Blackmagic Designs has released DaVinci Resolve 17, which is free and DaVinci Resolve 17 Studio that costs $295. In this article, we explore what Blackmagic has brought to both the free and paid-for versions of Resolve 17 for audio production.

New Audio Features In DaVinci Resolve 17 - Free

Blackmagic Design say that DaVinci Resolve 17 is the biggest update in Fairlight history with new features, tools and core improvements, designed to make it “the world’s fastest and highest quality solution for audio post-production!”

There is a new high-performance audio engine, Fairlight Audio Core, along with the new FlexBus busing architecture designed to give you support for over 2,000 tracks! You can now reverse audio clips, analyze loudness, view and navigate transients, preview video while editing, move automation, export multichannel files and more.

Fast Editing With Mouse And Keyboard

Edit selection mode with new keyboard shortcuts unlocks functionality previously only available in the Fairlight Audio Editor. These context-sensitive tools are designed to make editing faster.

Mix 2,000 Tracks in Realtime!

Fairlight Audio Core is a low latency, ‘next-generation’ audio engine designed to intelligently manage the workload by using all CPU cores and threads, as well as the optional Fairlight Audio Accelerator card. Blackmagic claim this will offer you up to 2,000 tracks, each with real-time EQ, dynamics and 6 plug-ins, all on a single system.

FlexBus Architecture

FlexBus is a flexible bus architecture that uses up to 26 channel wide multi-purpose buses instead of fixed buses. You will be able to send tracks to buses, buses to tracks, and buses to buses in as many cascade layers deep as needed to create massive sessions. Route anything to anything without limitations!

Detect And Display Transients

The new transient analysis tool automatically detects individual words, beats, or sound effects. Transient markers are displayed as vertical lines in the waveform. You can navigate between them using the arrow keys. Transient markers make it easy to identify specific parts of a sound for editing.

Automation Follows Edit

There’s a new option in V17 that allows automation to follow edit changes. That means when you trim, move or edit any clip, the automation you’ve recorded will follow it. You can make last-minute edits while still maintaining your mix.

Live Video Previews

The viewer now tracks your movements around the timeline, scrolling as you slide clips and markers or drawing ranges, enabling users to use the video as a reference. Additionally, you can draw ranges and drag clips and markers out of the viewable range with the timeline scrolling intelligently with you.

New Analysis And Metering Options

DaVinci Resolve 17 now supports offline loudness analysis enabling you to see the loudness of a clip before adding it to your project or playing it back. The new surround sound analyser provides a graphical spatial image of the sound. Meters can also be double stacked for large projects.

Supports Massive Projects

Fairlight Audio Core and FlexBus have been created to enable large projects with thousands of tracks on a single system. Previously this would require multiple computers to be synced with a primary system.

Free Multi-User Collaboration

The free version of DaVinci Resolve now includes the revolutionary multi-user collaboration tools previously available in DaVinci Resolve Studio. That means you can have multiple users all working on the same project at the same time, for free.

New Audio Features In DaVinci Resolve 17 Studio - $295

DaVinci Resolve Studio now supports high-resolution 3D audio for working with spatial formats all the way up to 22.2 and features import and export of the latest IAB and ADM files, with support for object-based formats too. With DaVinci Resolve Studio you now get native Dolby Atmos and MPEG‑H import and rendering as well as Auro‑3D and SMPTE ST.2098 support. There is B‑chain audio monitoring, a 3D panner and 3D Spaceview to help visualise each sound object’s location in space.

Dolby Atmos Mastering

Integrated support for ground-up creation of immersive 3D audio production, with 3D channels and buses from 5.1.2 to 9.1.6, remote RMU and DAMS and local Dolby Atmos Production Suite with AudioBridge.

Re-mixing External Productions

Dolby Atmos master production import from immersive .damf, .wav, .mxf files with support to decompose into original elements such as sources, buses and VCA groups. Export to Atmos Master ADMBWF, or IMF _AIB.

IMF Audio Deliverables

Support for adding audio to video via IMF containers with multiple simultaneous audio deliverables as IAB-MXF or .wav. Deliver selection is from timeline via a bus or track, or an existing file IAB file.

What We Think Of DaVinci Resolve 17

There is no doubt that with each release of DaVinci Resolve that Blackmagic Design are making it more and more usable. As a free video editor to have on the side it definitely has its place. When you look at what the paid-for version can do with Dolby Atmos and immersive format integration, $295 is a very good deal.

It is interesting to see some of the new features in Resolve are features that Pro Tools has had for a long time like Automation Follows Edit and Detect And Display Transients, rather than the response being “xyz DAW has had that feature for years” when Avid add it as a new feature.

Do you think Resolve 17 has brought Blackmagic’s NLE into the big time or is it an interesting zero-cost or low-cost alternative for people who cannot afford the proper tools? Do share your thoughts in the comments below.