Customer Reviews

SONIC FOUNDRY Sound Forge Studio Xp 6.0 (Windows)

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I purchased Sound Forge 6 on the recommendation of a friend. It seems to work pretty well on XP, no real hassles, didn't need the manual much at all as its pretty intuitive. You can have multiple files in different sampling frequencies open and cut/paste, make modifications like envelope and echo, quick fade out, etc.

Its not a full featured effects editor, I can't for instance specify a point in the file and say I want this to be at exactly 3.5 seconds in and I do wish it did multi-track so I could more easily line up sounds before merging them together. It also doesn't have a very good system for handling sampling frequency changes while cutting and pasting, it does tell you that the 2 files are different but fails to give you a "make it right" option, forcing you to cancel, then go figure out what the sample rate on the original was, then switch to the 2nd file, open its sample rate change dialog and type in that number..

Then the bad news happened. It had occasionally asked for registration during startup but all the "do you want to register" screen offered if I registered was that they would send me promotional materials, so I passed. Then one day the software informed me that the files (mp3) that I had saved yesterday could no longer be opened until I registered the software! I think this is a really lousy policy on their part. Plus they admit (quoted from the privacy policy) "Sonic Foundry may from time to time share or provide your identifiable contact information to approved third parties" and have a big "Digital Marketing Associates" logo right on their privacy page. They do offer a "opt out" feature but its really hard to find and understand...being embedded in a generic "customer service form" that says "your message" and "Submitting Customer Service request through this form will significantly delay a response."

While it is not an excessive to require that customers register the software, I feel that Sony Pictures Digital (which is where you end up when going to Sonic Foundrys privacy page) should tell them upfront that the software will cripple itself unless they are registered

I don't know what they mean when they say that the platform is "no operating system". I will purchase this from another website because it is not clear what you are getting here. Anyone buying needs to know what platform this software will run on. Other sites list Windows WP, etc.