Nero AG - Freeware - Nero Wave Editor is a program for editing and recording audio files.
See also Tweakheadz labs tips on compression/limiting. wave hammer v1.0a search results Descriptions containing wave hammer v1.0a. Voxengo also make a nice range of compressor, elephant 2 is a popular one.
WAVE HAMMER PLUGIN SOUND FORGE 8 FOR FREE
But most plug-ins have a specific sound, you could try the free compressor and master limiter from kjaerhus for free (some people like them a lot, I like the compressor better than soundforge's and the limiter is super easy to use but is set to limit at -0.2 db with no variation).
Wavehammer is actually a pretty decent limiter considering it comes in the box IMHO. Multi-band compressors can be useful but they also wreck a mix if placed in the hands of a newbie - by all means experiment but multi-band isn't always the answer but they help to correct bad mixes quite a bit if used properly. Wavehammer is mostly viewed as a limiter, although it incorporates a compressor some people often use their own compressor plug-in and bypass wavehammer's compressor. High-quality sound and ability of sound design, support for high resolution audio (maximum 768K 32-bit INT), DSD native playback / recording, full compatible to native 64-bit, professional bundled effects, batch processing and more can answer to professional sound engineers. You should check with the 3rd party first to ensure it will be compatible as some vst's (particularly those with copyright protection keys etc) are not always compatible. Sound it 8 Pro for Windows is a multi-functional and versatile audio editing, mastering and audio processing software. You can use many direct x or vst plug-ins from many 3rd party sources, Izotrope Ozone being one example mentioned. What you have to remember is that Soundforge is a good tool for editing and mastering but it's plug-ins while being functional and useable to a point, are not going to compare with UAD-1 or Waves plug-ins costing hundreds (and thousands) of dollars.