Monthly Archive for April, 2010

Aavid sends open letter to its customers on the Euphinix acquistion

Published on April 30, 2010 in announcement. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Avid has sent a letter out to its customers about their acquistion of Euphonix. Here it is…

In case you haven’t heard, we’re excited to announce that Avid has acquired Euphonix, a renowned leader in professional audio. We’d like to let you know why we were interested in Euphonix, and how this acquisition will benefit you.

So, why did we choose Euphonix?
Euphonix has long been a leader in professional audio, with an award-winning product line that complements our own audio products—from high-end broadcast mixing consoles to more affordable media controllers. By bringing its full range of consoles and control surfaces to our product portfolio, we can better meet the needs of a wider scope of audio professionals like you—from independent engineers to those in professional broadcast and audio post. We’re committed to the continued sales and support of the entire Euphonix product line, as well as our own C|24® and ICON consoles. In addition, we’ll keep the Euphonix product line open to work with third-party products, including those from:

• Apogee
• Apple
• Cakewalk
• Digital Audio Denmark
• Magix
• Merging Technologies
• Metric Halo
• MOTU
• Steinberg
• ToolsOnAir

How will this acquisition benefit you?

For starters, we plan to maintain and further enhance the EuCon protocol, which brings powerful Euphonix hardware control to multiple applications and platforms. Our goal is to make EuCon an open industry standard that greatly expands the compatibility between Euphonix control surfaces and a wide range of Avid® and third-party audio and video applications, including Pro Tools® and Media Composer®. This will greatly expand the control surface options available to you and open up many new creative opportunities.

We also recognize that audio and video workflows are converging, and plan to expand the capabilities of Euphonix’s controllers, such as the Artist Series, to work seamlessly with both audio and video tools. Not only will you be able to create content efficiently across multiple disciplines, your investment will become more cost-effective too.

With this acquisition, Avid continues to reinforce its ongoing commitment to the pro audio community while expanding its control surface options into the video community. If you’d like to discuss this or share your thoughts,  please join us in an open forum. And to get more familiar with Avid, we welcome you to sign up for our newsletter. Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,
The Avid Team

Waves add Post Pros to their team

Published on April 29, 2010 in announcement. 0 Comments Tags: .

Waves have finally added some post folk to their team of Waves Artists. This is what they said in their announcement…

Michael Barry, Benny Mouthon, Avi Laniado, Tom Ozanich & David Farmer join the Waves team.

Short and sweet together with a link that takes you to a page of photgraphs which you have to hover over to find the name. So to save hassle here are links to the 5 new entrants to the Waves team.

Michael Barry

Benny Mouthon

Avi Laniado

Tom Ozanich

David Farmer

Waves announce bug fix upgrade

Published on April 28, 2010 in announcement. 0 Comments Tags: , .

April 2010

Waves has just released new V7r9 installers. V7 Users: These new installers do not require new authorizations; they will uninstall all previously installed V7 plugins.

V7r9 installers include the following bug fixes:

Mac & PC:

  1. MultiRack Native: Memory no longer leaks when opening & closing sessions.
  2. SoundShifter: Audio is no longer delayed when processing more than one track.
  3. GTR Amp: DSP no longer crashes in HD mode.

Mac Only:

  1. Digital Performer “Bounce to Disk” is no longer “glitchy.”

Download Waves V7r9

Plug-in equivalents of DBX 128 sub harmonic synthesizer

Published on April 28, 2010 in tips. 0 Comments Tags: , .

There was an interesting post on the Digidesign User Conference recently about plug-ins that wok like the DBX 128 box. ‘Acacia’ asked…

Anyone know of a way to create a subharmonic synthesizer for a bass vocal support like with a DBX 128? I’m working with a producer and a take6 type vocal group and the producer just brought this up. I’ve never done what he’s talking about ITB. Any suggestions or plugs out that do this? LoAir? any others?

