Can editing sounds be as easy as editing pixels in a tool like Photoshop? That’s the question asked yet again by an audio editor, in the announcement of a new tool called Spectral Layers, seen in a new teaser.

Visualizing sound is not a simple problem, but you can do worse than the spectral view. Mapping frequency over time rather than just amplitude, the graphic spectrum illuminates components of a sound as we hear it, showing sonic energy of different frequencies in brightness and color. And audio editors have routinely made use of these views, whether as displays in various audio editors (some editable, some non-editable views), or in graphical tools like the ground-breaking MetaSynth. In fact, even Adobe themselves have weighed in on the “Photoshop for sound” notion with their own Soundbooth app, which, naturally, copies the toolset verbatim from the company’s flagship Photoshop image editor. See also: Photosounder, which perhaps comes closest to this tool, and SPEAR, which is available free on Mac and Windows and has some fascinating resynthesis features. (Spectral sound design probably deserves its own post, later on!)

Spectral Layers nonetheless looks to potentially break new ground by focusing entirely on the idea. Whereas many audio editing tools that use spectral views have had modest editing facilities, here, it’s the entire program — and with some nice twists. On-the-fly selection previewing means that you’re constantly listening to your audio, not just looking at it. Advanced selection brushes make honing in on certain parts of your sound more precise, including by essential harmonic editing tools. (We hear harmonic relationships intuitively, so editing wave spectra at the literal frequency, rather than in the logarithmic proportions with which we hear, doesn’t work nearly as well.)

Spectral Layers also works with visualizing spectra in more compelling ways than just the typical, two-dimensional frequency vs. time view. Three-dimensional visualizations make seeing details in the sound easier.

Then you get into the actual editing. The developers are promising some powerful features, from extraction to independent pitch and time transformations, all moving this well beyond eye candy to the realm of deep sound editing. (The UI shows other features as well.)

There’s a new UI tutorial, but some of the features in brief:

• Cross-platform Mac and Windows compatibility
• Non-destructive layers for editing, plus compositing audio either by adding or subtracting a selection from a sound. (The latter sounds fascinating for sound design.)
• A multi-pane UI, similar to tools from Apple and Adobe and familiar to people with a graphic software background.
• 32-bit float spectrum.
• Surround project support.
• Pattern matching algorithms for still more-sophisticated selection and editing.
• An “open project format” (presumably something XML-based or the like).
• SDK for file formats, devices, tools, and filters.

In other words, the whole thing sounds mind-blowing and gives us everything we’d want … on paper. Presently described as “alpha stage 2,” the tool is still in development. But we’ll be watching.

DIVIDE FRAME, the developer, is a Paris-based house led by engineer Robin Lobel. Unrelated to the music side of this site, they also have a GPU-based video decoder, but no trial of the audio software – yet. Stay tuned.

Spectral Layers

Updated: while this is just a teaser, lead developer Robin responds with some more details for CDM:

There are 4 categories of tools: info (to get extensive info on the spectrum), extract (brush, frequency, harmonics, multichannel, noise (wip), time (wip), and others incoming), modify (so far only erase/amplify, but much more coming to transform the sound, like blur and other graphical modifications), draw (any tool to directly draw sound, as frequencies, harmonics, noise, etc).

Available Q4 2011, no price range yet (expect it to be the high, but there will probably be a light, affordable version too)

3D visualisation can display both amplitude or phase velocity using the GPU (OpenGL), it is seamlessly integrated with the 2D view (right clic+drag to make it 3D as you want, double right clic reset to 2D)

I do independent R&D in audio/video for several years now, have worked in some French [post production] companies as R&D developer and [graphics artist], wanted to start my own business (first with GPU Decoder as a small project, then came Spectral Layers). Spectral Layers came from the need to get clean voice tracks when shooting movies (as I do short movies too), then I thought of extending the concept to a general purpose, Photoshop-like tool. iZotope RX and Adobe Audition were not enough for my needs — I found the spectral editing pretty limited — so I decided to do my own.

Thanks, Fahad, for the tip!

