I think It should be no charge, this close to a new release, Getting a hold of anyone at the company is problematic,

@Kevin-Lawrence I told you the mail address.

I don't see the address in this thread, on my end ??

@Kevin-Lawrence infoservice@magix.net

Magix is usually very accommodating and would likely give you SFP-17 suite.. if you ask.

hi @Kevin-Lawrence, the sales people are very flexible with this kind of thing, so i imagine they would take care of you on that.

So my experience indicates that they are not "very flexible". There is only one way this can be accomplished at their company, according to sales, and it is inflexible. Flexible would look like this:

1-They have a license system whereby the product line related to me carries a static license number which they can manage on their end with a computer (the majority of companies I've dealt with employ this). OR

2-They cancel my current SFS 16 license and issue one for 17. OR

2-They cancel the order entirely and refund it, then I buy the v.17 suite (clunky, but OK) INSTEAD

They want me to buy version 17, show them proof I have purchased, then they would cancel the version 16 (and supposedly refund) Since 1986, when I first began buying software I have never experienced this rigid and unfriendly way of handling a situation like this. Flexible they are not. They have successfully ended my desire to continue doing business with them.

@Kevin-Lawrence So you bought SF16 without the included free upgrade to SF17? Like I already wrote, these offers are usually limited to a timeframe of two or three weeks before a new version comes out. And it's explicitly stated in the offer that SF17 is included as a free upgrade.

Just buying the software one or two moths before a new version comes out will not get you the new version automatically. This was never the case with Magix.

The prices are usually much cheaper (about $100) near the end of a version. Over the last two or three weeks the prices rise again, but include the next version for free. So, it could be that you got your version of SF16 for $100 less than usual, but without a free upgrade. But that's only my speculation and I'm not sure since I don't know what you paid.

On the other hand, yearly upgrades are often not necessary because there are not many new features. I skip usually three or four versions.

Noted

I wanted to see if anyone had any more feedback about the upgrade to Sound Forge Suite 17. I have version 16 and they have a killer Black Friday reduced price $149. It's tempting, but, I'm also trying to assess the value of this upgrade.

It has Spectra Layers 10. I did a trial of Spectra Layers 9, awhile back. I found it very un-user friendly and even after watching tutorials, it was very cumbersome to use. I found a $29 plug-in from WAVES that is kind of AI on the back end that does a bit of what Spectra Layers does. Not as precise as the claim of Spectra Layers when it is used by someone skilled with it. But, again, very disappointed in how un-user friendly version 9 was. Any thoughts on this?

The other feature upgrade that caught my eye was "improved FX-Plug Ins support. Now, to me, that should be a free upgrade to improve bugs and poor functionality in Version 16. You shouldn't have to pay for an upgrade to get a feature that doesn't work well to start working correclty, as claimed, in Version 16.

I still use a lot of the older Izotope 32-bit plug-ins I have and others that still do a great job in my workflow. The 32-bit plug-ins do work in Sound Forge 16, but, many do not display properly in the pop-up box to change settings when you use them and it is just not a polished way of working. I have this great suite of Izotope, for example, that were bundled in Sound Forge 11 by Sony. Izotope helped me get them installed, but, they do not work as seamlessly as they should. I also have other plug-ins that work, but, not that well. Sometimes, I have to load them into my old version of Sound Forge 11. I should not have to do that.

I'd consider the upgrade just to make my 32-bit plug-ins work better and display better with the controls/settings. But, is this really what is being claimed in the Sound Forge 17 upgrade? Improved Plug-In support? Sounds like a lot of hype and a bit of a ripoff to fix bugs, etc.

As for a couple of new Core-FX thrown in there with the upgrade, that's no big deal. So, I'm trying to justify if I should skip this upgrade even at the tempting reduced upgrade price.

For feedback to Kevin-Lawrence, I experienced a complete nightmare dealing with Magix support when I got a new computer and had to re-install. The activation issue took about 3-weeks to resolve with their slow turnaround to customer service emails and there is no phone number. I feel like there is zero support.

I started with Sony Sound Forge and I could call a live human, get an email response the same day, etc. Magix Support is really non-existent and takes days to get an email response before it even gets assigned. No phone number even if I wanted to call overseas from the USA.

If I truly needed support more frequently, I'd have to find another product solution. If you want to be a worldwide global product for professionals, then, you have to provide world class support. Especially at the prices you are charging for premium products. This is not a $99 Magix Sound Forge Audio Studio or something. This is supposed to be a professional product for professionals in studios.

The turnaround on customer service is unacceptable. Fortunately, I have only had to deal with their customer support a few times and always about activations and basic things like that in another verision, too.

The product is a mature product, so, thankfully, it doesn't have a lot of technical issues. I shouldn't say that. When Windows 12 comes out, there could be bugs and conflicts again loading version 16, etc. I dread the thought of having to deal with their Technical Support team sending an email and waiting a week for the 1st response and having to hit another reply and wait another week and so on. You get the idea. It's not efficient and it really is not acceptable and I'm sure it turns off a lot of customers.

They make it very hard to even find that infoservice@magix.net email address. I found myself scrolling around the website for 20-minutes before I clearly found the right way to start a ticket. Most companies place the correct emails for customer service and technical support easily found like on the bottom of the home page.

They put you through a maze of clicks and stuff to avoid getting an email ticket and discourage it. They make it very difficult and time consuming to even put the ticket in and then you have this seperate site and forum which is more responsive than the company's own customer service and technical support It's really unacceptable.

Imagine. People have to enter this forum to find the customer support email address. But, they do. I went through that myself. It took somebody in this forum to provide the instructions on how to submit a ticket properly and to provide the email address. After 20-minutes, I still couldn't penetrate the Magix website to do this.

