by Steve Cunningham
It’s been quite a long time since we last looked at Sony’s Sound Forge for the Windows. How long? Well, about thirteen and a half dog years. In regular years, it’s been since November of 2009, a nearly unimaginable stretch in the world of software. But there has been many an improved build of Sound Forge Pro 10 since then. Each of these has improved the product, while keeping it working smoothly with all the changes that have come with every Microsoft “Patch Tuesday” update. A totally non-scientific but unbiased poll (well, maybe a little biased) reveals many happy users of SFP10 on both Win 7 and 8, including your humble scribe. For you others who have not used it, Sound Forge Pro remains one of the quickest and most direct stereo editors available on any platform.
So what could possibly encourage a happy Forge 10 user to pony up to the latest version, the recently-released version 11? Actually there are several new features that do provide a level of encouragement. Let’s have a look at what’s been added, what’s been changed, and what’s the same.
Sound Forge Pro 11 remains an easy-to-use yet deep and complex two-track audio editor, with many features that will be attractive to very high-level users while still being intuitive enough for the new user. If you’re starting from scratch you’ll want to review the first 61 pages to get started being productive, but the complete manual now nears 400 pages to get into the full functionality. The complete manual is available online at www.sonycreativesoftware.com, along with some excellent video tutorials dedicated to illustrating specific tasks. The manual itself is well-organized enough to allow even a new user to get going, despite its length.
I GOT THE NEWS
For me the most important change is the one that probably appears to be the most frivolous -- that Sony made the recording window modeless. What this means: previous versions used a modal window for the recording functions, which forced users to make and confirm some choice before they could dismiss the window and get on with their work. Now the record window is modeless, so it can be moved about independently of the other windows. This makes it easier to see the waveform develop while recording, and to monitor un-armed channels while recording others. Punch in has been simplified, so you can drop a marker at the in point and select as much or little pre-roll as necessary by entering the amount in the modeless recording window. Yes, it’s a geeky feature, and it could be argued that the modeless window should have been implemented some time ago. But it does make record operations in Forge faster than they were before.
The Plug-In Chain window is also now modeless, allowing you to click away from it at any time to adjust your selection or to apply effects to a different data window without having to close the Chain. Working with the Chain still feels like working with an awkward teenager who knows what I want but just doesn’t feel like helping me get it. But the ability to link up to 32 DirectX and VST plug-ins into a single chain, to preview them all simultaneously in real time (computer processing power permitting) and then to save that chain for later recall more than makes up for the minor inconveniences.
Also making up for minor inconveniences is the new ability to add plug-ins to the audio input bus. This of course implies that you can record wet in Forge Pro 11, for those who are so inclined. In addition to the already extensive list of Sony plug-ins already bundled with Forge Pro 11, iZotope’s well-regarded Nectar Elements vocal processing package is now included in the package, and it would make a good candidate for the Input Bus. Also included as before as are their Declipper, Denoiser and Declicker audio repair and restoration tools. The latter are highly prized by those of us who need to cleanup and enhance audio files, while the former will be useful for those who need to set up a processed VO channel and get the voiceover track recorded, edited and processed.
Forge Pro 11 does comes with a full rack of other features, improvements and updates. For example, you can now work in a project environment within Forge Pro 11. Unlike working with a “project” in Sony’s Vegas, Forge Pro 11’s project file (which comes with an .frg extension) is not a collection of files, but rather a collection of pointers to the source files for the project. Saving a project creates both the .frg file and a folder containing copies of the media files, together with all the temporary files created whilst working on the project. This means that a project can be created, edited and saved without any changes being made to the original source files. Even better, there is also the facility within the project file to undo any past operations, including those occurring before the most recent save point.
Once all editing has been completed, the .frg file is used to render the project’s media files to produce the final output file(s). Saving the project path information with the rendered file means that you can easily return to the source project to make any necessary modifications, should you use that rendered file within another Forge Pro 11 project. If you happen also to be an Acid or Vegas user, embedding project path references means that, should you use a media file from those applications in a Forge Pro 11 project and need to edit it, you can open the source project in its associated application directly from Forge Pro 11 via the Edit Source Project shortcut menu.
Although this is not a new feature, it is worth noting that the ability to save the entire on-screen layout as a Sound Forge Workspace .sfw file allows you to recall complex editing scenarios with all file windows restored to their previous sizes, magnification and positions on reopening. Cursor positions, custom views and the plug-ins in the Plug-In Chain are also restored.
EDITING ENHANCEMENTS
Although Forge Pro 11 is not a multitrack editor, its recording workflow has been improved, and it is now a simple process to record up to 32 tracks simultaneously from any active window via the aforementioned modeless recording window with its dedicated Arm and Record buttons. Available sampling frequencies range from 8 to 192 kHz, and the existing range of 8- to 32-bit word lengths now includes 64-bit floating-point as well. Forge Pro 11 is still not a full-on multitrack editor since there is no on-board mixing console with track-by-track EQ and dynamics, but you can capture multi-channel audio or transfer multitrack recordings to Forge Pro 11 for restoration. You’ll also find improvements in the record and playback routing of connected audio interfaces under Preferences.
