Sound Forge Pro 10

• Sound Forge Pro 10 is the professional choice for digital audio recording, editing, processing and mastering audio files,
• And for those who produce CDs for professional replication
• New features include iZotope SRC (sample rate conversion)
• and MBIT+ dither (bit-depth conversion), and industry-leading Zplane lastique Pro timestretch and pitch shift plug-in
• Editing & workflow enhancements include precise event-based editing, customizable window layouts, floating docks, musical instrument file support

I opted for Sony's Sound Forge 10 when I upgraded operating systems from XP to Windows 7. My two former favorites, Cool Edit Pro and Adobe's Audition, don't play particularly friendly with Windows 7, especially the 64 bit version. To my knowledge, Cool Edit Pro does not work at all, and a search online of various forums dedicated to Audition make it clear that many people are searching for workarounds to get it to install on Windows 7 machines. Some are successful. Other people, presumably due to hardware differences, are unable to get Audition installed at all.

Rather than fight this battle, I determined I would find something that was compatible with Windows 7 without having to rely on workarounds. Enter Sony Sound Forge 10.

Installation was picture perfect. Couldn't have been simpler. The tools included are very comparable to Audition or Cool Edit. My first beef, however, was that they are not natively grouped into one collective area with an intuitive organization, the way other programs have their tools arranged. You can go through a customization process to create groups of tools, but be aware, you do have to take the time to create your groups. You won't just be able to install the software and have everything intuitively where you want it to be right out of the box. For someone new to audio editing, who has not already become accustomed to other programs like Audition, this might not be a big deal. But if you're coming from other, higher end tools, count on spending some time setting things up before you can get down to productive work.

Another small issue I had was that other products tend to have more pre-configured options on tools. Someone with very little editing experience could apply various tools and work with files just using the presets and come up with some first rate work. But with Sound Forge, you had better have some pre-existing knowledge of audio terms and functions because you aren't going to have so many presets as other products carry. Instead, if you want to effectively use something like adding reverb to an audio file, you'll need to know what those sliders named Pre-delay and Decay time are; what they do, and what effect changing them has if you're trying to develop a particular reverb filter. Or the Early Reflection Style drop down box: what does that do? Do I want 16ms or 20ms, and what is the difference? If these terms don't mean anything to you at this point, either count on having a long learning curve ahead of you, or opt for some other software that contains a greater selection of tool presets.

One tool the Sony has that I have not found any better in any other software is its "Loop Tuner". If you have ever spent frustrating hours attempting to design sound loops, only to hear that annoying click that you can't get rid of at the file join point, Sound Forge's Loop Tuner is your ticket. Adobe can eat its heart out because it has nothing anywhere near as nice to offer.

All in all, this is a first rate piece of software. It is going to require a longer learning curve or at least a bit more of a working knowledge of audio editing up front. But if those things are not a problem for you, I think you'll like Sound Forge.

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I am using Sony Sound Forge in conjunction with a Sony RK-G136 Audio Cable and a Sony Walkman WM-FX290W to convert old cassette tapes to CDs by connecting the Walkman to my laptop.

Sound Forge makes it very easy for me to modify and improve the captured audio. You can easily change volume, equalize volume, add fades, remove areas, cut and paste portions of the audio etc. In addition, you can remove background noises such as swishes, and rumble with the built in noise reduction software. If you need to remove addition background noises then let me recommend Bias Sound Soap. This product is amazing when it comes to removing unwanted noise or sounds. I have used it to eliminate backgrounds voices which normally is nearly impossible.

Short Guide to converting a cassette tape to a CD.

First, plug in the RK-G136 cable into the headphone port on the Walkman, and the audio input port on your computer. Next, startup Sound Forge, and click on record and press play on the Walkman. Once you have captured the tape you can eliminate the long lead in by highlighting these areas and pressing delete. Now you can find an area on your audio that has noise and either use Sound Forge noise reduction or Bias Sound Soap to learn this noise and eliminate it throughout your audio. Finally, you are now ready to export your audio to a CD.

With these two software programs you can easily import, edit, cleanup and export clear, high quality audio to a CD in just a few minutes. These two products ability at removing rumble, swishing sounds, background noise, and talking is remarkable.

If you want to cleanup old cassette tapes these four products are indispensable.

Sony RK-G136 Audio Connecting Cord

Sony Walkman WM-FX290W

Sony Sound Forge Pro 10

Bias Sound Soap

Read Best Reviews of Sound Forge Pro 10 Here

This version of Sound Forge is very good at the kind of sound editing that I do. I especially like the batch processor since I often want to do the same things to all the tracks I am going to put on a CD.

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I had an older version of Sony Sound Forge and it was good. This version is better. I don't do a lot of audio for professional use, but the little I do using this product makes life very easy. It does so many things and does them very well. The built in wizard is great. You can keep the wizard on top of everything and do all your steps while reading the directions in the wizard. It also steps you through procedures using bright boxes around the place where you have to click or make an entry. It is also very intuitive. If you want to do something and not use directions or the wizard, just try it and that's usually the way it works. The drag and drop is great! You save your original and work off of copies or sections of the original that you copy and paste or highlight, drag and drop.

I tried a few other, higher priced, products before purchasing this one. I am very happy. It makes recording digital audio from a disk or Analog audio from an old camcorder very easy. Nothing beats working with digital audio from flash media. I am webmaster for a church and I put the music from the Sunday service on the church web site each week. This use to be a very hard task, but since I started using Sony Sound Forge, about 3 years ago, I can put all the music, or a sermon, or a speech on the web site quickly after church.

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I have a purchased CD. used it for a while, it is an older version at this point but not so old that it doesn't operate under Windows Vista. anyway, out of the blue, the program started demanding registration and made it impossible to do so. it then directs you to do so by phone if the online registration won't work (which it fails to do in this case) and i have called at least a dozen times to no avail. there is no way to get through by phone either. so, i have a legal product that is virtually unusable. it allows me to edit and do all the work to the file but refused to save it if i am not registered (i did register when i first got it, i'm sure...).

so, as much as i'd like to buy the most recent version, i am turned off. the only way i can figure out how to get Sound Forge's attention is to post this review here. trust me, this is not about user error on my end. I've been at computers since 1986.