Let’s get this out of the way right at the beginning: dedicated audio editors are important. For sound design, for tweaking audio assets, and for just getting close to your sounds, editing waveforms in a DAW often doesn’t cut it.

That’s made a lot of Mac users unhappy, because it’s one of the few areas where the Mac platform lags seriously behind Windows in available choice. Windows users have been spoiled by choices like Sound Forge (now Sony), Adobe Audition, and Steinberg WaveLab, all three excellent editors that are functional and fast to work with. The Mac, meanwhile, has been all about BIAS Peak. And Peak has been divisive: some users love it, but others want an alternative. Possible choices like Adobe Soundbooth and Apple Soundtrack Pro, while useful in their own workflows, haven’t caught on with audio editors. (One notable “underground” choice is the favorite of many CDM readers – Audiofile Engineering’s Wave Editor – a smaller name, but I doubt WaveLab will shake the loyalty of its devoted users.) Clarification: okay, it depends on who you ask. See comments for some intelligent debate of my thesis here – yes, there are many options, including DSP Quattro and some lightweight choices like Amadeus. So, perhaps the real issue is Windows users migrating to the Mac (or cross-platform users with favored Windows editors) who don’t find something with which they’re comfortable. And yes, whether you really need a dedicated editor is all about how you work with assets – see comments.

Steinberg bringing WaveLab to the Mac is already turning a few heads, particularly among recent PC-to-Mac converts. (Even on Windows, with Adobe Audition having fallen behind, WaveLab may gain some ground.)

Don’t think it’s big news? Have a look at recent Facebook and Twitter activity and other chatter over the announcement. Amongst the elite sound design lovers, WaveLab is the news of the week. That’s a small group of people (as any of the developers of these apps will readily tell you), but they also have a big impact on the sound of media today.

The reworked interface still has a last-generation feel, but on the other hand, it’s functionality over form that defines this category. I’m still waiting to see some more material details, but Steinberg at least has a preview of what’s new in 7. Wading through their PR materials, I translate that to include:

• A new workspace UI built around dockable, scalable multiple windows and customizable toolbar. (I hate toolbars, so I may customize it by … turning it off. To each their own, though.)
• “Ground-up” re-engineering effort to support cross-platform Mac and Windows code (based on past experience, that may benefit the engineering on the Windows side, too)
• New VST3 restoration tools developed by Sonnox, including DeNoizer, DeBuzzer, DeClicker, and plug-ins gathered from Steinberg’s pro audio line, including the Nuendo Post Filter.
• New CD and DVD-A burning engine.

The inclusion of mastering and burning materials really puts this right opposite Peak – and for those of you who didn’t even bother with Peak, could fill in some key gaps in suites like Logic Studio (in case you aren’t a fan of Apple’s editor and burning tools).

I’m not a WaveLab user, though it’s always been a program I respected from a distance. So if you are an old-hat WaveLab lover, do get in touch; we may need to you to review the new release when it ships.

WaveLab 7 preview at Steinberg

SONAR 8.5, I’m sure at some point, was to be SONAR 9. There’s an enormous amount of functionality in this release. But I think the surprise is some of the stuff that won’t necessarily appeal to the widest audio production audience. Here’s a DAW that’s adding unusual new features for arranging tracks, putting an integrated arpeggiator on every track, beefing up its step sequencer (really), and dumping a bunch of class LinnDrum samples into the package. Those are the kind of treats we like in these parts.

SONAR is really a “DAW” in the traditional sense. It does everything. It doesn’t hide features. Given a choice between taking something out and putting something in, it puts the thing in. It has a lot of knobs and buttons. There are positives and negatives to the approach – it’s the reason some readers of this site return to software on game machines that has more in common with early Amiga software. But if you like the feeling of a packed studio, a tool like SONAR can be terrific. As much as I love Ableton Live for sound design and live performance, I find myself returning to something like SONAR for arrangement.

