Nugen Audio have announced the their new upmixing plug-in, Halo Upmix is now available for public beta prior to full release. If you need to upmix legacy content to any of the 5.1 and 7.1 surround formats for film, TV or games then check out this new plug-in from Nugen Audio.
Testimonals In So Far...
Its really natural.... just two tracks of orchestral music for a TV drama but... amazing! (Alvaro de Iscar)
Halo was used in two recent game cinematics - Fallen Empire received 'Best Trailer' award at E3 in Los Angeles, and Dishonored was 2nd. Both trailers were mixed with Halo as our upmixer. (Gary Zacuto from Shoreline Studios)
What is Halo?
Nugen Audio have designed Halo to analyse in real time original stereo material and identify and extract locational cues, to then naturally extend the panorama, all without the introduction of any artificial reverberation, chorusing or delay into the down mix and so leaving the inherent character of the original source intact.
We all know that all upmix has to downmix reliably and so there is an 'exact' mode function which Nugen Audio have designed to ensure downmix integrity where, as in TV re-purposing for instance, maintaining the relationship between the original, upmixed and downmixed versions is essential.
Conversely, where a big sound is required, Nugen Audio have designed Halo to create dynamic, immersive, cinematic surround balances to complement the 7.1 panorama.
The centre channel should never be under estimated and so Nugen Audio have added a dedicated centre channel extraction and control in a separate Advanced panel, offering control - including neural network based dialogue extraction, which will be very helpful where there isn't any access to the original stems.
The GUI in Halo also includes a spatial analysis view showing the energy distribution of the upmixed panorama. Colour can additionally be used to indicate the speaker source for audio in any position, clearly indicating cases including phantom vs hard centre predominance etc.
Suggested Applications For Nugen Audio Halo Upmix
- Stem and group upmixing
- 7.1 cinematic sound stage enhancement
- TV stereo to surround upmixing with hard centre
- Re-purposing of original stereo for cinematic release
- TV archive enhancement for 5.1 broadcast
- Natural extension of original stereo panoramas and atmospheres