We all love buying new gear. Whether it’s hardware or software, the acquisition of new stuff is often exciting, but even more importantly, it should allow us to do our job more effectively. In this article, Paul Maunder talks about some of the tools which he wishes he’d had sooner.

Auto Align Post 2

One of the big challenges for most dialogue editors is dealing with phasing when multiple microphones are present. When attempting to mix lav and boom mics, without the right tools, it’s practically impossible to eliminate comb filtering due to the shifting relative position of the boom and other microphones. Auto Align Post 2 deals with this very issue by allowing dynamic time alignment of moving microphones, meaning that they can be mixed together without comb filtering and phase artifacts.

Before I had Auto Align Post 2, I’d always struggled to make dialogue sound right when several actors were speaking at once, due to the timing differences between their mics. Using both the lavs and boom together was not really an option because it always sounded terrible. I only really actually tried Auto Align Post when the version 2 release came out. As soon as I tried it out, I was very impressed with the results and wondered why I hadn’t looked into it sooner. I was able to phase align the dialogue for an entire feature film in a matter of minutes and now I use it as one of the very first processes whenever I start work on a project where multiple microphones were used on set. Check out my article Using Sound Radix Auto Align Post 2 in Adobe Premiere to see it in action using the new Adobe Premiere extension.

Avid S6

I don’t own an S6 myself but I do use one at Spirit Studios in Manchester where I do some teaching. When I first started working with Pro Tools many years ago, I did all of the automation with the mouse, drawing in breakpoints with the pencil or grabber tools and occasionally doing real time fader moves in the software, again just using the mouse. Eventually I got a Digidesign 002 control surface, which really helped to speed up by mixing workflow by the simple fact that I had 8 faders to work with and automate. Over the years I used a variety of Digidesign and Avid control surfaces including Pro Control, D-Command, D-Control, Control 24 and C24. They were all pretty good, especially the D-Control, but all of them suddenly seemed extremely antiquated as soon as the S6 came along.

The touch screen on the S6, along with its intuitive operation, ties in really closely with Pro Tools. This means that if you know the software, you can figure out a lot of things on the S6 with little effort. When Spirit Studios first took delivery of the S6 I decided to do a mix on it straight away. For the first time, I actually found that my computer screensaver came on while I was working due to the fact that I was now less reliant on continually looking at Pro Tools. We actually had one of the first S6 control surfaces in the UK so I can’t really say that I wish I’d had it sooner, but I felt immediately that the functionality it provided, including the surround panning on the touch screen, meant that I could suddenly work in a more efficient way than previously and I felt that I’d been missing it up to that point. Now, for moderate to complex mixes, I always use the S6 and it’s hard to imagine getting by without it.

Mac Studio

I’ve always been a Mac user. I started out running Pro Tools on a Powermac 9500 and upgraded to various models over the years. In 2014 I bought the ‘trash can’ Mac Pro, which I used for both audio production and video editing for quite a bit longer than I probably should have. For audio, bouncing mixes would take a while when I used a large number of plug-ins. Also, some CPU intensive plug-ins would cause Pro Tools to trip up. For video editing, it became unbearably slow, especially when dealing with multiple layers of 4K video and different video codecs in Adobe Premiere Pro. Also, creating a DCP file of a 2 hour feature film took 30 hours! I don’t know why I left it so long before upgrading the Mac. Perhaps it was because I didn’t fully appreciate just how much better a new machine would be. It wasn’t until late 2022 that I eventually opted to buy a new computer. By this point, Apple had released the Mac Studio with the M1 chip. I decided to go for the more expensive M1 Ultra version and I’m glad I did! I under estimated just how much better this computer would be. I can run massive Pro Tools sessions with CPU intensive plug-ins with no issues at all and video editing in Premiere Pro is better and quicker in every respect. Also, exporting a DCP file, which would be 15x slower than real time on my previous computer, happens in real time on the Mac Studio. This was absolutely a purchase which I can say I wish I’d made sooner. In a sense though, I’m glad that I waited. If I’d have bought a Mac just a few months earlier, it would have been one of the Intel Macs which just don’t compare to the Apple Silicon machines in terms of speed and efficiency.

Synology DS1821+ NAS drive

Still on the subject of computer hardware, my next choice is a storage solution. I never delete any projects or media and so the need for storage is an ongoing consideration. After amassing huge volumes of data through several years of audio work and, even more so, video production, I ended up with data spread across about 15 different drives. This became impossible to manage so eventually I chose to go for a storage solution which would be scalable. Following a lot of research, I settled on the Synology DS1821+ NAS drive. If you’re not familiar with NAS, it stands for Network Attached Storage. The DS1821+ includes 8 drive bays which can each be populated with server grade drives. The drives offer redundancy by being configured in a RAID setup. On setup, you have the choice of all the usual RAID levels but also Synology’s own RAID configuration called SHR (Synology Hybrid Raid). In this configuration, data is striped across multiple drives but, unlike conventional RAID, the storage pool can be expanded by adding additional drives, without the need to erase the whole thing first. I’ve configured mine in SHR 2 format, which means that any 2 drives can fail and the data can be rebuilt by simply installing replacement drives. Currently I have 7 x 16TB Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives installed. After formatting, and allowing for redundancy, this gives a useable volume size of 72.7TB. I have one additional drive bay in which to install another hard drive but there’s scope to add up to two 5 bay expansion modules in the future, making this a very scalable solution for long term data storage.

Another great thing about this setup is that the DS1821+, which is essentially a computer, includes two M2 NVME card slots. I’ve installed a couple of terabytes of storage in these. This is used by the system to load commonly used and recently accessed files into the ultra fast NVMe storage. This data can then be accessed significantly faster than pulling it off the hard drive, which means that for tasks which require a very high throughout of data, such as video editing, there’s no lag at all. Couple this with the 10 gigabit ethernet card and I have really quick networked storage which a high capacity which I can access from anywhere in my house, or anywhere globally if I really need to. Again, I wish I’d bought this sooner!

Soundly

If you work in audio post, you need access to a wide range of high quality sound effects. I have various libraries and collections which I’ve purchased over the years but there’s still a need for a searchable sound effects database, especially if you work at various locations and don’t always have access to your own effects. I previously used other searchable online sound effects libraries but the quality of the effects varied and sometimes I didn’t find what I needed.

Soundly provides a large library of high quality sound effects, searchable and downloadable though the Soundly application. This ties in with other software and, as a Pro Tools user, I’m able to download sounds straight from Soundly into my Pro Tools session. The other good thing about this is the fact that you can select just the part of a recording which you actually need. This is useful, for example, when you find a 5 minute ambience recording but you only need 30 seconds. Just select the bit you want in the waveform, then either download it or click the Pro Tools icon within Soundly to port it straight into your session.

I’ve included Soundly on this list of gear I wish I’d had sooner because it’s now so fundamental to the way I work that I wonder how I go try without it. I’ve uploaded most of my own effects to the Soundly cloud too so, no matter where I am, I can search, audition and access everything I need. Take a look at my recent article How To Create Your Own Soundly FX Cloud Library to see it in action.

What are the pieces of software or hardware which you wish you’d got sooner? Let us know in the comments.