Routing channels to hardware outputs
If you’re working with multichannel files and have a sound card with multiple outputs, Sound Forge provides you with a great deal of flexibility in routing the channels to the outputs on your sound card: you can route each channel to a separate output, or you can route all the stereo pairs to a single set of outputs to simulate a stereo downmix.
The Hardware Meters window displays a meter and gain fader for each enabled output port. For more information, see Using the hardware meters on page 111.
You can change channel assignments from the Audio tab in the Preferences dialog or the Channel Meters window. Changing the setting in either location updates your preferences and affects all open data windows. For information about using the Audio tab of the Preferences dialog to enable and map channels, see Audio tab on page 322.
To change a channel’s output device using the Channel Meters window, click the channel number and choose a new output port from the menu.
Opening and editing multichannel audio files
If you’ve used Sound Forge to edit stereo files before, you already know everything you need to know to edit multichannel files.
You can open multichannel audio files just like any other supported media type. For more information, see Getting media files on page 55.
When you open the file, you’ll notice that the data window displays the channels as stereo pairs:
You can then edit the file just as you would any mono or stereo file.
Click the Minimize button (
) to reduce the height of individual channels, or click the Restore button (
) to restore a channel’s height. Hold Shift while clicking a Minimize button (
) to minimize all channels except the one you clicked.
Tip: You can use the Display tab in the Preferences dialog to change the colors used to represent each channel. For more information, see Display tab on page 314.
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