Useful improvements in event editing will be attractive to long time Sound Forge users. Included are a new ability to split an event at a region boundary, and the ability to lock event markers, region markers and envelope points to specific events. Successive downstream events are now automatically ripple edited, moving them forward in time while editing. In Forge Pro 11, a region is a marked area of time inside an event, and an event is created whenever either audio data is cut, copied, pasted, inserted or mixed into a window, or a selected section inside an event is processed.
Also new is a Waveform Overview Bar, which not only shows what portion of a file you are viewing, but also lets you audition looping segments by click-dragging in the upper display. Double-clicking in the bar centers the cursor in the time range defined by the waveform display. When displaying multiple audio clips in the main window, Forge Pro 11 now provides convenient close buttons for each window tab, as well as the ability to reorder and resize the data windows.
GILDING THE LILY
A nice touch when loading files is that you can have an automatic preview of the audio in that file. Once you’ve recorded a file or imported one, editing in Forge Pro 11 is a quick and easy as it ever was. Splitting a file into separate events and marking regions inside these is the work of seconds, no matter how many channels are involved. Duplicating part of a file is as simple as highlighting a selection in the active window and dragging it onto the workspace, where a new data window containing the duplicated data is created automatically.
Forge Pro 11 continues to do what it’s always done well. In addition to chopping and moving audio, Forge Pro 11 also allows audio to be processed in several ways. To give you a few examples, you can change bit depth, convert mono to stereo or vice versa, reverse it, resample it at a different frequency, time-stretch it whilst also changing pitch and formants to reduce the ‘chipmunk’ effect and, of course, modify the volume level either directly or by normalization.
Once you’ve got the audio edited up as you want it, you can then move on to adding effects. A range of Sony’s own time-domain and dynamics effects can be accessed directly, and these, together with third-party VST and DirectX plug-ins, are also supported through the Plug-in Chain, where up to 32 effects can be chained together and combinations saved. Among my favorite Sony effects included with Forge Pro have always been the Acoustic Mirror convolution reverb, and the Wave Hammer compressor/volume maximizer. The range of indoor and outdoor space impulses (with a picture of the sampled space) available in Acoustic Mirror should satisfy almost every requirement. There’s even a binaural HRTF selection for working with multi-mic’ed stereo performances. Should you happen to have the perfect bathroom next door, you can also use the included test tones to create your own impulses. Wave Hammer is a fine stereo look-ahead compressor/peak limiter that does exactly what it says without fuss. For most editing tasks, I found the Sony effects were more than good enough, but the ability to bring in third-party DirectX/VST effects when that little something extra is needed is a bonus.
SPECTRALAYERS 2 AND SOUND FORGE PRO MAC 2.0
Finally, alongside its ability to interface with many other software editors as their mono or stereo surgical editor, there’s Forge Pro 11’s seamless file exchange with SpectraLayers 2.0, which is Sony’s wide and deep frequency spectrum editor. SpectraLayers 2 is aimed squarely at applications like sound design and noise reduction, and Forge Pro 11 transfers files to and from this editor directly and seamlessly. More on SpectraLayers at a later date.
While we’re talking about new functions and features, there’s also a new version of Sound Forge for the Macintosh -- version 2.0 is now available. This new version addresses many of the complaints I had with version 1, and is worth a second look for those disappointed by the first version.
The number of changes in version 2 is not large, but they are significant in their depth. The primary addition, one that the Mac community will be happy to receive, is Sony’s Convrt stand-alone batch processing automation tool. It’s a freestanding utility for mass file format conversion, as well as for batch processing using various signal and effects processing tools. With the demise of Bias and its Peak editor, I don’t believe there is a competent batch processor for the Mac left on the market today (although I could be mistaken), so this is good news for the Mac community. Sony has also improved the configurability of SFP for the Mac with a customizable toolbar, and has provided the same improvements to Event Mode editing, CALM-targeted metering, and integration with SpectraLayers as it has to Forge Pro 11.
Other improvements include support for the FLAC file format, a “strip silence” tool, and a volume processor plug-in, as well as the same support for iZotope’s Nectar Elements, which is included with the upgraded version of Sound Forge Pro for the Mac.
WRAP UP
When it comes to upgrading software, the questions always comes down to whether or not the upgrade gives good value for the cost of upgrading. In the case of upgrading to Sound Forge Pro 11, Sony has obviously seen the writing on the wall, and had dropped the price to upgrade from any version of Sound Forge to $199.95 (not long ago it was $239.95). The modeless record window actually makes more of a difference than one might imagine in my workflow, the ability to put plugs on the input bus rocks, and if one doesn’t have a copy of Nectar then one might want to upgrade. If one is on version 10, it’s a very tough call, and I think I’d wait. For version 9 or earlier, there are enough good reasons in the aggregate to just do it. On the Mac side it’s simple. If you need a good batch processor, then upgrade.
For more information on Sony’s Sound Forge Pro products, visit http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com.
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