SF10 - Is the upgrade worth it?

TomG wrote on 11/19/2009, 4:55 PM

Hi everyone,

I was considering upgrading to SF 10 from 9 but not sure if it is worth it. I went to the SF forum and was surprised not to find a whole lot of discussion about SF 10. I guess I wasn't that surprised since Vegas is where all the action is. I am primarily a hobbiest and have been using Vegas since 2 (release, that is, not age!!!)

Are there any new features that made anyone jump to upgrade?

Comments

Byron K wrote on 11/19/2009, 6:26 PM

IMHO, if there are features in SF10 that you can definitely use then upgrade. I've used SF and it's a really nice DAW program. I mainly use Cubase 4 and have been upgrading since Cubase SX but passed on the latest upgrade to C5 because I didn't need the extra stuff that the upgrade had and C4 is running like a champ on my system. Actually I used that $$ to upgrade from Studio to Vegas Pro. Been very happy so far. Maybe I'll upgrade to C6 when it comes out... or buy a nice plugin for Vegas.

Kit wrote on 11/19/2009, 6:58 PM

Hi, I upgraded from SF8, I confess mainly because of the bundled plugins, especially the elastique Time stretch which I find powerful. Having said this, I'm sticking with SF8 as my main main editor for Acid 7 becuse SF10a has a nasty bug which doesn't allow Acid properties to change from beatmapped to looped. This is a major drawback for me.

Hope this helps.

Kit

bsuratt wrote on 11/19/2009, 9:51 PM

If you really need the very few new features then it may be worth it... but for me it seems grossly overpriced for the upgrade from V9. I'm not buying.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/20/2009, 6:29 AM

Here is the killer function that sold me on SF 10.... EVENTS!!!!

That's right! Finally, you can have events is Sound Forge just like in Vegas and slide them around and overlap them and change the overlap and.. and.. well... you get the idea. I hated the fact that when you cut and pasted in Sound Forge it was a permanent destruction so you'd better be correct or be waiting with Ctrl+Z (undo) ready. Now, all of my edits can get adjusted and tweaked just like in Vegas even after making several more edits.

IMHO, this feature alone is worth the price of admission. Just click the Event Tool and prepare to be amazed. (I was) ;-)

~jr

TomG wrote on 11/20/2009, 9:20 AM

Thanks, jr

But am I missing something (I mean more than usual!!)

If you can now do in SF10 what you can already do in Vegas, why then would you want SF10?

TomG

bdg wrote on 11/20/2009, 10:23 AM

Why use SF (9 in my case) rather than Vegas Pro9?
1) It imports and exports multi channel sound more robustly.
I have a surround sound mic whose software produces all kinds of consumer and pro formats but the only one I use is 5.1. The 6 channels import as 4 mono plus 1 stereo into Vegas but correctly as 6 mono into SF. I then save the file in SF and it imports correctly as 6 mono channels into Vegas.
2) It loads much faster.
3) I'm used to it and I'm not sure if Vegas will do the things I want (a: Detect and flag clipping and then let me pencil each clip out. b: Edit out bad takes, flubs, pops, clicks and add pauses etc in my voice). Perhaps Vegas will do all this but I find it reasonably fast to do in SF especially when I am dealing with a single mono file.
The final part of the picture is to import the edited file into Vegas and mix FX and music to produce the final product.
I guess it is the relative ease of editing in SF that I like.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/20/2009, 1:56 PM

> If you can now do in SF10 what you can already do in Vegas, why then would you want SF10?

Because you can do more accurate editing down to the sample in SF. It was just the workflow from Vegas that I was missing.

~jr

JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/21/2009, 5:26 PM

I just found this webinar on the Sony site which goes over the major new features in SF10 and should answer most questions about is the upgrade worth it:

Sound Forge Pro 10: Meet the experts

~jr

marks27 wrote on 11/21/2009, 6:22 PM

I have to agree with the point about the events. I was never comfortable with the "you asked for it you got it approach".

The other aspect that sold me was the mastering plugins. Worth the upgrade for them. I have just cut a dance school concert and these plug-ins helped me lift the sound of the tapping out of the ambient audio very sweetly.

The upgrade is definitely good value for me.

Ciao,

marks

P.S. The $US -> $AUS exchange rate also helped ;-)