@Burton-Allan If you have a use case for SpectraLayers it's worth the upgrade price alone. That would be 50% cheaper than getting it now from Steinberg.

Regarding support, Sound Forge is mainly developed by an external team (the same team that develops Vegas) in the US, as far as I know. Magix is doing additional development, probably to integrate their own plugins, license systems, etc. Maybe there is a way to get in contact with the US team. I think they are pretty active in the Vegas forum. But that wouldn't help with activation problems. That can only be done by Magix themselves.

If I saw it correctly, their support staff is currently understaffed.

Samplitude and Sequoia users can contact a specialised support staff at proservice@magix.net, which usually responds very quickly. But I don't know, if they can help with Sound Forge problems.

Hi, SP, that makes sense. I go back to the old days of both Sony Sound Forge and Magix. I had Magix Audio Cleaning Lab and used to be able to call a phone number in Miami, Florida, to get support and the email response time was also much better. I have really been unhappy with Sound Forge support in recent years, but, as I mentioned, it is a mature program. Pretty much works. Never had to call technical support over it. But, have been disappointed with the customer service issues/activation/response time, etc. While everything works technically, also found bugginess in Version 16 and part of the reason I upgraded to Version 16 was that it was supposed to work with all plug-ins. It still doesn't work well with 32-bit plug-ins. Thanks

SLP (SpecraLayers Pro) has somewhat of a leaning curve when it comes to editing the spectral graph. Experience with photo editing is somewhat helpful. It does have auto processes, but not to the extent of iZ's RX Advanced, which is about 3x the price of the SF Pro Suite which includes SLP. I briefly tried SpecraLayers when it was initially published by SCS (Sony), but found it frustratingly difficult to learn and gave up on it. I retried it when SLP-7 was included with the SF Suite and have been using it ever since when restoration issues can not be adequately resolved with the SF tools.
The extract Stem Layers feature is amazing and usually works well, but there can be artifacts on some tracks, Drums. piano and vocals and are usually clean and artifact free, but the 'Other' track layer (guitars and such) can be problematic. 'Bass' can be good or bad depending on the recording,.

You nailed it, rraud. A learning curve on SLP. In looking at the promo page for "new features" in SF 17 - it has a short video about SLP10 which is in the bundle. It looked like a different program from Version 9 which I did a trial with. The narrator of the video says they changed the interface and all kinds of hype. It looked pretty user friendly in the video (again, on the Magix page about new SF 17 features with the upgrade) . My takeaway is the video starts by showing all the tracks and different sounds seperated already (like Magic or Magix??) and then all he has to do is pick the guitar track to start modifying/editing/tweaking it. In the video, it does not show how he got there to isolate all the different sounds. He mentions AI. Is that a 1-switch process to break up all the sounds/tracks individually where it analyzes it in AI and does it for you? The video is on this page:
https://www.magix.com/us/sem/sound-forge-pro/new-features/#c1732450

And, do you have any thoughts about how the VST support is improved in version 17? Is this hype? What can I expect that's better about how it handles VST plug-ins in 17 vs 16?

Will it make 32-bit plug-ins work better and appear in the popup with all the controls and settings? It's the kind of feature that should just be YES or NO.

Like does it render MP3? Yes or No. Does it support VST 32-bit? Yes or No. And if it crashes on mp3s, then, that's a bug and you fix that and don't charge for an upgrade to fix it when you said it supported it before.

It's like if you upgraded to Version 16 for VST support, you shouldn't be buying an upgrade to 17 for that reason because it really crashed and didn't do it correctly in 16.

What can I expect that's better about how it handles VST plug-ins in 17 vs 16?

I have not found anything significant that's better in SF-17.. but I do not use it much due to the third-party 32-bit VST-2 plug-in display issue. Neither SF-16 or 17 (AS and Pro) will properly.display third-party a 32-bit VST-2 window. I use some 'vintage' third-party 32 bit plug-ins to attain a certain sound that cannot be duplicated, That makes them pretty much unusable for most of the music projects I work on.. At least SF-16 had a x86 install option so my go-to third-party VSTs could be used on a limited basis. AFAIK,SF-17 does no longer has that. I do not like the 'new' playback meters either and there is no option to revert back,

Thanks, RRaud. I have my old Sound Forge 11 installed along with Sound Forge 16, so, I'm able to use the 32-bit plug-ins there that I have not found a replacement for with newer plug-ins that does what I want. I mentioned this to Izotope on their Mastering Bundle from SF 11 to see if there was a newer improved 64-bit version and they told me to duplicate that in 64-bit, I'm looking at their higher end $1000 RX package. That's how good those 32-bit plug-ins were that were bundled into Sony Sound Forge 11. Things like Ozone, etc. don't compare.

So, I have till the beginning of December to decide if I go for the reduced price upgrade to 17. Comes down to Spectra Layers Pro. As mentioned, I did a trial with Version 9 at Steinberg and the learning curve was an issue for me and I felt the workflow was cumbersome and time consuming. Just didn't like working with it.

As mentioned above with the video in that link to Version 10, the video says it has all been updated. Maybe I'll download a trial to see about the hype of this improved version, but, I think I will wind up passing on Version 17. Spectra Layers seems dated. AI is landing in a lot of plug-ins now including the one I tried at WAVES for $29 and a higher end one at $99 that do similar things and there is a lot less learning curve or time involved to get a comparable result and these programs are getting better. But, I guess maybe I'll download a trial in the next couple of weeks to see if Spectra Layers 10 is really going to work for me and justify the upgrade to Sound Forge 17.

Thanks