Sound Forge Issue + Potential to run SF on new M1 Mac Mini

Marcin-Nowak wrote on 4/5/2021, 8:32 PM

Hello,

Two part question/recommendation. I'm a consultant working with a broadcast client who uses Sound Forge 9 on an older PC. Every few months my client calls me with an emergency. She needs to record her show, but SF seams to not be working as it was before. Recently I logged in remotely into her system and manged to get her Windows audio device settings and SF back up. The one thing I couldn't figure out how to get back to normal is her ability to record multiple takes. For example, she would launch SF9, when we would arm a track it would record just fine. Then we would stop the recording, and create a new one. At that point SF would not arm the next track/take. If we restart SF, it would arm and record as expected. This work for a good deal of time and now does not. I tried all the settings in the record window, and none made a difference. Looked in the general settings and there was nothing there that made me think it was a global setting. Pardon my ignorance on this. I'm not a SF user. Is there a setting to check to resolve this issue?

Now here's the second part of the question. The client is interested in upgrading SF and her computer. I generally work with Macs in audio workflows. I understand the latest version of SF is supported on Mac. A Mac Mini would be ideal for budget and form factor purposes. The only problem is most of the new Mac Mini's are on the M1 chip. Has anyone had any experience with SF + M1 Mac on Big Sur? Not finding any official statement about compatibility on this topic.

Thanks in advance,

Comments

SP. wrote on 4/6/2021, 2:25 AM

@Marcin-Nowak What is this older PC of your client using as an operating system? If it is Windows 10 the problems are likely caused by Windows 10 updates. SF 9 is now very old and will not get any patches. With every Windows 10 update there is a chance that it will break the software more and more because of changes to the underlying system. If this is the case, then resolving the issue is only possible by using an old operating system, maybe Windows 7? Temporarily it can help to uninstall current Windows 10 updates but they will reinstall automatically.

MAC compatibility is listed on the web page. There is no version for Big Sur and there never will be. Only Windows will get new versions.

Marcin-Nowak wrote on 4/6/2021, 2:43 PM

Thank you SP! Makes sense that this would be caused by a mismatch of Windows version to legacy Sound Forge. I'm thinking the best path forward would be to remain on the PC she is using, which is on Windows 10. Switching to Mac doesn't seem like the best route being that it's not supported as well as the PC versions are. It may be time for the client to upgrade their version of Sound Forge to the current one, which is supported on Windows 10. I'll advise this solution and see how the client wants to move forward. Thank you again for your help and insight.