On the same day, we received press releases that both Soundminer and Soundly have announced new versions of their respective sound effects librarian and management software. Soundminer has been rewritten for 64-bit so will be compatible with macOS Catalina and Soundly has a number of new features including Google-style ‘Did You Mean’ search functionality.

What Is New In Soundly

• Related Searches - Traversing through millions of past searches, Soundly's AI-powered search algorithm now suggest related keywords for you. That means less time searching and more time discovering!

• Multi DB Support - Soundly can now simultaneously connect to multiple shared databases, making file and database organization even easier.

• Channel Select - A much asked for feature is finally here with Channel Select, making it incredibly easy to extract one or more specific channels from multichannel files.

• Portable Mode - Copy the Soundly application to a USB stick or similar and take it anywhere you go. Great for professionals using multiple studios!

• Did you Mean - Google-style Did You Mean Functionality helps you spell your searches correctly! Combined with Related Searches and the Sound Effect Thesaurus, Soundly's search capabilities now stands in a class of its own.

• Thesaurus Update - Soundly's specially built Sound Effect Thesaurus has grown and is now even more accurate.

• Stability Improvements - Under-the-hood code improvements make Soundly even faster and more stable.

Upgrading Soundly is free for all users. To upgrade, simply visit the Soundly website, download the app and overwrite any previous versions you might have.

More On Soundly…

What Is New In Soundminer V5Pro

Really good news in the light of macOS Catalina is that Soundminer V5Pro has been a complete re-write and is now 64bit. Here is just a short list of the key improvements.

• 64 bit application - new code, rewritten, meant to take advantage of new OS developments as well as things we’ve been germinating on.

• AudioUnit DSP processing - building upon our original VSTRack, we’ve added support for AudioUnits. The new DSPRack features improved plugin search, presets, output format and output channel controls.

• New search methods - new left panel Filter Search, chained search pills, Tag to Database function, all improve upon our industry leading search engine.

• Speed Improvements( Scanning, waveform zooming, etc) - 64 bit allowed gave opportunities to optimise things making all these functions quicker and taking advantage of new hardware improvements.

• Built in Radium sampler - This changes everything in sound design. Integrated interface that easily connects to any MIDI controller, allows up to 5 layers of sounds, each with their own array of filters, modulation, envelopes and plugin settings. Don’t worry, tutorials exist but it won’t take long before you are creating new sounds! (Not available when using ReWire)

• Updated UI - we took the opportunity to improve, but not drastically change what has become a comfortable tool for many.

• User Experience improvements, including custom database ordering, field ordering. Little things, but important things.

• Assignable watch folders that scan items in the background. You can auto ingest new content now by simply setting a watch folder!

• Cantar Mode scanning and operation - improvements for dialogue editors and importing from field recorders.

• Cloud advancements - HTTP with a smart new improved proxy engine and an interface to allow to playback directly from an Amazon S3 cloud bucket.

• NO MORE SD2 files. with V5Pro Soundminer will no longer support Sound Designer II files. You will need to convert them using Soundminer’s Mirror feature to AIFF or WAV.

• V5Pro uses a new database paradigm, so the new databases are different. It will require embedding with your previous version as the files will need to be rescanned under V5. Note that a Database/Spotting Panel/Playlist converter is being built but is not ready at the time of writing.