Sound Forge Abilities

Michael-Cooling wrote on 12/22/2021, 2:37 PM

I'm a long time user of Vegas Pro (now at V14) and DVD Architect and am interested in a purchase of Sound Forge. I have shot videos where wind interferes with the dialog on a video OR waves crashing on the beach interferes with video dialog.

1) Can Sound Forge reduce or eliminate wind or waves or enhance dialog where it can be understood?

2) Does Sound Forge integrate with Vegas Pro or do you have to clean up the recording separately and import the result to Vegas?

3) Is there an upgrade path to add the Sound Forge tool or would this be a new purchase?

Thanks for any help.

Comments

Walter.I wrote on 12/22/2021, 4:34 PM

1) This will be difficult - I'm not a pro - but if you follow the discussions in Vegas Pro and Sound Forge, you'll get to slight improvements at best. It's always best to pay attention to this right when recording, and put a dead cat over the mic. But maybe another pro will reply with a tip that can help you with your current recordings.

2) There is only one link in Vegas Pro, which opens Soundforge-Pro like a plug-in and puts the corrected sound file into your timeline after editing - either overwrites it according to your settings, or creates it as a take (alternative, between which you can switch).
You can set the link in the Vegas preferences in the "Audio" tab under "Preferred audio editor".
By the way, you can also set there for example any other audio application like the free Audacity and do your corrections with it. (try this first before you buy anything).

3) When you buy a new version of Vegas, sometimes it comes with a (somewhat stripped down) version of Soundforge Pro - I did it that way with Vegas Pro 18. Currently, however, that is not the case with Vegas Pro 19.

rraud wrote on 12/22/2021, 6:13 PM

Seasons greetings @Michael-Cooling, I highly doubt Sound Forge AS or SF Pro can attenuate ambient waves/wind noise satisfactorily with any of included tools. (iZotope's RX Elements and the noise reduction pack (aka, NR-2.0) are included with Sound Forge Pro). The only tools I can think of off hand, that could possibly attenuate ambient ocean waves noise to a satisfactorily level is SpectraLayers Pro or iZotope's RX Advanced. RX Advanced is rather expensive and SLP ain't exactly a low budget tool either. SLP is however included with the SF Pro Suite version which can off-set the cost, considering all the other tools and plug-ins that are included with the SF Pro Suite.
FWIW, SpectraLayers Pro does have somewhat of a steep leaning curve for manual spectralgraph editing, but once mastered, it is f--ing amazing. There are other functions that are automatic though like extracting stem elements from an already mixed song.. unbake a cake.
SpectraLayers Pro can be integrated into SFP (via the ARA plug-in format) and Sound Forge can be subsequently integrated into Vegas Pro by creating a new take(s) of a Vegas event or editing the audio media file directly (destructive editing). SLP can be used as a stand-alone app as well.