AAX Plug-Ins That Got Mike's Attention In 2013
Russ has listed the key plug-ins for him in 2013 and as promised here are mine. With Pro Tools 11 announced in April and launched at the end of June, 2013 has been a very busy year, but even though developers have been very busy releasing AAX 64 bit versions of plug-ins thee has also been alot of innovation in 2013 in the plug-in world.
Although this list isn’t in any special order, this plug-in has to be my number one as it saves my life and most importantly the lives of my clients on an almost daily basis.
I was privileged to be invited by iZotope to present the first public demonstration of RX3 Advanced at the CPUG Supermeet at IBC in September. You can watch my presentation here and then you can try it out for yourself. Also you can check out my new RX3 Explained series from Groove 3 with 4.5 hours of videos on how to get the best out of RX3 and RX3 Advanced. This has to be my product of the year for 2013.
This is a great plug-in that I am using more and more, whether it is as a protection limiter to make sure I don’t go above peak level or when I need to crush something without nasty side effects it will do that too. Check out my review on the Avid Pro Limiter for post and Russ’s review for music applications.
Another one of the Pro Series from Avid is also becoming a very useful plug-in for me. For example, on our weekly podcast, most of us are using it on our voices when we record the show. I then have instances on everyone’s channel in the edit session as well, its a great compressor plug-in that is well worth checking out. You can watch Neil’s review of it here and read more about the Pro series here.
We have looked at a number of different ways of getting audio in and out of Pro Tools to and from other applications and this is looking like a key contender. For example, you can record remote voiceover from Source-Connect directly in Final Cut or Media Composer, or even better playback iTunes to Pro Tools, even patch Pro Tools to and from Nuendo, all at the same time if you want to.
I am using this to route iZotope’s RX3 through into Pro Tools HD rig, so I can use the high quality audio interfaces with Pro Tools HDX rather than the Mac audio output. Check out Russ’s review of how it works.
I reviewed the RTAS version of Penteo Surround, which is very cleverly named being a hybrid of pent meaning five and mashing it with stereo to get Penteo. This plug-in provides an excellent stereo compatible downmix of its upmix as you can see in Mike’s review here. I find this has an incredibly natural sounding upmix without some of the reverb and delay artifacts that you get from some other upmixing plug-ins. We understand that they will be releasing an AAX 64 bit version for Pro Tools 11 very soon.
AnyMix Pro from Iosono is way more than an upmixing plug-in. As you can see from my review here it is also a surround panner that can pan sounds to and from outside the surround sound stage as well as being a good upmixing plug-in. Anymix Pro is already available in AAX 64 bit for use with Pro Tools 11.
These are my two ‘go to’ reverb plug-ins, you can watch my reverb of them both and they are now available in surround too.
The two reverbs are very different. You can’t make R2 sound like PhoenixVerb and you can’t make PhoenixVerb sound like R2. Although they look alike and are controlled in the same way, they’re different reverbs. PhoenixVerb is very transparent and natural if you want to use that term. R2 is more aggressive, with modulation you can hear. Your choice depends on what you want out of a mix.
Synchro Arts have been very busy in 2013 refining their excellent Revoice Pro and with the latest version - 2.2, available in Mac and now Windows as well, it offers a new faster and simpler workflow where you can complete the job in as few as 2 clicks. They also have added a great new audio monitoring plug-in which makes integration with Pro Tools even better as you can now audition through Pro Tools in sync with Pro Tools as well.
Watch a ‘what’s new in Revoice Pro 2.2’ video showing how Revoice Pro just got more powerful and yet simpler to use!
Conclusion
So there we have it, my look at the plug-ins released in 2013 that have been game changers for me, my workflow and my clients. What are yours?