Looking at the box we can notice how rich is the bundle for this release which also includes CD Architect 5.2 (the software by Sony for professional production and burning of Audio CD), the Sony Noise Reduction 2.0 plug-in and the iZotope Mastering Effects Bundle, which is a very interesting add-on.
Like with other applications, Sony, in the latest releases, tends toward selling product bundles that allow users to handle the entire process of media editing, from the capturing to the finalization, without the need to purchase other products (a real Production Suite!).

On the box, with a book-like cover, we find the main innovations of this release.

To quickly understand the step forward made from the previous release just take a look at this link.

After the software and plug-ins installation and registration process, let’s start Sound Forge and take a look at the new features.

On the graphic interface, as we already noticed in the Vegas Pro 8 review , Sony continues with its traditional way, making few changes and focusing more on the integration of the new features and on the stability than on the aesthetics, with a GUI (Graphical User Interface) which works and is well suited to the professional usage for which the software is made.
The possibility of customizing the GUI is also improved.

As we said in the introduction, the major feature of this release, which will make happy many Sound Forge users, is the full multichannel files management both in recording and in editing.
The software can handle up to 32 channels (16 stereo channels) and, with the proper hardware, the 32 channels can be recorded at the same time or it is possible to operate on the single channel or on groups.

The multichannel audio card configuration in the Preferences menu is excellent.
Here you can assing (other than enable/disable) the phisical inputs to the audio channels both in playback and in recording.
Also routing is very good. In the working or recording window, with a simple click, you can assign software channel/hardware channel.

The next picture shows the recording window where you can see a 6 channels configuration.

The multichannel audio support is not limited to the basic editing, in fact the features of the Channel Converter have been improved to handle trasparently the conversion between multichannel files and stereo/mono.