Pitch-correction Plug-ins - Pitch-correction plug-ins are the key to the current trend for weird vocal effects. Here’s how to achieve them in Pro Tools.   Our Mike Thornton writes the Pro Tools Notes, Techniques and Workshop articles for Sound on Sound as well as reviewing many of the new Pro Tools related products. Note that you will need to be a subscriber to view the recent articles or you can choose to Click & Buy individual ones.

Broadcast & Production bundle - $799 from $1600 Sound Design Suite - $699 from $1400 360 Sound Tools - $599 from $1200 Video Sound Suite - $249 from $500 Go to the Waves Special Offer page for more details. WNS noise suppressor - $399 from $800 W43 noise suppressor - $99 from $200 UM225/226 stereo to surround upmix - $99 from $200 LoAir bass enhancement - $19 from $75 Again for more details go to the Waves Special Offers page. There are some stunning deals here. If you work in surround and have stereo legacy content (and who won't) then the UM225 and 226 are great value for money. The LoAir plug-in is a steal at $19 as is the W43 noise suppressor at $99

TC Electronic say in their newsletter....   At the recent AES Convention in New York City, Avid presented a new plug-in format for Pro Tools 10: AAX (Avid Audio eXtension). One of the most frequently asked questions we were asked during the show was how soon we would be able to support this new format.   We are proud to announce that our LM6 Radar Loudness Meter, which was also revealed at AES, will support the new AAX format right from the start.   LM6 Radar Loudness Meter will be available in VST, AU, RTAS and AAX Native versions Dec 2011.   So this will play nicely with either the new HDX hardware of an HD Native system.  However no news as to whether existing LM5D owners will get this version free or not.

I have been talking about Gobbler alot over the last 12 months, but haven't said too much about my experiences with it.   I have also been using Gobbler for ages and I respect that they have chosen the 'slow' route' to market, to test it for real with real users, yes OK they have used us to help their beta testing, but they have been very open about it, and we have had a free service in return.   Well in case you hadn't worked it out yet, I love Gobbler and use it a lot. For me it gives me that reliable off site backup that I hadn't got to date.  It is better than any of the other 'cloud based' backup options because it scans for sessions and then backs up everything inside the session folder. I really hope they can come to agreement with Avid and get proper acces to the session file so that Gobbler can read the session file and back up everything in the session file irrespective of where it is on the system. We used to have this feature with Mezzo Archiver in the days of tape based archiving but unfortunately that little company has gone to the wall. So it can be done, it has been done, so come on Avid and Gobbler please work it out soon.

Even though they have moved on to Pro Tools 10, Avid have released an update for Pro Tools 9, taking it up to v9.0.6.   Do read the pdf which lists out all the fixes, which are too many to list here, but also what I found even more interesting was the information listed under Compatibility in the pdf, the things that still break Pro Tools.  For example did you know that if you format your Mac drives using the 'Case Sensitive 'option Pro Tools won't record to them.   You can go to the appropriate pages on the Avid site to read more and download the update.

  Through Dec 31, you can get 25% off all Wave Arts products...  simply use this coupon code in our Online Store:   CPN22889572416   Please note this offer cannot be combined with other coupons, such as the educational discount.   MAC 64-BIT BETAS - VST AND AUWe are pleased to make public new Mac 64-bit beta versions of our Audio Unit and VST plug-ins.

This is mainly a bug fix update, as part of getting ready to take paying customers. Gobbler Version 0.9.7.1 Today we released our v 0.9.7.1 point release which addresses a number of crash bugs that some users were experiencing. Gobbler 0.9.7.1 Release Notes - November 28, 2011  Bugfixes and Improvements  Fixed a crash on Lion when handling Unicode in tags, Project names and Volume names. Fixed a crash on Lion when sending files and folders with Unicode characters in the filename. Fixed an issue that would cause Project or file names to appear blank in Leopard and Snow Leopard. Fixed a crash that sometimes occurred when closing and reopening the main Gobbler window. Fixed a graphical glitch that occurred when resizing the Send Files dialog Fixed a UI crash that would happen when quickly applying tags to projects. Fixed a crash when pausing or resuming file transfer. Don't forget that the deadline for getting 25GB of free space is running out. If you haven't signed up yet then I do recommend you sign up as soon as possible as the deadline is December 7th 2011.

iZotope have extended the $99 upgrade promo offer, for existing Ozone 4 customers like me, through to the new year.   This is what you will get....

  This is from their press release....   Flux:: Sound & Picture development release Elixir - Real True Peak Multichannel Limiter   French software company, Flux:: Sound & Picture Development, specialized in innovative software tools for the post-production and audio mastering industry, today announce the release of Elixir - The Premier Real True Peak Multichannel Limiter Plug-in

  As a nod to the American post-Thanksgiving Day ‘shop till you drop’ spirit, Sonnox has introduced their first Black Friday Sale.  Beginning at midnight GMT on Friday November 25, 2011, and continuing for 32 hours until 11.59pm PST (7.59am GMT Saturday 26th 2011), holiday shoppers will enjoy 50% Off List Price  on the following Native or TDM bundles - Sonnox Elite, Sonnox Essential, and Sonnox Enhance.   This offer is available from the Sonnox website only. Sales are limited to one bundle per iLok account.  This offer does not apply to Education Sales, and cannot be combined with any other promotion.   Any Black Friday purchase of native plug-ins will qualify for free updates to the new 64-bit versions planned for imminent release.      

