

Sound Forge is a the best audio editor I have found for PC and it has some great tools and batch scripting etc that make most tasks a bit of a breeze...

I still use Sound Forge Pro 10...It would be nice if it was x64,but that's OK...

Like most tools that we work with,there are always idiosyncrasies,but we learn to live with them

LawrenceF · Post by **LawrenceF** » Mon Jan 26, 2015 5:33 am

This might end up being a dumb question but under what circumstances would a stereo editor need the massive memory range of x64 for only audio plugins?

Opinions on Soundforge