Ronan Macdonald looks at five of the most useful music production utilities available for both Mac and Windows PC.
Last week, we took a tour of five must-have ancillary applications for Mac musicians. With the Windows PC-only arena coming up somewhat short, the second half of our round-up sees us going cross-platform…
Sononym
The first of two sample librarians in our list is a functional and aesthetic thing of beauty for Mac, PC and Linux that uses machine learning in its organisation of all your audio clips, no matter how numerous or disparate they may be. The first time you point Sononym at your library, it gets to work analysing every sample therein, automagically dividing them into loops and one-shots, tagging them by instrument type, and listing all manner of helpful info in its browser columns, from length and sample rate to peak and RMS volume, pitch and tempo. Once that’s done, you’re good to go, browsing, auditioning and searching by all the above parameters and more.
Most impressively, Sononym can also search for sounds by similarity to the current selection or any dragged-in or directly recorded sample, ranking their ‘closeness’ in terms of amplitude, pitch, timbre and frequency spectrum, as well as general similarity.
The generated database files can get pretty big, but Sononym’s power, approachability and speed – even with the most out-of-control libraries – make that a small price to pay. Superb.
Mixed In Key (Mac/PC)
A perennial favourite of digital DJs the world over, Mixed In Key deploys a proprietary key detection algorithm to categorise full songs by key, assisting in the execution of harmonic mixing when used in conjunction with software DJ systems such as Serato and Traktor.
Mixed In Key Studio Edition brings the same concept to the DAW, giving producers access to the same acclaimed technology in the form of a straightforward plugin, for the spectral scrutiny of individual track elements. Analysing the input in real time, it serves up the results as a series of vertical bars representing the ’strength’ of every chromatic note (or minor/major key) in the signal, and a percentage likelihood of the signal being in one or two detected keys.
Mixed In Key Studio Edition is decidedly basic in comparison to the full enchilada, but its ease of use and focused remit prove beneficial for studio workflows, making this a solid tool for ensuring harmonic integrity throughout the production process.
Bome MIDI Translator (Mac/PC)
An indispensable app for the adventurous electronic musician, MIDI Translator lets you work all kinds of magic with MIDI data and QWERTY keystrokes. In the broadest terms, it’s a multi-purpose routing, filtering and scripting system with which any MIDI signal can be edited, processed, converted, mapped to keystrokes or mouse movements, used to trigger AppleScripts and more.
Whether you’re looking to create your own MIDI mappings and routing schemes, or even control non-music software from your MIDI controller, MIDI Translator’s learning curve and involved setup are well worth negotiating.
Loopmasters Loopcloud (Mac/PC)
Our second sample librarian might not boast the smart analysis chops of Sononym, but it’s far more ambitious in what it lets you do with your audio files.
Given the company behind it, it should come as no surprise that Loopcloud is heavily geared towards the sale, download and organisation of Loopmasters samples – all of which it facilitates very effectively indeed – but you can, of course, also fly in your non-Loopmasters sounds. The big selling point is the nifty integrated eight-track audio sequencer: this lets you layer, sequence, manipulate and process loops and one-shots, and play them back in sync with your DAW through a linking plugin. There are some decent creative effects onboard, too, and a couple of very usable plugin instruments are included for playing curated Loopmasters drum and melodic libraries directly in-DAW.
A tiered subscription model offers a range of options to match all budgets, and a 30-day free trial gives you the full experience before you shell out. See Loopcloud in action in our tutorial video:
Check out our Loopcloud review
Audinate Dante Via (Mac/PC)
Dante’s amazing local- and LAN-based routing system not only enables Soundflower-style aggregation and reflowing of input and output signals on a single Mac or PC, but also turns every computer on a network into an audio ‘node’, capable of transmitting and receiving signals to and from any/every other computer on the same network, as well as connected Dante-Enabled hardware. So, you could, for example, send the output of a DAW on one computer all the way to the audio interface on another in a separate room, or output a live microphone input to multiple remote outputs.
Clearly, it isn’t something every producer needs, but Dante Via’s many and varied potential applications make it well worth checking out if your production setup involves more than one box. Find out more in our review:
Let us know your most cherished utility software in the comments.