Sound Forge Audio Studio 9

I first purchased Cakewalk Pyro which was 20 bucks cheaper - the Cakewalk jammed on me multiple times half way through recording sessions, no customer support reponse, etc. Terrible product. So, then I purchased the Sony Sound Forge. Beautiful, smooth, flawless recording program - twelve times better than the Cakewalk Pyro. Never jammed on me - not even once. I got a real person when I called customer support with a minor issue (not an answering machine like I got with Cakewalk). This is the best alternative to a true high end professional recording software program. Well worth the price - BRAVO Sony!!

I am using Windows XP Home version. Installed the program. Registered the program with Sony. Program ran OK immediately after installation. Tried to run in again several days later and got following error message: "This application has failed to start because AudioStudio90k.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."

I re-installed the program, and it asked me to register the program again! Not knowing if Sony would let me register it twice, I took the "Register later" option. I was able to use it for one session immediately after re-installation. I tried to use it again [for a third time], about a week later and got the SAME error message that "AudioStudio90k.dll was not found."

I have not installed or removed any other programs since I first installed/re-installed Sound Forge Audio Studio 9.

I went to the Sony support, FAQs but found nothing that matched my problem. Tried to submit as a technical question. This was not easy since they ask you a question you have to be able to load the program to get the answer to. Finally was able to fake my way through and submitted my question including the error message. Got an automated response that suggested things I had already eliminated. It thought I was having trouble activating the program, to which I responded I am not having trouble activating my software; I'm having trouble KEEPING it activated.

Finally got in touch with a person via their e-mail system. Her suggestion was long and complicated and required me to change the registry, but in order to do THAT, I had to download a program that saves registry settings. This is crazy. I didn't even have the warm and fuzzy feeling that this solution was going to fix my problem [much less that I would badly screw up something else], so I tried to get back on their e-mail and open my problem number. Couldn't do it; they didn't recognize the problem number, me, or anything else. What a joke for tech support. Sony should have an update that fixes this problem.

And guess what the upshot of all this is. Using Windows Explorer, I found the .dll file the program is looking for IN THE FOLDER THE INSTALLATION ITSELF CREATED !!!!

This is my first and last Sony software.

For my purposes, Audio Studio is a really nice editing program. I do not use it to create my own music, but only to edit existing music files. My husband is a drama teacher, so we're often mixing and splicing music to get the right amount of time for a certain piece. I also edit curse words out of lyrics so that his students can listen to a musical without warranting a parental advisory. For this, Audio Studio 9 is very user friendly and includes all the tools to do so, if you're creative.
My only beef is the bogus claim that its "Vocal Eraser" can erase vocals and create a karaoke track. NOT AT ALL TRUE! Every music file I have tried, you can still hear the lyrics very clearly. They may be more faint, but they are far from removed. You cannot use the vocal eraser to create a background track, nor to remove curse words. But, other than that, it Audio Studio performs as advertised.

Make sure you download the trial versions from Sony's website BEFORE making a purchase. Make sure you know the difference between the Sony Audio products (many of the features seem to overlap).

Does what I wanted it to do, and didn't find many good alternatives. No crashes or other problems. Has a very old, sad looking interface. Not that intuitive to use. If you want to import a video mpg file so you can edit the audio, you'll need to buy a $30 Sony codec!!! Considering there are very good opensource mpeg codecs out there, this seems crazy. BTW, the audio file you edit this way will be saved as an audio file (wav). You'll then need to add that file back into the video with a video editor.

PROs
Does the job

CONs
Sad, old, counter-intuitive interface
Extra cost of plug-ins (codecs etc.)
Don't think this can capture audio streams from the Internets

This item was missing the code to activate the software. The vendor was very gracious in resending the item ordered. I just had to pay shipping and time to repackage and send the original back. The Hurricane did not help in expediting the transactions.