Even with its competitors packing in features, SONAR 8.5 is a tool that really loves MIDI, just as other software focuses on audio. And it’s one of the best-performing tools around. Because it’s so well-tuned for Windows, that means you can drop it onto a wide variety of PC hardware without spending a lot of cash. Most importantly, it could be the first software on any platform that convinces you to try a 64-bit OS – just at about the time you may be doing a fresh install of Windows 7.

Here’s a first run-down of what’s new in 8.5 that I’m personally most interested in:

MIDI lovers, step sequence and arpeggiate away. Every single instrument loaded in SONAR now has a step sequencer, and every track an arpeggiator. The new step sequencer has a lovely pane for controllers, deep control over each step, and probability controls. It could be reason enough to give SONAR 8.5 a try on its own. And yes, this does indeed take SONAR into FL Studio territory – but with a more conventional DAW bringing those kind of features together. FL users probably won’t be impressed, but if you longed for FL-style pattern sequencing but wanted to maintain an existing DAW, this could be for you.

Drum sound goodies. Session Drummer 3 has long been a nice virtual drum tool, and now improves routing and mixing to come closer to what it feels like miking a new drum. But let’s skip the acoustic kits and get straight to the electronic ones: yes, there’s an 808 and 909, as you’d hope given Cakewalk is now “Cakewalk by Roland” but there’s also a 707, a 727, and a Sequential Circuits Drumtraks and Linn Electronics LinnDrum. Oddly, you still have to look at a picture of a photorealistic drum kit – I’d like to see a visual representation of that LinnDrum, please. But it’s nice to have these sounds, unless you have a really big budget for eBay. There’s 2.5 GB of content, but I’ll skip to these files if I can.

Easier-to-edit audio. I gave Apple deserved props, I think, for making Flex Time’s implementation in Logic 9 elegant and allowing squishing of audio materials around. But what frustrated me about their tool was that you couldn’t take your warped audio and do other stuff with it. AudioSnap 2 could blow it out of the water. SONAR had this going before, but I frankly found some of the selection tools and interface a little off-putting. The UI has now been cleaned up, the Transient Tool makes it easier to grab trasients in your audio, and selection looks better. You can do tempo detection, mapping, and syncing, so that this is useful not only for smooshing around your recorded audio but also mapping it to a tempo. And most interestingly, the transients you find in Audio Snap can be integrated with the new Step Sequencer. There are also audio fidelity improvements for working with vocal, reed, and brass instruments.

A Media Browser brings files together. MIDI patterns, audio loops, grooves, and such can now be dragged-and-dropped into one place. That’s not a new idea, of course, but having custom presets for different locations is a welcome improvement (and why is it so hard to get other browsers to do that)?

A new way of improvising arrangements, “Matrix View.” A cell-based interface for non-linear triggering of audio and MIDI clips sounds like Ableton Live. But think of this more as an alternative way of trying out arrangement ideas. Because it loads from RAM only and not from the hard disk, and because SONAR is built more as a studio tool than a live tool, I don’t expect it to be a Live killer. But if you’re happy with the SONAR workflow and want to try out ideas in its environment, it could still be useful. (Cakewalk’s Project5 went a similar route, with similar results.) It’s just about the only copy I’ve seen of Ableton’s Session View, and it really does feel like a copy, so for that reason it’s probably the change I’m least interested in in SONAR. I do think there are other features here that are far more original, though.

You get strips for working with vocals and drums. For vocals, the VX-64 is a combination tube-emulation mic pre + de-esser + compressor/expander + tube EQ + doubler + delay + output strip, which I already loved after seeing it bundled with the VS-100 hardware. For drums, the PX-64 is a combination pre + transient shaper + compressor + expander + contour EQ + delay + output strip – so, roughly the same thing, with some drum-specific tweaks. Cakewalk has done a lovely job with these strips, and they could be the sort of thing that justifies SONAR’s investment. I can’t imagine not liking the PX-64 having enjoyed the VX-64, both for its audio quality and the ease of drag-and-drop routings.

