We have had a lot of new stories come in recently and so we have grouped them together into a roundup story. In this edition, we learn about a new EQ plug-in from Kilohearts, a coherence meter from HoRNet, Gatekeeper from Polyverse Music and Infected Mushroom and a new high order bundle of Ambisonics plug-ins from Noise Makers.
Kilohearts Announces Carve EQ plug-in
Swedish plug-in developer Kilohearts has released Carve EQ, designed to be a transparent equaliser plug-in for mixing, mastering and sound design. It's also compatible with Kilohearts' Snap Heap and Multipass effects rack plugins and priced at €79.
The Sculpting tool has been designed to cut or boost width-adjustable peaking bands, the Pencil tool to draw freehand, and the Point Select tool to drag breakpoints around in the curve. It supports stereo and MS processing or unlinked for editing as two independent curves. There is also a Match tool to capture the frequency profile of one track or sound and apply it to another.
Carve EQ also features a responsive spectral analyser, showing you exactly what effect your frequency adjustments are having on the signal. There is a resizable GUI and Kilohearts' aim is that Carve EQ is surgical enough for the full gamut of mixing duties, and with the all smoothness and transparency required for a place in the mastering chain.
HoRNet Plug-ins Release Coherence Meter Plug-in
Saverio from HoRNet Plugins has been in touch to tell us about Coherence Meter which they have designed to show users if your mixes are well balanced and ready to be mastered or not, and in case they are not, gives you helpful insights on where they are wrong and if used during the mix stage will help you keep your desired dynamic range.
This new metering plug-in is built upon a mixing and mastering technique that involves comparing the input signal (your mix) with a reference level, then through dynamics analysis display any differences between that ideal behaviour and your mix, giving you insight on how your mix will behave when mastered.
Coherence meter doesn't have a demo option, instead, they offer a 15 days 100% money back guarantee if you don't like the plug-in. The plug-in is priced at 8.99 Euros
Infected Mushroom and Polyverse Music Release Gatekeeper Plug-in
Polyverse Music and Infected Mushroom have released their third plug-in, Gatekeeper, which is a volume modulator designed to produce sequenced volume patterns, MIDI gates, stutter effects, ducking (pseudo sidechain), planned dynamics, creative gain clipping, and more.
Gatekeeper has been designed to allow users to automate fast volume envelopes for your sound source - to give punchy gating and sequencing while keeping output smooth.
Gatekeeper can also act as an LFO, envelope, step sequencer, sample accurate automation and more. Curve brushes and an elaborate shortcut system are intended to make drawing automation fun and easy. The plug-in's 8 envelopes can be triggered via MIDI input, and can even produce CV output for external hardware such as modular synthesizers.
Gatekeeper is available in AAX, VST, and AU formats, and can be used in 32/64-bit instances with Windows XP and up as well as Mac OS X 10.6 and up.
Gatekeeper is available from Polyverse Music for $49 USD.
Noise Makers Release The Ambi Bundle HD High Order Ambisonics Plug-ins
With the support of Ambisonics in Pro Tools Noise Makers have now released a range of plug-ins that support higher order Ambisonics which offer a major improvement in terms of localisation accuracy and immersion.
The release includes Ambi Pan HD, Ambi Limiter HD and Ambi Head HD. You can combine these tools to suit your workflow to create immersive music and audio for games, 360 videos and VR.
Ambi Pan HD : 3D panner to position sounds in the ambisonic scene. Ambi Pan HD accepts multiple input formats (mono/stereo/5.1/7.1/8.0) and outputs 4 (1rst order), 9 (2nd order) or 16 (3rd order) ambisonic audio channels. A transparent window allows to pan on top of a 360 video in equirectangular mode.
Ambi Limiter HD : precisely control the peak level of the ambisonic master bus. This is crucial when exporting ambiX to 360 video platforms, each one having a specific clipping threshold (e.g., Samsung VR, Youtube, Facebook and others). Ambi Limiter HD is an ideal tool to avoid clipping and achieve level maximization on each platform.
Ambi Head HD : converts ambisonics to binaural, for 3D monitoring over headphones. Ambi Head HD includes two new High Order Ambisonic (HOA) HRTF sets, one specifically designed by Sennheiser/AMBEO to reproduce the legendary Neumann KU 100, the other designed by Google for Youtube and VR applications. Both filter sets support HOA inputs up to order 3.
Pricing : Noise Makers tell us that the regular price for the bundle is 479 Euros, with a special price of 229 Euros for indies and educational users) with a special launch price at 299 Euros until the end of 2017.