I started using SOUND FORGE in the 90s, and it was almost the only game in town. It was fun and easy to use, and I would always recommend it to beginners, especially. But it's fully capable of pro audio editing!

SOUND FORGE was practically an industry standard in the late-90s and 2000's, and with good reason. The clean, simple interface made it easy to learn how to edit audio, apply effects, and master mixes; all in a light package.

SOUND FORGE was strictly a PC app until recently, and even then, Mac support has been spurious, and the company has been sold twice since the 00's. I eventually switched to Steinberg Wavelab, as it offers a main mix bus, plus hundreds of more advanced features for professional mastering.

SF is very complete in many ways as there are many tools sufficiently provided to handle any audio editing task.

I have been using Sound Forge for a while and it keeps on getting better and better with the newer versions/upgrades. Currently I am using SF Pro 16 and many aspects have been improved with added features. One of the recent feature that has been very instrumental in my working with SF is the Vocal Activity Detection (VAD) which uses AI to detect human vocals in an audio file and applies a red color on the audio wave where vocals are detected. This enables me to enhance vocals in many ways by either applying effects or changing vocal dynamics without necessarily having to alter the background music or ambience. I have found this feature quite helpful especially in editing interview podcasts etc.

There is a lot of small icons in the data windows and general software which gives the feel of clutter and can easily dissuade someone from engaging SF especially in the learning stages. However, the inbuilt interactive tutorials make editing easy.

Overall, Sound Forge is a good piece of software but I found it lacking in comparison with Audacity.

Sound Forge is quite easy to use, even for the first-time user. It is quite feature rich and even amateurs can use its features quite easily.

Its noise-reduction / noise-cancellation feature falls far short of ideal. Its noise gate technology tends to distort the recording rather than filter out the noise.

Having a time tested platform for audio processing makes me feel comfortable with my production. I am glad that I can access Sound Forge both on a Window PC and Mac.

Sound forge has been a key tool for me especially when I need to work with more DirectX & VST plugins. Using its Plug-in Chain window I am able to experiment with as many effects as possible without ruining my original audio file(s) as this tool allows me to process these plugins in real time with playback within the data window. Once I am satisfied with the output, I can have it applied by saving the file. That is very key to my use case. Also the file saving is not limited to available file formats, I can always save the raw file to specify format parameters that work with a specific project/target platform.

Not much of negatives here. However it is quite expensive to upgrade to a newer version.

Sound forge can be a little simplistic if you look it at a glance, but it does perform very well to capture audio and manipulate sound for a quick in and out when I am working on a video project. I like the fact that it's fairly light on my system when I am running premiere and After Effects at the same time. I grew up using Sound Forge, and it helped me several times while on a time crunch. Although the UI can be a little too bland and simplistic, you can quickly manipulate audio and get back to your work without too much effort. I alway keep Sound Forge on a click away, even tho I find myself using Mixcraft more and more these days. Being a Magix software, be prepared to be asked to upgrade to a newer version when you fire you software, but not that big of a deal. there are several versions of the software, so make sure you chose the one that will tackle your audio needs. Overall, give sme piece of mind that I can access a great audio editor when I need to.

Fairly light software to run simultaneously while you need to fire it up and do a quick recording. Very powerful and versatile.

Can be a bit restrictive to some people looking for a full feature DAW, so not a complete solution for audio producers