Why you may finally go 64-bit. The BitBridge XR plug-in not only lets your 32-bit plug-ins work on the 64-bit operating system, but gives each of them 4 GB of RAM for up to 128 GB of RAM. That’s possible on the Mac side with Apple’s Logic – but only with its sampler, not with third-party plug-ins. And SONAR ships with a lot of 64-bit plug-ins in the box, not to mention that major vendors like Native Instruments are providing support.

Improved performance, Windows 7 ready. You can now hotswap audio and MIDI interfaces without restarting, and audio and stability are improved. And when you do get the Windows 7 upgrade – which, based on my research so far, you will want to do from either XP or Vista – SONAR has been rigorously tested. I don’t want to just repeat that without supporting evidence, though, so stay tuned for a separate story.

I still don’t think SONAR is for everyone – though, of course, I don’t really think anything is for everyone. (That’s the marketing people’s job, to claim that one product solves everyone’s problems.) Sitting in front of SONAR’s interface can still feel like getting into a jumbo jet cockpit. The Matrix View is not – and is apparently not intended to be – a replacement for Ableton Live’s live performance features. Open as SONAR is, I think it has new competition from the extensible architecture of Reaper. And, of course, all of this is meaningless to Mac users – though I hasten to add, while the Mac faces a tough 64-bit transition ahead, Windows users can grab SONAR, clean install 64-bit Windows 7, and possibly barely notice anything at all aside from a whole bunch of gobs of memory.

But I’ll say this: it’s funny how a few subtle changes can change how you think, but the combination of brilliant effects, this ridiculously-powerful step sequencer, and the possibility that AudioSnap really nails audio manipulation has me taking a second look at SONAR. Expect more details later this fall. (I’ll be writing this up for CDM and not Macworld for obvious reasons.)

Upgrades for existing SONAR 8 users are US$79 (Studio) – US$99 (Producer). If you purchased SONAR after July 1, the upgrade is free. For new users, SONAR is $499 for the Producer edition with the extra effects and instruments, or $299 for Studio without them. (But, really, I think you want the Z3TA+ synth; you’ll just have to trust me on that.)

Sonic scientist Peter Neubäcker of Melodyne has been wowing Internet audiences for some time with the automagical powers of the company’s Direct Note Access (DNA). The vision: manipulate individual pitches as easily as MIDI notes, even in polyphonic passages of a single instrument. At NAMM last month, the company showed the first product, Melodyne editor, due to ship in the spring for US/EUR 349.

There’s just one little catch: a solo developer has beaten them to the punch, at least prior to them shipping their DNA flagship editor tool. And if you want it right now, it’s yours for 25 Euros. (The final version will cost 99 Euros.)

Jonathan Schmid-Burgk, sole developer and a student at Harvard, announces:

The time has come to announce the release of the world’s first published polyphonic tone manipulation software. The dream of musicians to isolate single notes out of chords and so to manipulate most forms of recorded audio has come true on the 20th of January 2009.

Shell out EUR25, and you get a Mac VST plug-in that can manipulate audio easily. With monophonic audio, you can create polyphonic harmonizations. You can isolate and manipulate individual harmonics – meaning not only can you do pitch manipulations, but presumably sound design, as well. You can change individual notes or chords in recorded audio, to fix mistakes or (more interesting) actively recompose audio.

I feel about this the same way I do about Celemony: this gets really interesting when you use it for sound design. For some inspiration, skip this post and head straight for the sound samples on the site:

VisualVox polyphonic 0.9 [improvisator.de]

Via the awesome rekkerd.org

Also check out his Harmony Improvisator which creatively generates harmonies from MIDI input – an interesting thing to mess around with even for those of us who know / have taught (ahem) classical harmonic theory

Now, VisualVox Polyphonic isn’t without some catches, as you’d expect from the solo-student cheap alternative:

• It’s Mac-only and VST-only for now. (Just keep in mind, though, that means not only Cubase works but things like Ableton Live on the Mac, as well.)
• Jonathan warns that there are still some bugs, there are big temporary files, there are occasional glitches in the algorithm, and it doesn’t quite sync properly with hosts, requiring exports.
• The interface isn’t as slick or fancy as Celemony, and may be slightly less convenient for editing.
• Update – people are having some significant hosting issues with this. (Your mileage may vary, though the fact that this was tested in Cubase tells me those folks may have better luck.) So stay away if you don’t like bugs – this isn’t a final release. We’ll have more as this evolves, okay?