‘Delta Music Belgium’ responded..

Aphex Big Bottom Pro
BBE Sonic Suite

Or you could duplicate the track, use a pitch plug-in, pitch the sound 1 octave (-1200 cents) down and mix it with the original track (that’s basically what the DBX 128 did, pitch down 1 octave)

‘Rich Breen’ added…

LoAir is good. Also Lowender from Refuse software.

‘JFreak’ agreed…

LoAir is good. +1
Much better than Aphex 204 emulation…

‘GeneOuse’ suggested…

Waves MaxxBass and RBass is doing the same thing and is very useful on a lot of material.

‘Rich Breen’ replied…

Totally different processes and goals – MaxxBass attempts to enhance low end perception on a wide array of playback systems by generating upper harmonics (in addition to some dynamics processing, etc…). LoAir, Lowender, DBX120x, etc… all generate subharmonics – usually (though not always) intended for extended low frequency playback systems. Both are useful effects, but they are very different sounding.

‘acacia’ who orginally asked thequestion came back and said…

You guys are amazing! Thanks! I’m favoring Lo Air. I have the Aphex and Waves stuff. I’m not seeing a way to blend / mix the Lo Air unless I double the track and remove the direct. Any other ways you’ve worked it?

‘Rich Breen’ responded…

usually done as a send to an aux return with subharmonic generator instantiated on the aux, all direct muted.

‘blairl’ added…

Recti-Fi is part of a free plug-in suite from Digidesign called D-Fi and has a subharmonic generator.

‘acacia’ replied…

Thanks Rich! I didn’t realize that about recti-fi. I’ll mess with it. Thanks all!

‘JMDNYC’ suggested..

If you’re on PT 8 then you have the AIR Enhancer. Preset 04 is called “Bass Boost.” That’s what I’m currently using on an LFE aux.

‘scottgreiner’ chipped in with…

Lowender was great. Seems that Pluggo doesn’t work for me anymore, so no more Lowender. Hope Leigh gets the RTAS version done soon…

‘digidesigner’ added…

still at least RenBass generates an octave below original too… I can hear it and see it on my RTA

‘scottgreiner’ misses his hardware box…

Had one, sold it. Missed it, and bought a Furman Punch-10. Sold it after using Lowender for a while. Now Lowender isn’t working… Ah good ol’ hardware – why did I sell ye…

An interesting debate with quite a few plug-ins to try and I would agree about wanting to get LowEnder back now Pluggo has gone away.

Hidden keyboard shortcuts part 4

Published on April 26, 2010 in tips. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Here is another batch of keyboard shortcuts, following on from part , part 2 & part 3.

Auto and Input monitoring
Perhaps more useful for LE users as TDM users now have a seperate Input Monitor button on each track. Alt+K will toggle between Input Only and Auto Input modes.

Creating New Tracks
When you create a new track use Shift+Command+N and the New Track window will open. Then you can use the Command+Left or Right Arrow to choose Stereo, Mono etc, and Command+Up or Down Arrow keys to select from Audio, Aux, Master or Midi tracks. Finally use Command+Alt+Up or Down Arrow keys to select Samples or Ticks.

Using the Trim Tool to fill
Have you ever wanted to trim out a region precisely to a preceding one.  Well you can by holding down the Control key and trimming Pro Tools will stop at the preceding region’s edge.  This works with the Trim tool in TC/E mode too so enabling you to precisely fill or stretch to fit.  Neat or what!

More on video problems with Pro Tools 8.0.3

Published on April 23, 2010 in problem and update. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Following my posts on the problems with Canopus boxes and Pro Tools 8.0.3 here, here and here as well as the jerky video problems I have posted on and the video compendium I posted about here and here, there has been a couple of interesting posts on the Pro Tools 8.0.3 Big Bug thread on the Digidesign User Conference. Matt Faddy posted….

