Martín Sequeros
A program well known for years to all of us in the business. Now, in Sony's hands, it has been given many turns of the screw, and by version 10 it has been loaded with a huge number of surprising and pleasingly effective new tools.
SONY's Technological and More Professional Push
Until 2003, this wonderful software tool was in the hands of Sonic Foundry, which at that point was accumulating financial and market losses against its competition, so they decided to sell Sound Forge, one of their best-known products, to Sony Pictures Digital for 18 million dollars.
Starting with version 3, it was gradually adapted to work better with the successive Windows operating systems that Microsoft kept releasing for PCs.
The program got a big boost with version 5, which already worked quite well with Windows 95.
When Windows XP arrived, which more and more people were using, they released version 6 and almost immediately version 7. From that point on, for me personally, Sound Forge has been a good ally, especially for handling the mastering and remastering of finished stereo audio, whether exported from other sequencers or recorded directly in this software.
Be that as it may, once we have the audio file in Sound Forge, its tools let us split it, EQ it, add plenty of effects, set the fade-in or fade-out of that master and, finally, “normalize” its frequencies, looking for the best overall loudness. Sound Forge then lets you export the result in a great many formats and quality levels. The formats are the most common ones, such as WAV or MP3, and for the latter it offers the option of using different bitrates for compression, of which I've generally preferred 256 kbps.
Personally, Sound Forge has never let me down and has never “crashed on me.” I've almost always preferred it for finishing my work, even over the finishing tools typically offered by general-purpose sequencing programs. In my case, that may be because I'm already used to doing it this way with Sound Forge, quickly and to my taste, and getting thoroughly effective final results.
With the arrival of Windows Vista, the company released version 9 with many more tools than version 7, even handling more tracks than the mere two of the stereo setup that older version offered.
Sony now presents its new and latest major version 10, which I quickly set about installing on my machine. The process was quick and without any hitches.
Before version 9, illegal cracked versions circulated on the internet, unreliable and not at all safe. Sony has obviously taken care to make things complicated for any “hackers” who now try to install it fraudulently.
The first time you try to use the program, it sends you to the internet to register it, holding you responsible for the codes included with the installation CD. That operation is very simple and quick. It never asks you for another code in later sessions.
Exploring This New Version
The graphical look, compared with its predecessors, seemed similar to me, so it still felt “very familiar.” I immediately loaded an audio file and was able to do things with it similar to what I did in previous versions. Of course, “the options” had now expanded quite a bit when I tried to do “a few more things” with the masters. New tools and many existing ones have been considerably expanded. New names and functions.
At first I found only “one drawback” to this program: they apparently still haven't solved the problem of using it in multilanguage mode. We can only see it installed in English or Japanese. And, truth be told, my Japanese is... just “sayonara” and not much more.
But for me it hasn't really been “that much of a drawback” to run into it again in an English I had already gotten used to. What does come now is a new “jargon” for naming its new tools, which of course I want to experiment with little by little, and I'll surely do so more slowly than if they had been translated into Spanish, which I do know better than Japanese...
Lots of New Tools in Version 10
One of the new features, which the advertising for this new product emphasizes quite a bit, is the inclusion of the so-called “Mastering Effects Bundle 2,” created by iZotope, a world-famous maker of audio mastering tools. It's a software package that includes six very powerful new plug-ins that handle EQ, reverb, (multiband) compressors, limiters, harmonic exciters and, ultimately, the main audio output signal of the final stereo mix more efficiently.
The elements the program uses for CD burning have also been improved, simplifying their use and cutting the time it takes.
It now also incorporates a more efficient way to reduce “background noise” when restoring sounds, or to mitigate clipped peaks, as well as, for example, to disguise the “hiss” that tends to occur in sounds recorded on magnetic tape or the typical “clicks” heard from vinyl records.
Using its own system called MBIT, it distributes the noise into less audible ranges, greatly improving the quality of the sound finally obtained after processing.
It also allows time stretching and pitch shifting of audio files processed with this new version 10, making it easy to adjust our sound recordings.
The display of the elements we use to control volumes and effects has also been improved, which we assign to our liking through their corresponding meters, VU meters and faders, both during recording and during playback of our sounds. Care has also been taken to give a new feel when applying certain effects, for example when sounds fade out (perhaps under the action of the fade-out), so that acoustically it gives us a sense of “naturalness” rather than a purely “digital” one.
