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audiokid 1 March 2017

Sony SpectraLayers Pro 3 Frequency Editing Software at a Glance:

  • A must-have app for forensics and audio restoration
  • Mastering tools let you fix problems after the mix
  • Spectral casting and molding let you create tighter mixes

A must-have app for forensics and audio restoration

From basic noise reduction to extreme sonic isolation, Sony SpectraLayers Pro 3 lets you perform sound-editing miracles with astonishing efficiency. Using SpectraLayers Pro 3's intuitive selection tools, you can easily select a specific frequency range, mark the pattern as noise, and remove or reduce those sounds from the mix. Likewise, SpectraLayers Pro 3's harmonic selection tool lets you smoothly isolate hum and other static noises, as well as their overtones, and phase cancel them.

Mastering tools let you fix problems after the mix
Virtually every engineer here at Sweetwater has had the eye-rolling experience of being told to "fix it in the mix." But what about when the mix is done? In the past, your options would have been pretty limited, but with Sony SpectraLayers Pro 3, the rules have change. That's because SpectraLayers Pro 3 lets you unmix your audio by selectively isolating frequencies, splitting them off to new layers, and even sending them out to other applications for further processing. And if you use Sony SoundForge Pro, then round-trip editing is virtually automatic.

Spectral casting and molding let you create tighter mixes
Lets take a moment to look at one of the most recent powerful additions to SpectraLayers Pro 3: spectral casting and molding. When it comes to mixing, this virtually automatic process is invaluable, because it lets you use one layer to carve a sonic hole in another layer, giving two conflicting tracks enough room to breathe. A textbook application for this is to import your mix minus vocals on one layer and to use your vocal stem on another layer to cast an impression on the rest of the mix. Another great use for this function is to resolve the sonic space between your bass and kick drum with far better results than traditional ducking.

Sony SpectraLayers Pro 3 Frequency Editing Software Features:

  • Powerful frequency-based spectral audio-editing tool for Mac and Windows PCs
  • An ideal solution for audio restoration, forensics, mixing, mastering, and sound design
  • Isolate, process, and mix frequency-specific layers of audio in a spectral environment
  • Intuitive user interface and frequency selection tools make operation simple
  • Rotatable 3D Displace view gives you a detailed and dimensional approach to editing
  • Powerful noise-reduction tools let you remove hum and noise with surgical precision
  • Automated round-trip integration with Sound Forge Pro streamlines advanced editing
  • Supports up to 24-bit/192kHz resolution and up to 8-channels of surround audio

 

Comments

audiokid Wed, 03/08/2017 - 20:48

terry Leigh Britton
Snagged an excerpt of your post off Samplitudes forum, how cool is this! Thanks for posting that.

As the name implies, it permits one to work with layers, a simple example being making a selection, copying and pasting that to a new layer, and inverting the phase of the new layer to remove that selection from audibility rather than erasing it, for non-destructive edits. But it gets far wilder in there! ("Spectral Casting" and "Spectral Molding" suggest so many "can't be done elsewhere" possibilities!)

audiokid Wed, 03/08/2017 - 20:58

Wow, my dream is coming true. I've been dreaming for the day where I can remove unwanted reflections out of a recording. How clean and identifiable this is right now will likely start improving at leaps. Its only a matter months where we are going to easily see the entire acoustic print of our studio reflections, and do things only imagined.

This technology is as exciting as MIDI was in the 80's. Its going to change the entire audio industry. Every part of audio has a colour to it, which can be linked and used to send or change data, a colour can be copied as stated above, duped and inverted to cancel out... . Think about that and you see why I am so jacked up about this technology, the Bricasti and acoustic emulation.

Focus on the performance, track it, search for the noise and ugliness in a spectralayer ... , wipe it out.

Terry Leigh Britton Fri, 03/10/2017 - 01:59

Just to clarify - Spectralayers Pro 4 is an additional purchase which you can obtain separately from Samplitude. It often goes on sale for half-price to Samplitude Pro X3 Suite owners, and I imagine to Sequoia owners as well. It is worth every penny even at full price, but if you can get it at half price, all the better!

All flavors of Samplitude (Pro X3 and Pro X3 Suite) have a track view called "Comparisonics Waveform Display" whereby you get to see your tracks in a spectral view where the frequency content is discernible overlaying the regular amplitude-based waveform. That makes finding regions where musical content exists extremely easy! (See video below)

Samplitude already comes with several spectral-editing related tools built-in, including the Spectral display and editing at track level, the regular version having a "Special Edition" lighter version, and Suite and Sequoia add the full "Cleaning" tools suite with its own full-blown "Spectral Cleaning" tool (logarithmic display only in Sequioa), but that is not as feature-rich as Spectralayers Pro 4. Still, it is very handy for taking out glitches! (See videos below) Samplitude Pro X3 Suite also comes with Sound Forge Pro 11 as well, and that is seamlessly integrated with Spectralayers Pro 4 once you buy that.

Here is a link to the Samplitude versions comparison page: http://www.magix-au…
And here is the link to the Spectralayers Pro 4 pages at Magix. There are more good videos and links to interesting articles in the first and third tabs! https://www.magix.c…

Terry

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