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.