Cakewalk vs. Sound Forge Audio Studio

[RFrancis]

I want to do some basic singer/songwriter home recording and it appeared that Cakewalk would be perfect. My wife surprised me for my birthday with Sony's Sound Forge Audio Studio. I think, however, that Cakewalk is still the program I need so would like to return it just wanted to corroborate this opinion. Audio Studio appears to have some recording capability but it given it's other focus of audio restoration, I feel it will lack many features. Can anyone respond to this and advise? Thank you!!

[TyphoidHippo]

I'm not familiar with "Sound Forge Audio Studio" but Sound Forge has always been an audio editing/mastering application. People use it for pretty much two things:

1. As an advanced editor they can use in addition to their multitrack software to edit specific tracks

2. Rendering/dithering/mastering their finished mixdowns to a specific format (like audio CD)

It's NOT the right tool for the job of recording multiple tracks and mixing them together. Cakewalk is. (or cubase...or protools...or vegas...or whatever)

So unless the difference between normal Sound Forge and "Sound Forge Audio Studio" is that the "Audio Studio" one is a multitrack recording/mixing app...sounds like you should take it back and get something else - Hope that helps!

[tkingen]

Having an audio editor/mastering solution is good. I use Wavelab for that and Cakewalk Sonar as my DAW.
Although I hesitate to steer you from Cakewalk, since you already have Sound Forge maybe you could go to Reaper for your low cost multitrack software.

[tdukex]

I would return Soundforge and go with Cakewalk. Cakewalk is a powerful MIDI sequencer and multitrack recording program that will also allow you to edit and add effects.

Soundforge is a good mastering program. I use it. But it cannot replace a good sequencer/audio recording program, which Cakewalk is.

[therage!]

Originally Posted by tkingen

Having an audio editor/mastering solution is good. I use Wavelab for that and Cakewalk Sonar as my DAW.
Although I hesitate to steer you from Cakewalk, since you already have Sound Forge maybe you could go to Reaper for your low cost multitrack software.

Not a bad idea at all.

[Teacher]

Sonar can pretty much do what Sound Forge can do and more...