Waves Ltd., a supplier of DSP software for the professional audio and multimedia markets, announced two products of interest to Mac using musicians at this week’s NAMM Winter Show in Anaheim, CA. ( NAMM is the International Music Products Association).
The company’s new Renaissance Vox processor is available as a Digidesign TDM (Mac only) product, or as a Native (Mac or PC) product. Vox is optimized for vocal tracks, featuring an interface with just two controls and a display that controls a newly-designed compressor, gate, and precision limiter with automatic gain staging for clip-free maximization of vocals.
The Energy control adjusts the threshold of the multi-stage downward expander, and the Compression control adjusts the amount of compression and limiting while automatically providing output gain boost. This greatly simplifies Voxover or vocal track production by giving the user a one-knob adjustment for the most-needed compression and maximization of such tracks, according to Orly Nesher, COO of Waves. Copy protection is provided by a 24-hour online challenge/response system that keeps track of the user’s responses for easy reauthorization if a drive is reformatted, he added.
Waves also announced the L2-Ultramaximizer software Audio Processor, for Digidesign’s Pro Tools 24/Mix TDM systems — which is, ahem, Mac only. Precisely equivalent to the L2 hardware algorithms, the L2 software provides TDM users with the convenience of a software plug-in version, Nesher said.
The heart of the L2 Plug-in is the proprietary brick wall look-ahead peak limiter algorithms and IDR (Increased Digital Resolution) dithering technology. The L2 Ultramaximizer features 48-bit internal processing. The L2 Ultramaximizer performs high quality re-quantization to 24, 22, 20, 18, and 16-bit outputs, plus the Waves ARC (Auto Release Control) technology continuously controls the optimal release time for maximizing levels and minimizing audible distortions.
Full 48-bit fixed point processing (dual-precision) is carried throughout all internal processes for true 24-bit dithered output. Additional word lengths include 22, 20, 18, and 16-bit. Current sample rate support is the same as Pro Tools (44.1, 48kHz). The Waves L2 Ultramaximizer Processor is now available for Pro Tools 24|Mix Mac-based systems for a manufacturers suggested retail price of US$1,200.