I know this won’t help your immediate problems but we were using the ADVC 100 and 110 ‘s for years and always had constant issues with them (I have 8 broken ones stacked up in our machine room) – They were unbelievably temperamental and over the years I have grown to despise them but unfortunately they were always a necessary evil. We switched to Black magic intensity pro pci cards a few months ago and they are brilliant. Rock solid, support a few formats and have HDMI as well as component and composite O/P’s – the best thing about them though is they are even cheaper than Canopus ADVC 110′s ! The only drawback is they use an extra slot so if you’re running an HD3 system you’ll need an expansion chassis.

and ‘filmsdunjour’ responded…

Attention PAL users.  I’ve posted a thread here. The Blackmagic cards have a major problem in SD PAL (haven’t tested SD NTSC but I guess it’s working fine, 1080i50 is perfect) using ProTools HD 8.0.3cs(1&2) on Mac OS X.5.8, even with the latest Blackmagic drivers.
Image quality is terrible (jerky and aliased) on both HDMI and SD analog outputs. The outputs are perfect on Final Cut Pro, so it’s a software issue.
I think it’s related to the way Pro-Tools automatically sets-up the output’s resolution. Final Cut Pro works fine because the set-up is manual (you have to change it when going from SD-HD-PAL-NTSC)
Sadly the ADVC110 is the only option (don’t know about mojo) to have a “nice” image in SD PAL…

Clearly this problem still has some mileage to run before it is resolved!

Comparative review of Waves DNS and Cedar DNS one on Digidesign User Conference

Published on April 23, 2010 in tips. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

This has been a question I have wanted that answer to since Waves WNS and Cedar DNS came out.

Well on the Cedar DNS One RTAS plug-in thread on the Digidesign User Conference one user has finally done a comparative review of them both as well as WaveArts MultiDynamics and Cedar’s DNS 2000 hardware box.

So thanks to ‘Brandonx1′ for this…

I finally got a chance to do a shoot out between my old favorite, Wave Arts Multi Dynamics, the DNS One, the Waves WNS, and the hardware DNS 2000. Hear is what I learned.

Wavearts Mutli Dynamics: when used correctly can be very effective at reducing broadband.

Waves WNS: Sounds like a multiband compressor to me. Better then the multi dynamics because it more focused but still the same sound. When the voice comes in the noise pumps.

DNS one: The best one hands down. It’s not a multiband compressor. It takes broadband out even when audio you want to keep comes in. It doesn’t pump.

DNS 2000: The same sound as the DNS One. One note, switching the plug in from the DNS One to the DNS 2000 in not the same. The DNS 2000 had to be re-adjusted to sound the same.

All in all the WNS will work if the DX is being covered with music or something. Cedar does not need this kind of covering. It sounds natural all on its own.

‘Mikerophonics’ chipped in…

When I did my test  – which was with one long cue only I only had to compensate for the io delay round trip – but to all intents the software version nulled the hardware one to a high degree.

Brandonx1 replied…

I had a different experience. Maybe somehow the dns 2000 was getting the audio at a lower level then the dns one rtas plug in. I just made a hardware insert on the same track as the plug in. Then just changed the dns plug in from dns one to dns 2000. It was a digital insert out 15/16 of the second 192 digital. I did not set up the room so maybe somehow the digital io was not cali’ed correctly? never heard of that but maybe. It seemed to be a threshold level change for the most part. Any recommendations to make them null? That would actually help because I do mostly off site mixing. Layback at other peoples studios.

garnoil also posted an interesting view on what these various devices do and now they sound…

I have used DNS 3000 and now I use my own DNS One,  Right now I am running several instances of the DNs One on 2 feature films.  I think it is better than the hardware version, much cheaper (considering that I can run as many instances as I need), easier to automate, very fast to set up and intuitively use, and sounds great. I also use Izotope, this combination it is unbeatable for the price. Another  thing that I would want to point out is that, the DNS One, because CEDAR systems are used in Hollywood films, does produce a very, -high end sounding, big budget type sound, even with modest quality recordings (but it does not do miracles)-.  It is hard to describe what that sound is -how it actually translates the dialogue sound- but it is absolutely not the same sound of a multi-band compressor (although they are effective and have their place), or the sound of  broad band de-noising that can leave digital artifacts (watery sound).