But here’s why I’m anxious to test it, nonetheless:

• It’s cheap – meaning it might be more open to people just curious to experiment. (I actually wonder if he shouldn’t keep the EUR25 price and make up for it on volume.)
• No iLok dongle, as required for Celemony. Correction: Celemony also allows challenge/response — so you have a choice.
• There are some interesting fine-tuning options for the algorithm and manipulation parameters. That could make this more interesting for sound design – and something even Celemony users might want to run alongside the more polished tool.

In other words, none of this is likely to dampen enthusiasm for Celemony, but that’s a good thing: more is more better. Could this mean the floodgates are about to open for creative sound design tools that mess with audio in new ways? Hey, I hope so.

If anyone tests this, we’d love your report – and sound examples.

Speaking of audio editors for the Mac, Adobe has its own wave-editing tool for Mac and Windows. Soundbooth is different from other entries in the field, in that its aim is really to woo a wide audience and not just those of us who work with sound regularly. Got a Flash project and need to make some quick sound effect adjustments? Making a swooshing noise for After Effects? Transcribing notes from a workshop session? Soundbooth CS4 is aimed at you.

Now, you can buy Soundbooth on its own for US$199 list, though I expect almost no one would. (For one thing, if you’re spending your hard-earned dollars on an audio editor, you’re likely to choose one of its rivals, like Adobe’s own superior Audition for Windows.) More likely, you’ll get Soundbooth as part of Adobe’s creative suite.

I actually quite like Soundbooth; because it was built from the ground up, it has a clean, elegant interface, and some unique features. Unfortunately, CS4 was not the step forward I hoped it would be for this fledgling tool. You can read a review by Mac guru Christopher Breen in Macworld; I know that review up and down as I was its tech editor.

Review: Adobe Soundbooth CS4 [Macworld]

Basic sound editor adopts more-advanced features

The problem I have with CS4 is that while adding multitrack capabilities make sense, the implementation just doesn’t seem finished. Many of the options in the wave editing view don’t work in multitrack view, including some you’d expect to work with multiple tracks visible, like adjusting effects, markers, and slicing up chunks of a waveform. (In every other program I’ve ever seen, those are mixing functions.) Apple Soundtrack Pro, Sony SoundForge, and Adobe’s own Audition all seamlessly allow multitrack edit working methods. I have a feeling we’ll just see this addressed in CS5, but Adobe, if you can manage a point-5 release of Soundbooth that fixes this, I’ll be the first to applaud.

Note that you can simply choose to stick to the Editor view and not bother with multitrack, which is what I’ve taken to doing. But needless to say, if Adobe wants audio newcomers to be comfortable with Soundbooth, these kind of idiosyncrasies won’t help.

It’s also a bit odd that Adobe allows non-destructive saves exclusively, rather than letting you “flatten” changes when you want to make them permanent.

Now, in my own Peak review, I complained about the lack of multitrack functions and non-destructive editing. Soundbooth CS4 demonstrates that it’s better to add these features late than add them half-baked, so BIAS, I’m willing to wait. But part of the reason I’m being a stickler on those issues is that I know it’s possible to add these to an audio tool successfully.

That said, I’m actually really happy to have Soundbooth around on my hard drive as an additional audio utility, alongside these other tools. I’ve got a stack of interviews to transcribe, so I’m eager to try that feature. Expect a report back (plus, hopefully, some published interviews with musicians) once I’m done.

The simple truth is, while Soundbooth doesn’t stand so well on its own, as an integrated part of Creative Suite, it’s fantastic. Let’s assume this is just an off release and the third version restores some of the fresh promise of the first.

For one last Macworld review, see my take for Macworld.com on Apple’s Soundtrack Pro – now, sadly, only available in Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio, not on its own (though the latter can be a nice option).

Soundtrack Pro 2.0.1: Improved editing and new features help you sync audio with video