This tutorial covers Sound Forge 2026, the current Boris FX release of the audio editor previously sold as Sound Forge Pro. Boris FX acquired the software from MAGIX on March 30, 2026, dropped "Pro" from the branding, and now sells it in Sound Forge and Sound Forge Plus editions, with support routed through Boris FX support. The basic workflow also applies to recent MAGIX-era versions such as Sound Forge Pro 17 and 18, though some menu names and included effects differ. Not installed yet? The installation guide covers that first.
Part of the Sound Forge Pro 2026 Guide — start there if you’re new to the site. This guide is also part of the Core Editing hub: the full record → edit → normalize → export workflow.
Sound Forge looks intimidating the first time you open it. Toolbars everywhere, a waveform you're not sure how to read, and a menu structure that assumes you already know what a Paragraphic EQ is. This tutorial walks through the actual basics in the order you'll use them on a real file: opening it, looking at it, selecting the part you want, editing it, cleaning it up, and exporting the result. By the end you'll have done one complete pass on a real audio file, not just read about buttons.
Software: Sound Forge 2026, formerly Sound Forge Pro | Edition: Sound Forge or Sound Forge Plus | Platform: Windows 11, see the system requirements (older Sound Forge Pro versions may run on earlier Windows releases) | Skill level: Beginner | Time required: 15 to 20 minutes | Starting file: Any WAV or MP3 | Result: An edited, exported audio file
Quick answer: Open a file with File, Open. Select the part you want to work on by clicking and dragging in the waveform. Use the Process and Effects menus for editing, checking Preview before you commit. Undo with Ctrl+Z if something goes wrong. Check the file's peak and loudness levels before exporting, and use Process, Normalize only if the overall level actually needs adjusting. Export a regular audio file with File, Save As, or use File, Render As if you're working inside a Sound Forge project. That's the whole loop this tutorial covers in detail.
Sound Forge Interface: What Beginners Need
Four things matter when you first open Sound Forge. The waveform display in the center shows the audio you're working on, drawn as a shape you can zoom into and click on directly. The toolbar strips above it group related commands: the Standard toolbar for file operations, the Transport toolbar for playback and recording, and the Process toolbar for the editing commands you'll use constantly, EQ, fades, normalization, and format conversion.
Below the waveform sits the status bar, showing your cursor position, selection length, and sample rate. To the left of the waveform is the tool selector, five icons you can click through: Edit, Magnify, Pencil, Event, and Envelope. Edit is your default, used for making selections and general editing. Magnify zooms into a specific region. Pencil lets you redraw individual samples, only available once you're zoomed in far enough.
You can ignore the Event tool during this first destructive-editing workflow, but it becomes important once you want to work non-destructively. Sound Forge's default editing mode changes the waveform permanently when you apply a process, but the Event tool gives you an alternative: audio placed as events on a timeline, with fades and levels handled through envelope handles instead of being baked into the file. That's a non-destructive way to work once you're past your first project.
The Plug-In Chainer, usually docked at the bottom or as a separate panel, is where you build a processing chain instead of applying effects one at a time. You don't need it for your first file, but knowing it exists saves confusion later when a tutorial mentions it. The Plug-In Chainer guide covers that workflow once you're ready for it.
How to Open and Play an Audio File
Go to File, Open, and browse to your audio file. Sound Forge reads WAV, MP3, FLAC, AIFF, and most other common formats without any conversion step first. You can also drag a file directly from Windows Explorer into the Sound Forge window, which opens it the same way.
Once it's open, the waveform draws across the data window. A stereo file shows two lanes stacked on top of each other, left channel above right. A mono file shows one. Press the Space bar to play from the cursor position, and press it again to stop. If you're recording fresh instead of opening an existing file, the recording guide covers that setup from scratch, including the driver and input configuration a first-time recording needs.
How to Navigate and Zoom the Waveform
Use the Up and Down arrow keys, or your mouse wheel, to adjust horizontal waveform magnification, zooming in or out step by step. To return to a predictable, repeatable view, use the Zoom Time commands from the View menu rather than relying on a keyboard shortcut whose exact resting point can vary between versions.
Press Home or End to jump to the beginning or end of the visible waveform or your active selection. Use Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End to jump to the very beginning or end of the entire file instead. That's enough to move around a file confidently. Once you're comfortable with these, the full keyboard shortcuts guide covers zoom presets, marker navigation, and dozens of shortcuts for faster editing.