Well there you have it, if you need one of these devices the Cedar DNS one is the one to have, better stat saving up my pennies!

Do I need Waves 360 bundle on an LE rig?

Published on April 19, 2010 in tips. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

This was a question asked recently by ‘mikevarela’ recently on the Digidesign User Conference, he asked…

Moved to surround in my home studio (LE) and was wondering about the importance of a surround bundle. Do any of you use? Have some questions too.

I know one of the plugs (360 manager) has a matrix functionality, but will it code an LtRt or LoRo from surround. I’m thinking no, but can’t seem to understand from their online documentation.
Also, how important is it to have a few plugs like the ones available for surround mixing?
I have TL Space and am probably gonna get Altiverb, but wondering how much of the other stuff gets used. It s quite expensive.

‘mr.armadillo’ replied….

No. The 360 manager is a bass management and monitoring plug-in. The 360 mixdown plug-in can create Lo/Ro. You can’t create an Lt/Rt with Waves’ bundle. You’ll need Dolby Surround Tools. I own the bundle and really like the R360 Reverb, the L360, and I use the LFE360 on every session. Those are nice to have. However, you don’t really need it if you mix surround IMO.

‘infiniteloop’ added…

The waves surround bundle is probably slightly overkill for an LE system. You can get the UM226 upmixer separately, it’s the same as the surround spreader in 360, and you can upgrade your Neyrinck encoder to LtRt cheap. That’s all i’ve found I really need from the bundle, plus the Neyrinck is a proper Dolby encoder rather than “LR wide” in the Waves bundle. There, you’ve saved about $1400!

Any one else got some experiences of working in surround on LE rigs and would care to share them, then please add your comments to this post.

Hidden keyboard shortcuts part 3

Published on April 16, 2010 in tips. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Here is another batch of keyboard shortcuts, following on from part 1 & part 2.

Viewing selected track in other window (Edit & Mix)
By using Control+Click on any track in the Edit Window will force the Mix window to scroll along so that that track appears as first visible track on the far left of the Mix window (or as far left as possible). This also works the other way so Control+Click on a track name in the Mix window will put the selected track at the top of the Edit window (or as high as possible). This is great for large sessions on 2 screen systems where you have the Edit window on one screen and the Mix window on the other.

Fat Mix Windows
Command+Alt+Control+Click on a Meter in the Edit or Mix window will toggle between fat and normal meters on all tracks in both the Edit & Mix window.

Regions and editing
We all know how to duplicate a region so it repeats after itself but here is a way of getting it to repeat a region before itself. To copy backwards Control+Alt+Command+Click the region and hey presto a duplicate will appear butted up before the original.

Renaming tracks
When naming multiple tracks use Command+Right Arrow to select the next track to be named. Alternatively having named the first track instead of hitting the Return key, which is the natural thing to do, use Command+Return and you get the next track ready to rename. This one falls very nicely under the fingers.

Editing Groups
Have you ever wanted add or remove a track from a group and ended up creating a new group and then deleting the old one, what a pain! Well you can edit a group.
To do this select all the tracks you now want to be in that group in the normal way and use Command+G as if to create a new group. Now change the group ID to match the group you want to edit. Finally click OK and that group will contain the new selection of tracks.

April offers from Waves

Published on April 15, 2010 in announcement. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

This month, Waves are offering 25% off their 50 plug-in bundle Horizon, see their web site for more details.

Also in April they are offering 25% off their main mastering limiter plug-ins L2 Ultramaximizer, L3 Multimaximizer and L3-16 Multimaximizer.

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