As we glide optimistically into 2023, let’s close out the year with our favourite music technology releases of its final month.
Avid Get With The Apple Silicon Programme
It feels like we’ve been waiting a lifetime for the promised Apple Silicon-native version of Pro Tools, but by the time you read this, it will at last be available, albeit in public beta form. Avid, it seems, are targeting early 2023 for a full “official and qualified” Apple Silicon build, and the public beta gives anyone who chooses to give it a go the chance to put the main Pro Tools application – minus various features and plugins – through its paces. Obviously, we wouldn’t recommend getting your actual projects involved in this, but it’s a major step towards satisfying the needs of the rapidly increasing number of M1 and M2 Mac-based Pro Tools users, who can ultimately expect significantly increased plugin counts from the new version.
The only remaining fly in the ointment once the final release build drops will be the high likelihood that not all of your third-party plugins will yet have been similarly updated and so might actually stop working in the Apple Silicon-native version of Pro Tools. This, annoyingly, is because even if a developer has already updated their VST/AU instruments or effects for native Apple Silicon compatibility, they still have to go through an entirely separate conversion process for AAX. They don’t like to make these things easy, Avid, do they?
Klevgrand Ride The Waves
We’re big fans of idiosyncratic Swedish developers Klevgrand’s diverse catalogue of quirky virtual effects, synths and drum machines, and their latest addition to it immediately qualifies as a highlight, introducing, as it does, a novel form of sample-based synthesis. Called Tomofon, the new plugin deploys what Klevgrand have dubbed ‘Audio Model’ technology to generate huge sets of oscillating waveforms from audio files (and, yes, you can import your own), which are mapped out across layered pitch zones. The synth then morphs between these layers and zones, and enables the application of filters, envelopes, LFOs and all that good stuff, to create sounds that are described as both “organic, and also like something out of this world”. Clearly, it’s not a million miles away from wavetable synthesis, and, indeed, the onboard wavetable editor gives a good degree of control over the arrangement, playback and morphing of the waves.
Wave Arts Keep Their Head In The 3D Audio Game
The end of ’22 saw American plugin house Wave Arts advance their lauded Panorama binaural spatialising processor to version 7, adding a position sequencer for “trajectory automation and beat-synced musical effects (auto-pan)”; extended panning range from +/-10 to +/-100 feet; a bigger, darker GUI; support for SOFA head-related impulse response formats; improved near-head accuracy, and more.
With its combination of 3D audio and acoustic modelling, Panorama 6 was already capable of conjuring impressive three-dimensional audio environments from stereo signals for listening via speakers or headphones, and v7 takes all of that to a whole new level, enabling expansion and animation of those virtual spaces, and ensuring compatibility with just about any HRIR you care to throw at it.
Owners of Panorama 6 can upgrade now for $25, while everyone else can take advantage of the current $99 intro price, which will rise to $149 at some point.
Accentize Resolve Your Speech Recording Woes
The second version of Accentize’s nifty voice track tidy-upper landed in the middle of December, making it easier than ever for content creators and podcasters to get their spoken word tracks in order. DialogueEnhance 2 brings together four discrete processors – Noise Reduction, Dynamics Control (compressor), Spectral Correction (EQ) and Loudness Boost (limiter) – each of which has had its algorithm improved and seen the addition of a dedicated visualiser, replacing the single waveform of v1. Every module apart from Noise Reduction can operate in Automatic mode, hunting down and correcting for its particular issue, or be adjusted manually in its simple control panel. Noise Reduction, meanwhile, finds constant noise (hum, fans, etc) by itself but does require the amount of volume reduction to be specified. As well as the aforementioned upgrades, DialogueEnhance 2 also introduces Static Mode for the Dynamics Control and Spectral Correction modules (locking the parameters once the Automatic mode has optimised them), and the ability to set the LUFS Loudness Boost target in dB.
You can get DialogueEnhance 2 this very day for £59, or chuck another 30 quid on top to get the equally brilliant DeRoom bundled with it, saving £12 on the price of both bought individually. Owners of v1, happily, can upgrade for free.
Sonible Make Limiting Pure And Simple
Along similar lines to DialogueEnhance 2, Sonible’s latest plugin aims to democratise the dark art of master limiting for musicians and podcasters through AI-driven automatic parameter setting. Simply select a musical genre (‘Acoustic’, ‘Electronic’, ‘Pop’, ‘R&B’, etc), ‘Speech’ or ‘Automatic’ from pure:limit’s profile menu, then play the loudest section of your source track into the plugin to have it dial in the optimal true peak limiting scheme for you, via automatic adjustment of the Style (Soft, Neutral or Hard), input Gain level and Inflate (a combination of saturation and bass enhancement) amount controls. Of course, you can then tweak all three parameters to taste if you like, but we’ve been genuinely impressed by the results achieved by the plugin under its own steam in our initial testing, so you might just be surprised at how little you actually need to.
A dream plugin for anyone looking to get their music mixes and other audio content ready for public consumption quickly and with minimal technical knowledge, pure:limit is currently on sale for €35, with a regular pricetag of €49. Watch Luke Goddard take it for a spin in our video.
Have we overlooked your top pick from December’s new releases? Tell us all about it in the comments.