Questions about Sound Forge Pro 14 included with Vegas Pro 18

vord wrote on 12/13/2020, 12:13 AM

I see on the Magix website that Vegas Pro 18 includes Sound Forge Pro 14. Are these software installations and activations kept separate or are they bundled with a single key? I need the flexibility to manage them independently. I have projects from different years using different combinations of software and plan to revisit some old stuff in 2021. So I may need to revert software if forward compatibility issues arise for whatever unexpected reason. I plan to eventually use the latest versions of both VP and SFP, but maybe not both right away. For example, a hypothetical: on my older PC I might need to revert VP but leave SFP14, and free up that VP activation to use on my laptop.

Also, I think my VP14 license allows two authorizations for one license owner, but I don't know what that number is for SFP these days. I only own SFP 9 (I've used newer versions but that was through a company I worked for). I assume the SFP14 license is for two computers (belonging to same owner).

I think I read that this SFP through VP doesn't include the iZotope stuff. Does it have any other limitations aside from 3rd party extras? It runs fully standalone, not inside a Vegas window or something? I'm only lacking certainty because of the way SFP is tucked into the VP18 product description. It's not given a separate bundle/suite name or anything like that, and the holiday update price is currently $199, which is equal to the holiday pricing for updating SFP alone. That's a flag that I might be missing something beyond the iZotope stuff. iZ usually sells these elements versions for a combined price equal/less than the $200 discrepancy here, and that's not bundled with anything at any discount. Of course software deals change constantly so I'm not expecting every package from every developer to align in perfect ascending order of price based on what you get. Things don't have to make sense, I'm just checking.

I would install the stuff and test these questions myself, but I'm still building the new PC, and prefer to not mess with the old one at the moment (it's a delicate situation). Thanks in advance for whatever answers I get.

Comments

EricLNZ wrote on 12/13/2020, 2:21 AM

You might get better answers to the actual Sound Forge queries on the Magix Community Audio forum

https://www.magix.info/us/audio-forum/

Although SF is bundled with Vegas it's no longer part of the Vegas range.

rraud wrote on 12/13/2020, 10:38 AM

As EricNZ stated, these Sound Forge queries should be posted on the Sound Forge forum. But in this case,
- SF will have a separate serial code from Vegas and can be activated and used simultaneously on two (2) PCs at a time, the same with Vegas. The VP and SF 365 versions are limited to one PC..
- The third-party plug-ins from iZotope and such are not included in the Vegas Pro/SF Pro deal.. As you are aware, iZotope currently has very attractive holiday deals on.
- Old media files from earlier version o SF will open w/o issue on the current versions and are backward compatible as well. Same with SF Pro <.frg> project files, if the accompanying media folder is intact). Plug-in chains may need to be reconstructed though in a different PC. The individual plug-in presets can be ported over though.

@vord, I would be more than happy to respond to any other queries posted on the Sound Forge users forum.

btw, MAGIX Software GmbH is the parent company of Vegas and publishes Sound Forge (among other software).

rraud, Sound Forge forum moderator,

 

vord wrote on 12/14/2020, 5:36 AM

Thanks for the info, I think that confirms what I was checking. I asked here because Vegas users are more likely to have Sound Forge the way it's installed when it comes with the latest Vegas Pro, while SF forum users more likely bought it separately.

Regarding preservation of project settings, I'm only concerned about Vegas. I've never had an issue with updates before, so I hope it's still that way. I don't have old Sound Forge projects that I still need. For Vegas the priority is audio region edits (event attributes like normalization, channel, reverse, etc). Over the years whenever I'm on a big project I build up a lot experiments and scrap heaps of audio edits, like alternate versions of sounds for animations that didn't get used. These are useful as starting points for other projects in the future. Years ago when I was migrating to another DAW for most of my sound design work I transferred some of this stuff from Vegas to using EDL text files, but they mess up some settings. Eventually I had a lot of newer scraps/experiments from new projects in that DAW, so I haven't gone back to old Vegas projects in a while. I've also been doing little of that work for the past few years, so I'm getting up to speed on how my go-to software has changed. For some stuff I plan to work on this year I do want to dig into some old forgotten Vegas projects again. I'm also updating Vegas to get the latest in video editing because I'll still be using it for that.

I haven't done much audio with Vegas since version 11. I used v7-11 for thousands of hours, stayed on 11 for a while, then did a really small amount of stuff with 14. I'm not aware of changes that would break anything, and that's never happened in the past. But if there's some random stuff to look out for, like if old projects will open with different pan laws, I'm interested to hear about that sort of thing.

I get paranoid about this stuff with software that changes its version numbers rapidly.