How to Make a Precise Selection
Click and drag across the waveform to select a range. The selected region highlights, and the status bar shows exactly how long it is. Press Ctrl+A to select the entire file, the reliable way to grab everything regardless of where your cursor happens to be.
Selections snap to zero crossings, the points where the waveform crosses the center line, if you have that setting enabled through Ctrl+B. Editing on a zero crossing prevents the click artifact you get from cutting mid-waveform. It's a small habit that saves you from a specific, annoying problem later.
How to Cut, Copy, Paste, and Trim Audio
With a selection active, Ctrl+X cuts it to the clipboard and removes it from the file. Ctrl+C copies it without removing anything. Ctrl+V pastes clipboard contents at your current cursor position. These work exactly like they do in a word processor, just operating on audio instead of text.
Delete removes the selected audio without putting it on the clipboard, which matters if you're just trimming unwanted silence or noise rather than moving that audio somewhere else. The cutting and trimming guide goes further into precise editing, including Ctrl+T to trim everything outside your selection in one step.
How to Add a Fade In or Fade Out
Select the region you want to fade, then go to Process, Fade, Graphic. This opens a dialog where you set a starting level, an ending level, and a curve shape between them, giving you a clean fade in or fade out without manually drawing anything. It's the fastest way to fade the start or end of a file before export.
For more control, use the Envelope tool from the tool selector on the left. Click within the data window with that tool active, and you can drag envelope points directly on the waveform to shape volume over time, useful when you need more than a simple start-to-end fade, like ducking the level briefly in the middle of a track. Insert, Volume Envelope, or the V key, adds this envelope layer if it isn't already visible.
How to Preview and Apply Effects
Effects live in two places: the Process menu for things that permanently change the file when applied, and the Effects menu for processing like reverb, pitch shifting, and noise gating. Both work the same way to start: make a selection, or select the whole file with Ctrl+A, then choose the effect you want.
Don't click OK right away. Most built-in processing dialogs include a Preview control, and many also provide Bypass or a real-time comparison option, though this varies by effect and by any third-party VST plugins you've added. Where Preview is available, use it to hear what the processed audio will sound like before committing. Toggle Bypass on and off to compare the processed version against the original directly, back and forth, before you decide the settings are right. Only click OK once the preview actually sounds like what you wanted. This one habit prevents most of the "why does my effect sound wrong" problems beginners run into, since it catches a bad setting before it's baked into the file.
Start with the effects you'll actually need first. The EQ guide covers frequency correction. The noise reduction guide covers cleaning up a hum or hiss. The reverb guide covers adding space to a dry recording. You don't need to learn all of these before your first export. Pick the one your specific file actually needs.
How to Undo Edits and Protect the Original
Ctrl+Z undoes your last action. Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes it. That covers most mistakes. For anything more involved, Sound Forge keeps an Undo/Redo History window that lists every action in your session, letting you review and jump back to an earlier point before deciding whether to commit further.
Sound Forge edits regular audio files destructively in its default editing mode, meaning applied processing changes the waveform itself. The current release also includes the event-based editing approach mentioned earlier, which lets you work non-destructively by keeping edits as adjustable events rather than permanent changes. Regardless of which mode you use, keep an untouched copy of important source recordings before applying restoration or mastering processing. Before running a heavy processing chain on an important recording, use File, Save As to save a copy under a new name first. I do this automatically before any restoration pass on a client recording, since a bad noise reduction setting can be worse than the noise it was supposed to remove, and having the untouched original one click away costs nothing.
How to Check Levels and Normalize When Needed
Normalize applies a constant gain change to bring your file to a selected peak or loudness target. It's often used near the end of an editing workflow, but only when the measured level actually needs adjusting, not as an automatic final step you apply to every file regardless of how it already measures.
Check your file's peak and loudness levels first, and check for clipping while you're at it. Normalization changes overall level based on a peak or loudness target, but it does not repair audio that's already clipped, since that distortion is baked into the waveform itself. If the measured level is already close to your target, you can skip normalizing entirely. If you're exporting to a compressed format like MP3, leave a little peak headroom rather than normalizing straight to 0 dB, since the encoding process can push a small number of samples above your original peak and clip audibly on playback even though the source file looked clean. The normalizing guide covers the difference between peak and loudness-based normalization and which target to use for streaming, podcasts, or CD delivery specifically.
