ERufian
>what is so great about Sound Forge above and beyond what modern day daws can do?
 
It's not a DAW it's an audio editor. You can easily do low-level editing of one track, e.g., smoothing out single peaks in a waveform that was clipped, or cutting exactly at a zero-crossing.
 
It used to include CD Architect for controlling every detail of producing an audio CD. It also has batch processing of files (very useful e.g., if you have multiple files where you'd like to apply an Fx chain and then convert to a different format)
 
For me, whenever I found a low-level operation hard to do in a DAW, I just exported the track, tweaked it in SF, and re-imported it into the DAW

This is the kind of nonsense that drags me down in sequencer based DAWs - that they're really NOT digital audio workstations. You shouldn't have to leave your DAW application to do things like this.

ooblecaboodle
You shouldn't have to leave your DAW application to do things like this.

Agreed. A DAW should, ideally, do anything and everything I could possibly want to do with audio, thus leaving the app to do something with an audio file should ideally never be necessary. But we don't live in an ideal world so it's nice to have SF there running backup.

Sadly I have come to the conclusion that Samplitude is not for me at this point, it's too sluggish and wonky on my system. It's like molasses in January opening a plugin window. I tried to do the same thing that was slowing it down in S1 and it was lightning fast. Of course it's possible that things could be tweaked but I'm not into taking on a new 'complicated relationship' at this point.

No, I think I just had my Studio One Moment - it's just so bloody quick and responsive, it gives the impression that the underlying code is clean and efficient and I don't get that from Samplitude at this point, though I fully acknowledge that there may be something weird in my system making it so. I am just not in the mood to wrestle with such things right now.

Samplitude feels to me like Sonar has at a few junctures - like there's too much legacy code causing congestion in there somewhere. Cakewalk eventually managed to pull it out of the fire and Sonar is relatively fluid for me at this point (aside from things like changing screensets or 'lenses' which has generally always been too sluggish to bother with for me) but S1 feels like it's a racecar by design and that's hard to ignore... So at this point I am thinking that's what I'll be transitioning to.

subtlearts

ooblecaboodle
You shouldn't have to leave your DAW application to do things like this.

Agreed. A DAW should, ideally, do anything and everything I could possibly want to do with audio, thus leaving the app to do something with an audio file should ideally never be necessary. But we don't live in an ideal world so it's nice to have SF there running backup.

Here's the thing. If you find a tool that doesn't fulfil your needs, look for a different, better suited tool. An audio editing software that can't do audio editing duties is just dumb.

RajahP
Ok, so who like Samp. more than Sonar.. wish the will extend the sale for a few more days..

I'm currently trying it. My first impressions are positive. I've only played with it a few hours. but have it setup in track view like SPlat with a console strip to the left, track controls to the right of that and then the audio data. There are icons for a lot of things like the console edit, mixer, transport, and so on so I haven't looked at the manual yet. I've been able to setup the audio & midi, monitor & record a guitar with amp sim & fx, setup a vsti and record. I haven't tried it yet, but can see how to make project templates and save track fx. I'm not a power user so I'm not very demanding. I think the UI is better than Sonar, the use of icons, there is an icon for the transport so close it when you're not using it and hit the icon when you want it. 
 
So far I like it, but I need a lot more time with it.

I e already got it all except for Spectral Layers which I’ve wanted for ages. Anyone have a recommendation?

I tried recording a short passage on my guitar half an hour ago and when I hit stop Samplitude reported 13 ASIO errors... My buffers are set the same as I have them for SONAR and Studio One...
 
Because I am already well into Studio One I really do not have the time to look further into this.
 
Still, I got my upgrade to SF11 at a reasonable price and therefore a shorter jump so SF12 pro, assuming they ever release it.

synkrotron
 
Still, I got my upgrade to SF11 at a reasonable price and therefore a shorter jump so SF12 pro, assuming they ever release it.

You also picked up a decent spectral editor too.

Couldnt resist. Just had to have it. Now I have 3 licences for Sound Forge 11 and 2 for Samplitude X3 Suite.
Maybe after the special I might be able to sell a Sound Forge or Samp X3 licence and recoup my money.

scook

synkrotron
 
Still, I got my upgrade to SF11 at a reasonable price and therefore a shorter jump so SF12 pro, assuming they ever release it.

You also picked up a decent spectral editor too.

Indeed
 
I have yet to explore that tool... Too busy in SO3 and a project that is growing and growing haha!

I've used Independence on a lot of tracks. Some very good sounds in INDE PRO. Samps effects are top notch too.