When it comes to technology it can be hard to appreciate the progress being made today. When I think back to the late 90s and early 2000s it seemed like new ground was being broken every day as computers became powerful enough to do real audio work and a wealth of new ideas were realised in plugin and software development.
It can be easy to think that everything has been done, that the new developments today are just tweaks, covering old ground in slightly different ways or finding solutions to problems no-one really has. But is that fair? We think not and here are five example of audio technologies which really made a difference to the last ten or so years:
ARA
Conventional plugin formats like AAX, VST and AU only have access to a limited amount of information from the host DAW. In much the same way as the analogue hardware many plugins seek to emulate only hear the instantaneous output from the track on which they are inserted, plugins also only hear the music one note at a time - never seeing the context in which those individual notes sit.
Audio Random Access, or ARA offers plugins “random access”, in the sense of non-linear access, to the audio. This allows an ARA compatible plugin to ‘see’ the audio it is processing in the context of the performance from which it originates. Replacing the need for tedious and time-consuming transfers between DAW and other applications (and back again).
ARA was developed in 2011 as a collaboration between Celemony, makers of Melodyne, and PreSonus, makers of Studio One. The fact that ARA was developed by both a plugin manufacturer and the makers of a DAW may well be an important part of its success. Now in its second iteration, ARA2 allows the simultaneous editing of multiple tracks, the transfer of chord track information and much more besides.
The ARA API is an extension to existing plugin formats and for tools which deal with fine-tuning performances it offers huge workflow benefits. As well as Melodyne other solutions for tightening the tuning and timing of performances use ARA including Synchro Arts’ Revoice Pro, Acon Digital’s Acoustica, iZotope RX, Sound Radix’s Auto Align Post and Antares’ Auto Tune Pro. Not all DAWs are ARA compatible, Pro Tools being a notable example, and not all ARA 2 plugins are compatible with all hosts, for example Auto Tune Pro is only compatible with Studio One.
Regardless of the details ARA has enabled both plugins and DAWs to realise their potential when dealing with performances across DAW sessions and as we all know, faster work is usually better work.
Loudness Normalisation
It might come a surprise to people who haven’t been working in audio a long time but the ability to meaningfully measure the sensation of ‘Loudness’ is comparatively recent. Since the establishment of loudness standards a little more than ten years ago this technology has provided a workable solution to some persistent problems in the audio world. Loudness standards are of course bread and butter to people working in Post. It’s too large a subject to do more than refer to here but it you want to know more we have extensive resources on the site and if you’re unsure where to start, start here with our article Loudness - Everything You Need To Know
For people exclusively mixing music the subject of loudness has taken rather longer to impact their world but since the major streaming platforms adopted a system of loudness normalisation the decades long Loudness War has effectively ended. In this article from 2017 Mike Thornton covers some of the issues around Loudness normalisation for music including the debate between track and album normalisation.
And to hear how things stood last year here is an article based on a transcript of a podcast conversation between Mike, Bob Katz and Rob Byers in which they discuss the effect loudness normalisation and streaming has had on the approach mastering engineers need to take. But the effect of loudness measurement goes beyond measuring the finished mix. Tools like Sound Radix’s POWAIR includes a leveller section which is as effective as it is precisely because it does what it does based on the loudness of the input signal, not its peak or RMS level. A very powerful tool.
Unmixing Software
Our understanding of what is and what isn’t possible in audio processing is still largely based on what was possible in the analogue domain. Manipulating gain, applying filters and the like. I know I’m still quietly impressed with Mid Side so the idea of separating out the constituent parts of a multitrack recording is as illogical as unmixing different colours of paint. However it is possible and while not perfect, it’s improving every year. If I was in charge of a vault full of multitrack of classic albums I’d be thinking about how to monetise them quick, before someone unscrupulous did it for me! For example Presonus and Mix The Music offer paid access to a library of multitrack of commercial releases for educational use only. However if you want to manipulate the individual elements of a mixed track tools such as the Music Rebalance module in iZotope’s RX which allows the principal ‘food groups’ of drums, bass, percussion and the like to be rebalanced against each other, or to completely isolate or remove an element RipX Deep Audio from Hit’n’Mix offers the remixer’s holy grail of stem separation from mixed material. It’s not perfect but it can create surprisingly good ‘mix minus’ versions and tucked into a mix you’d probably find isolated vocals useable. Considering how much better this technology is getting year on year It won’t be long before we can solo elements from a stereo print as if we had the multitrack.
Next Gen Noise Reduction
If you want to see the perfect example of a technology which has redefined what is and isn’t possible in audio then look no further than noise reduction. Go back 20 years and be reminded of what was referred to as ‘single-ended noise reduction’, to differentiate itself from analogue companding systems like Dolby and DBX noise reduction for tape use. Something like Digidesign’s DINR, which amazingly is still available on the Avid website. These tools were impressive at the time because the alternative was using EQ or gating but try them against the current best in class today and there is no comparison.
From the complex and comprehensive tools like RX or those from Acon Digital to the twist-and-go simplicity check out Waves’ Clarity VX. The effects of clever design, computer power and AI are all illustrated by startlingly good results!
Mic Modelling
The well-worn advice when it comes to gear of spend your money on good ‘transducers’ has got a bit more complicated in the last decade. Transducers in this case refers to microphones and speakers, the bits which turn sound into electricity and back again. Speaker calibration has helped raise the performance of many monitoring systems. Ideally it isn’t an alternative to good acoustics but we know that many people use it as such, but microphones used to be a case where multiple mic options were necessary if you wanted to access different flavours of sound on the way in. After all, darkening down a condenser with EQ doesn’t make it sound like a ribbon, there’s much more to it than that.
Microphone modelling, using a known ‘reference’ mic for capture and imposing the characteristics of other mic models onto that capture was first introduced by Slate and has since been offered by other companies like Townsend Labs and Antelope. The effectiveness of these systems, particularly those which model the off-axis response accurately, is remarkable and stories of engineers who have the coveted classics being modelled in their possession but choosing to use a mic modelling system for convenience or for workflow reasons are not uncommon.
Is there a technology of the last ten or so years which you think represents a sea change in what is possible in audio production? Progress is something which gets easier to see the longer ago it happened. What do you think we’ll be talking about in another 10 years which had as large an effect as Auto-tune or the sampler did all those years ago. Share your thoughts in the comments.
Photo by Antony Trivet