Dialog is a key part of any movie, television show, documentary, or for that matter, any creative media production involving the spoken word. Add to the mix a sweeping musical score, dozens of foley effects, and plenty more – and it becomes clear the job of dialog mixing is a tall order. After all, if you can’t hear what the actors are saying, you loose the flow of the narrative and the story telling is broken.
Follow The Story Of How The SA-2 Dialog Processor Came About
The McDSP SA-2 Dialog Processor is based on hardware originally conceived by Academy Award winning re-recording mixer Mike Minkler (Black Hawk Down, Star Wars, Dreamgirls) and used on over 100 major motion pictures.
In this video you can hear the Mike talk about how he turned to McDSP to create an exclusive digital recreation of his favorite tool in his dialog mixing chain.
More About The McDSP SA-2 Dialog Processor
The SA-2 is designed to improve the overall sound of recorded speech. But the SA-2 is not just for dialog. It’s equally useful for vocals, and is a great tool for adjusting the timbre of any track, a reliable de-esser, and a fine multi-frequency compressor, in our completely biased opinion.
The SA-2 Dialog Processor is made up of 5 bands of strategic active equalization, configured in a variety of modes to best address common issues of dialog. Each band of active equalization has a threshold control to determine at what signal level the active equalizer begins to effect the signal. There are also enable buttons for each band to quickly audition the effect of any given band. Two mode selectors – one for controlling the ballistics of the active equalization, and a second for placing the five bands at strategic locations in the frequency spectrum. Finally, there are input and output gain controls for overall adjustment.
SA-2 Dialog Processor Available As An AAX DSP Plug-in Too
Being McDSP it is available in AAX Native and AAX DSP formats and the pricing is amazing too.. The SA-2 HD will be available for $249, with the SA-2 Native available for only $149. However when I went on the store without logging in I was offered the SA-2HD for $124 and the SA-2 Native for $74!
McDSP Announce v6.1 Release
McDSP is proud to announce the release of v6.1, adding the all-new SA-2 Dialog Processor plug-in, along with a number of added tools and support for many McDSP plug-ins.
- SA-2 Dialog Processor plug-in
- Revolver Impulse Response Creation Tools now available for AAX format (as Audio Suite)
- Support for Sonar (VST/VST3 versions)
- Support for S6 EQ and Dynamics curve data display (AAX only)
All current Everything Pack v6 owners will get the SA-2 Dialog Processor for free. You will simply need to download the latest installer on the McDSP website. All current McDSP plug-in owners can download the v6.1 release for free at the McDSP downloads page.