I have to say it's been a "not so great" experience with Mac pro 3 thus far... It's been 4 days since I purchased the product (from Amazon and that's a while other "not fun" download venture) and I am still sorting out the "registry loop error" that keeps me from even installing the product! Apparently "everyone" is aware of it (I'm told my stateside support) but if that's the case why is no one - including the mag reviewers, gear slutz, sweet water, etc. - not even mentioning it in there reviews? How can a product have a glowing review when it can't even be instal;led without several tech support interventions? While I wait for a support response from Germany to mitigate this terrible coding issue, I was told I could get some information from the "Forum". I've scoured the forum and don't see anything discussed although I could be missing something (if you know of any source that discusses the solution for this installation problem, I would greatly appreciate any help). Meanwhile, now I've become concerned about another issue - the stability "Cnvrt", the 3rd party batch convert which is one of the core reasons I upgraded. The reviews I've read are not positive, which is making believe this was $299 thrown down a rat hole.... simply not fair to consumers.

I am a voice-over talent...my studio and software must be dependable. I started with Sound Forge Pro 5 - it has been a very solid platform. I have both SFP-11 on PC(Win 10) and Mac3 on MacBook Pro - Both have glaring issues that are being ignored. Magix has 'dropped the ball'...and 'kicked it out of bounds'! They are no longer players, in my humble opinion. Another post suggested taking a look at Sound It! 8 Pro ($149- Mac or PC) http://www.ssw.co.jp/en/products/sit/ It seems to be comparable to SFP. Come Monday morning, I'm buying it to replace the "Magix" headaches! - potting down...and out.

Hi T-Salsa-

I'm the person who posted about Sound It! 8 Pro. Keep in mind it isn't the only player in this market. When BIAS (makers of BIAS Peak, a popular editor predating SFPM) went out of business, there were threads started in a few places suggesting alternatives. The main ones with comparable capability, as I recall, were Steinberg's WaveLab ($580, or $100 for WaveLab Elements), Triumph ($80), and DSP-Quattro ($99, cheaper with cross-grade discounts). At the time, I played with Triumph and DSP-Quattro. Triumph has a totally different kind of workflow that I couldn't get my head around (also, it didn't record at the time; maybe that's been added). Perhaps if I climbed the learning curve, I'd love it. DSP-Quattro was actually pretty impressive. It has a modular design that I found a bit peculiar. If it were more integrated/monolithic, it probably would have appealed to me more, but I keep wondering if I made the wrong decision about that. SFPM was the most like Peak, which is why I eventually went with it. I'm intrigued about Sound It! 8 Pro, though. I bumped a thread on it at GearSlutz:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-product-alert/1174483-sound-audio-editor.html#post12930638

If you give it a try, please consider reporting back, here or there.

EDIT: Just checked the MacUpdate reviews on DSP-Quattro, after seeing it hadn't been updated in a while. Looks like it might have problems on High Sierra:

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11618/dsp-quattro

A follow-up on DSP-Quattro: Here's the most detailed thread I've been able to find on its recent performance:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=62108

Evidently it has problems with some plug-ins, and occasional stability issues. The developer is working on v5, and in that 2016 thread expected it out by the end of the year, but now it's a year later and it hasn't appeared.

Interestingly, several people in that thread reported that they had BIAS Peak 7 running in OS X El Capitan. My version had stopped launching in Yosemite, and I gave up on it. This encouraged me to try it (thankfully I hadn't deleted it), and voila, it launches and appears to run fine. It even runs iZotope Ozone 7 just fine. A few minutes with it made me remember how much nicer I found it to work with via SFPM. It's hard to say exactly what's "wrong" with the SFPM workflow, but something is....

@T-Salsa: Have you given Sound It! 8 Pro a try? If so, I'd appreciate hearing about your experience with it.

TLMuse,

I have not yet tried Sound It! Pro 8. But, I fired up my old Windows7 HP Laptop (4 GHz of memory and 64bit system) running SF Pro 11 - I had No Problems recording and editing! Magix is now totally ignoring my support requests.  I was told not to re-submit requests for service- regarding why SFP11 runs on a 64 bit Win7 platform, but freezes up when running on a 64 bit Win10 platform - even with i7 3,6 quad core processor!

My MacBook Pro (2013) I run " TwistedWave " - it's a pretty straight forward recording software for $75. Good hunting. Cheers

T. Salsa

I've been using Sound Forge forever. From Windows way back, to the Mac now. The crashing is getting frustrating and makes me apprehensive about using the tool for live recording. But what kills me the most is no longer having the old (simple) compressor from many versions ago. Wave Hammer comes close, but I can't figure out how to 'apply' wave hammer settings to my files (sorry, I don't understand a tool that does not have a 'process' button and I assume I should). I honestly can't figure it out.

...oh, and I'm really not sure what benefit I just got out of upgrading to 3.0. I already owned the iZotope plugins. Think I may have spent $150 without doing my research first.

@gbfaulkner: Some of us have complained elsewhere on this forum about the plug-in issue, arguing that we want our financial support of SFPM to be directed to development of the app itself, not to 3rd party licensing (I, too, have full versions of the included plug-ins). If this is your feeling, too, communicate it back to Magix. I don't think they pay much attention to these forums.

After 18 years with Sound Forge, I moved to Adobe Audition. It's all I hoped Sound Forge would become: fast and stable with powerful spectral editing -- years ahead of SFPM.

@chris-w18: Thanks for the datapoint. You motivated me to look for user comparisons of Audition to other products (SFPM, WaveLab). I couldn't find much feedback from users who have used recent versions. However, this thread:

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=435900

brought Acon Digital's Acoustica 7 to my attention:

https://acondigital.com/products/acoustica-audio-editor/

I gather it has been a Windows product, but recently released a Mac version. The premium version is $200; a lite version is $60. It includes built-in spectral editing and audio restoration; a user in that KVR thread indicates the latter is competitive with iZotope plug-ins (I'm very happy with iZotope, so that would be impressive if true, esp. at the Acoustic price point). It also include's Acon's Verberate reverb plug-in, which by itself is $100 and has gotten very positive reviews from Sound on Sound and Music Radar. Just thought I'd point it out, esp. for those unhappy with the Adobe license model (the Acoustica premium price is less than 1 yr of the Audition subscription price).

Great tip! After looking at youtube's Acoustica 7 demos, it seems impressive though not as deep as Audition CC.

Adobe's pricing ($20/month for Audition, perpetually) is an obstacle. While $20 is great to get started, $1200 over 5 years is expensive. But it includes upgrades, so you won't be charged $150 for each dubious improvement. Matrix has a long trek, to catch up with either program. I feel that Sound Forge for Mac is still inferior to 2008's SF for Windows, which is why I abandoned it.

One advantage of Audition CC is this excellent tutorial series, with 20 hours of hands-on demos. Whatever editor you choose, there's a wealth of information here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VHRpQFxIHo&list=PL1bWU8a3JcGl8Q91Fm9y5VL42hT1M37Pi