It supports multichannel files (up to 32 channels) that we can mix in several ways and, of course, in stereo or mono as well. We can easily control the different nuances and frequencies of each and every one of those channels, both individually and regrouped. It uses the well-known Windows “cut, paste, mix” commands, which make it easy to create events, mix audio, do fades, etc. We can also “drag and drop” audio sequences between channels, and you can even work on one file while earlier ones are still being processed.
Version 10 also increases the number of VST plug-ins we can apply to our audio tracks controlled through this program.
It's also possible to automate some of our tasks, which can be customized to our liking. At the same time we can apply them in “batches,” that is, to several of our jobs simultaneously. Such “personal routines” can be stored (memorized) to be reused later in new projects as presets.
It contains more than 40 effects managed through 200 presets: volume, reverb, several types of EQs, limiters, compressors, assorted echoes, distortions, vibratos, noise gates, pitch bend, etc.
This new version 10 also focuses on controlling possible “peaks” (signal overloads) that could get in the way of or spoil our recordings, automatically scanning the various sections of each of our audio files. Once they're detected, we can apply the appropriate tools to eliminate clips, pops or any other unwanted noise.
It also contains sound generators (“pink,” “white,” “brown,” etc.) to properly adjust the acoustic conditions in a listening room. We can also use this type of “noise” to create special effects such as “water,” “wind,” “helicopters” and whatever our imagination can come up with on creative occasions.
Tools for Use with Video, Too
Sound Forge is compatible with a great many video formats (AVI, MPEG 1 and 2, WMV, WMA, etc.), for both PAL and NTSC systems (the one used in North America). We can sync any kind of sound to leave it as the final audio tracks of the picture project: voiceovers, music, special effects...
The sources of the sounds worked on in this program can of course come from outside, from microphones, telephony, radio or television stations or any other medium that can be considered a sound source. Sound Forge 10 includes an option called “media cache,” which sets aside a certain amount of memory to record events coming from broadcast media.
This creates file types compatible with HDV, in both 720p and 1080i.
Of course, we can also work with the CineForm CFHD codec, since several types of templates are included to make these tasks easier, especially for those less practiced at finishing picture work together with its sound design.
We can even export surround sound and multiple channels in Dolby Digital AC-3 format, whose plug-in is of course also included in this program.
So Sound Forge can be used as if it were a big recording machine from which we can control any type of sound, even the audio to be heard in a large listening room, surround sounds for games, and even 5.1 or other surround formats, as well as for attaching soundtracks to films, video or television.
It has even more details that many of its users don't know about, such as being able to schedule working times. That is, we can set a start time and a stop time for some process (recording or playback) as suits us, and likewise do so at periodic, daily or weekly intervals.
Installation Requirements
Setting Mac aside, to install it on a PC, the machine must have at least Windows XP or Vista installed and a processor of at least 1 GHz.
It will take up just 350 MB on our hard drive.
It would be enough if our computer were running 512 MB of RAM, but larger amounts of RAM that far exceed that figure have long been installed, especially needed when we plan to work with multitrack sequencers, since they perform better when that RAM is 1 GB or more, even 2 GB, with 4 GB being ideal.
Of course, we should have a compatible audio interface installed on the PC, as well as at least a CD drive, needed at first to install the program. Even better if that “CD drive” can also burn DVDs. Today these types of drives are very inexpensive and many people already use more than one in the same PC to speed up some of our work.
This program supports full 24-bit resolution, as well as 32- and 64-bit float files at 192 kHz, that is, the highest professional audio quality, courtesy of designer iZotope (64-Bit SRC).
It works with very low latency using the ASIO driver, delivering very fast and very professional results that will seem to happen practically in “real time.”
To round out its capabilities, it's also a good idea for our computer to be able to connect to the internet, for example to register it when we use it or for whatever help we think we need in the course of our work.
In my judgment, for the power Sound Forge 10 delivers, it doesn't demand too much of a computer, one that might be short on resources for working with other types of sequencers or programs that process digital audio.
To see the spec sheet and rating table, download the PDF issue of the magazine