If have done my calculations correctly that is 8:00 GMT. Looking forward to see what offers they will have....        

Although not strictly Pro Tools related but definitely Post related, there are a good number of sound effects collections  from  the likes of  BBC, Digiffects or Sound Ideas. But there is also a growing band of independent sound effects libraries that offer a very cost effective solution to purchasing sound effects. These are the ones I know about, if you know of any others then please do add them in the comments section at the bottom of the post.     Affordable Audio 4 Everyone Affordable Audio 4 Everyone was started in June 2011 by Daniel Gooding. The goal of this site is to provided SFX, with professional quality, and sounds that are unique enough for seasoned professionals to use and enjoy, but at the same time affordable enough for students interested in sound design to be able to purchase. Affordable Audio 4 Everyone donates any purchase over $5 to charities of those in need

I have been trying to decide which way to go with my Pro Tools rig.....   Do I keep my HD2/192 system on a Harpertown Mac and just upgrade to Pro Tools 10 HD software? Do I upgrade my HD2 to HDX? If so I will need to buy a new Mac and that isn't going to be cheap to get one that is as powerful as my current 8 core Harpertown. Do I cross grade my HD2 to HD Native?   With cash is short supply, option 1 would be the easiest but will leave me in a corner when Avid do the next upgrade. So at the moment the HD Native route is looking very interesting. I have been doing some research and the comments on the DUC have been very promising from those who actually have an HD Native system. There are alot of comments about latency performance of native systems but these appear to relate back to LE Native systems, rather than the HD Native system.

Back in April 2009 I posted about this and promised to produce a detailed guide… When making music documentaries iTunes has become such a convenient way to buy music but because of the consumer fair usage limits to get a track from iTunes into your Pro Tools session has involved burning an audio CD in iTunes and then ripping the CD into Pro Tools which takes time and wastes CDRs. However one of the upsides of the iTunes Plus format and Apple removing the DRM, is that it is possible to convert a purchased track in iTunes to a WAV file, export it, and import that into Pro Tools.   Recently Matt posted on comment asking when there might be an update on this, so for Matt, c-money and others, here it is….

Another one of our free help guides.   This guide is shows how to get your music out of iTunes and into a Pro Tools session.  

The guys at Gobbler are revving up ready to start taking on paying customers and today they have released a new version of their application, v0.9.7   New Features   Send To Public is here! Gobbler users now have the option to send files to anybody in the world, and they can download it without signing up for Gobbler.

The question of conforming and what is the best conforming software comes up regularly so I thought I would try and put together a compendium to help provide an FAQ on this subject.   Conforming applications do different things, and the confusion arises in the dual-use of the word "conform". For example,     Conform or Assembly  Titan handles the conforming (also known as "assembly") of production source multi-track audio to match the Avid/FCP audio cut from a rough mix guide audio track.  A number of people use Ediload to tidy up the EDL before putting it into Titan.   Since Pro Tools 7.2 the features under the 'Field Recorder Workflows' have progressively improved and people are using it in Pro Tools 9 for simpler smaller projects as long as the documentation is followed with best practice and the management of metadata.

I was scanning through the Post & Surround part of the DUC and found a post about mp4 codec recommendation question from Sparky3000...   Hey all, Forgive the question as I'm sure it's somewhere here, though I find me efforts with the search function at the DUC usually don't go well. (It's me, not the engine, I'm sure. :) )  Essentially, I've been working with DV vid for all of my mixes. (Longform shows.) I'm not getting stuff from out of town clients and converting from MP4 back to DV with Streamclip. Works OK, but seems to soften sync even more.  I've tried importing the MP4 directly, but it's always sluggish and choppy.  My system runs flawlessly with DV.  Any recommendations of a spec for an MP4 delivery that might work without converting to DV, or is this an "it is what it is" situation?   Thanks!  

As a way to say thank you to all the beta users Gobbler has a range of options.... All Beta users get a free year of Gobbler. Even though they will be launching price plans in February 2012, all beta users will pay nothing for the space you have, until 1st Feb 2013. On 1st Feb 2013 you will have the option to keep all that space for the lowest subscription rate of $7.95 as an ongoing thank you, no matter how much space you have acquired. If you choose not to subscribe to Gobbler then you will retain any bonus referral space you have earned.  So for example, if you were one of the early beta adopters and got 50GB and then through referrals you earned another 30GB, until 1st Feb 2013 you will have 80GB for free. On the 1st Feb 2013 your free allocation will drop to 30GB - ie the bonus referral space.   If as a beta user you find you don't have enough space for all your projects then you will be able to buy additional space at up to 60% off the planned pricing which Gobbler will announce in Feb 2012. Click here to get on the list and Gobbler will send you all the details.   But don't forget you only have until 7th Dec 2011 to sign up and get 25GB of free space. After 7th Dec when you sign up you will get 5GB of free space, so sign up soon.

Gobbler will be announcing today that from December 7th when you sign up for a beta account you will get 5GB of free space. So if you want 25GB of free space then you need to sign up before 7th December.   Existing users need not worry, you won't loose your existing space, this is a change for new accounts.       Gobbler will be announcing full pricing plans in February 2012 but there will be some great deals for users who need more space now. If you want to go go on a list to get details of these offers then sign up here.   There will also be deals and offers to say thank you to all the beta testers, more details on this very soon.