How to Export WAV or MP3
If you're editing a regular audio file, go to File, Save As. Choose your output format from the dropdown, WAV for archival quality, MP3 for a smaller shareable file, and set the specific quality or bitrate options for that format. Give the file a name that's different from your working file if you want to keep both versions, then click Save. For bitrate, metadata, and encoder settings specifically, the MP3 export guide covers that in detail.
If you're working inside a Sound Forge project instead of a single audio file, Save As saves the project itself, not a finished media file. Use File, Render As to generate the actual WAV, MP3, or other output file from that project.
If you need to convert a whole folder of files at once instead of exporting one at a time, that's a different workflow. The file conversion guide and the batch processing guide cover that directly.
Your First Sound Forge Project: Complete Workflow
Here's a complete first project that uses everything above in order, the same sequence I'd walk a new user through on their first real file.
- Open your file with File, Open.
- Listen to the whole thing once with Space bar, noting anything that needs fixing.
- Select any unwanted silence or noise at the start or end and delete it.
- Apply a short fade in and fade out with Process, Fade, Graphic, so the file doesn't start or end abruptly.
- If there's background noise throughout, apply noise reduction from the Effects menu, checking Preview and Bypass before committing.
- Check the file for clipping and measure its peak or loudness level. Normalize only if an overall level adjustment is actually needed.
- Export with File, Save As if you're working on a plain audio file, choosing WAV to keep working on it later or MP3 to share it now. Use File, Render As instead if you built this from a Sound Forge project.
That's a complete, real workflow, not a toy example. It's the same sequence behind most podcast cleanup, voice memo touch-ups, and quick music edits people use Sound Forge for daily.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Sound Forge 2026 the same as Sound Forge Pro?
Sound Forge 2026 is the current Boris FX version of the audio editor previously marketed as Sound Forge Pro. Boris FX acquired the software from MAGIX on March 30, 2026, and now sells it in Sound Forge and Sound Forge Plus editions. Older Sound Forge Pro versions still exist and still run, but their licensing, support, and included effects differ from the current release.
Can I still follow this tutorial in an older Sound Forge Pro version or Sound Forge Audio Studio?
The core operations, opening a file, selecting, cutting, fading, applying an effect, checking levels, exporting, work the same way across recent versions. Some advanced processing, restoration, plug-in, and workflow features may not be available in Sound Forge Audio Studio, since its feature set has varied between generations. If a specific menu or effect doesn't match what you see, check which edition and version you're running.
Does Sound Forge have a free trial?
Yes. Boris FX offers a full-featured 15-day trial of Sound Forge. The full review and the pricing guide cover what's included and how the trial compares to a paid license.
Is Sound Forge a DAW or an audio editor?
Sound Forge is a single-file audio editor, not a full DAW. It's built for editing, restoring, and mastering one audio file at a time rather than arranging and mixing a multitrack production. For multitrack recording or MIDI work, you need a separate DAW alongside it.
Can Sound Forge edit multiple tracks at once?
Not as a DAW-style multitrack session. Sound Forge can record and handle multiple channels into a single file, but it doesn't provide the track-based arrangement, mixing, and automation environment a DAW does. For that kind of work, pair Sound Forge with a DAW rather than expecting it to replace one.
Should I export from Sound Forge as WAV or MP3?
Export WAV if you need archival quality or plan to edit the file further later, since it's uncompressed. Export MP3 if file size and easy sharing matter more than absolute quality, and remember to leave some peak headroom before encoding rather than normalizing straight to 0 dB.
Can I use Sound Forge on a Mac?
No. The current Sound Forge 2026 release requires Windows 11, and Boris FX does not currently offer a macOS edition. The Sound Forge for Mac guide covers the history of the discontinued Mac version and what to run instead if you're on Apple hardware.
Does Sound Forge edit audio destructively?
Sound Forge edits regular audio files destructively in its default editing mode, meaning applied processing changes the waveform. The current version also supports event-based editing, which allows a non-destructive workflow using adjustable events instead of permanent changes. Regardless of the mode you use, keep an untouched copy of important source recordings before applying restoration or mastering processing.
Continue Learning Sound Forge
Get started: Installation guide · System requirements · Recording audio
Edit and clean audio: Cutting and trimming · Noise reduction · Noise gate
Effects and mastering: Equalizer · Reverb · Plug-In Chainer · Mastering a track · Statistics and loudness
Export and automation: MP3 export · File conversion · Batch processing
Buying and comparisons: Full review · Pricing · Sound Forge vs Sound Forge Plus · Sound Forge vs Reaper · Sound Forge for Mac
Start here: Sound Forge Pro: The 2026 Guide