In Summary

With a new generation of tools using either advanced algorithms, ML, or AI to do what they do, engineers can achieve more than ever in the mix. Whether it’s a fresh take on an old favourite, or the latest restorative fix, here we take a look at what can be achieved with these magic modern helpers.

Going Deeper

1 - Make Things Fit

Dynamic processing is great to have, but in a desert island situation, surely the humble equaliser is going to win the crown of Most Essential Processor every time. Taking a look at any basic analogue mixer will confirm that one - very few sources make it to the outputs without some form of spectral help. This can be as simple as a bit of high pass filtering or the odd shelving beauty treatment, but going further in depth, most engineers understand the power of a tesselating sounds’ relative tonal balances. This could be pulling some mid from guitars to ‘let through’ a bit more of the vocal, for example.

Sonible are known for a number of intelligent helpers, with smart:EQ 4 being their latest spectral seer. This one advertises the use of AI to correct spectral issues and achieve tonal balance. The idea in-use is to think more holistically about all elements’ tonality; intelligent cross-channel processing offers hierarchy for multiple tracks, with each instance able to listen to another. With smart:EQ 4, spectral mixing is as easy as dragging and dropping instances to decide the order of mix precedence for instances across tracks or busses.

2 - Turn Down Ambience

In the old days, recording dry signals was easy enough if you were in the right space, but pulling the mics in to exclude the room can shift the perspective in more ways than one. Music mixers will be familiar with doing this and adding reverb later, but many others, such as production sound recordists on set do not have such luxuries. When staying out of shot is the name of the game, how exactly are post mixers supposed to marry those sounds with dry lav mics or ADR for a more uniform representation?

Whether it’s unruly rooms enveloping instruments, or ambient interview or drama sound that needs to be brought back into focus, de-reverb tools exist that can dry up the offending audio. This tech goes far beyond trying to use an expander to fix the problem. These tools can discriminate between what needs to stay and what needs to go, actually pulling ambiences out from beneath precious wanted signals. OK, at present this isn’t entirely ‘free’, with artefacts apparent in the worst cases, but to hear this tech is to believe it. Most processors tend to align themselves either with Music or Post workflows. These tools have been around for some time. The more recent additions to this category have embraced Machine Learning and AI to achieve results which are truly remarkable.

3 - Watch The Levels

Where technical improvements end and creative treatments begin is always up for debate, but along with EQ, compression is the other big ticket processor that few mixes could live without. From its humble beginnings in the middle of last century, conventional compressors’ functions have grown considerably, with the latest multiband and multi-sensing tools leaving almost no dynamic tweak to chance. Up until now the only thing these mix veterans required was a judicious ear from the engineer.

Although more recent innovative conventional compressors have sought to detect increases in a more humanistic manner, they can still only do this by measuring amplitude over time by design. A new generation of AI compressors have been taught how to listen by exposure to control material; the hope is that the database is wide enough for the compressor to know what to do with fresh signals when they hit… Another tool with Sonible tech under the hood is Focusrite’s FAST Compressor. This is designed to maintain control over dynamics and help sounds fit in the mix, freeing up headspace for other things. It listens and automatically tailors the compression settings to your material in seconds, with Soft/Neutral/Hard modes there to regulate how hard it digs in.

4 - Unpick And Mix

If a mix is the point at which all the elements can be freely adjusted, it goes that the bounce is the final output baked into a wav or similar, right? Well almost, because intelligent plugin tech is now starting to redefine another previously irremovable truth. Up until quite recently remixing required a remix with access to the tracks, until various ‘re-balancers’ started to appear; these couldn’t claim full-on un-mixing, but they could certainly tip the balance where needed. The jury is still out on how useful these can be, where authorised remixes have access to all the audio anyway, but zooming further in there is gold in there. How about un-mixing the components of a single sound? Or saving time on getting that mix-minus by having it right there in the DAW?

If you can imagine a DAW in reverse, beginning with a stereo bounce and finishing up with a mixer, Acon Digital’s Remix is it. This one has five stem faders. You can mute out parts of course, but better still you can solo them. This means you can bounce out stems and process them just like any other if you really want. OK, so it doesn’t have panners or balance controls across its five stem channels, and missing too are the insert slots, but let’s give Remix a break. This thing is pretty amazing.

5 - Fix The Impossible

Once upon a time, there lived a dialogue editor who kept getting sent audio that sounded like it had been recorded from the next room. Well maybe it did, but now it was their problem. One day, a clever wizard invented something that would make the dialogue editor live happily ever after…

Our final fix from the future is something that can make lo-fi sounds shine, make ambient sounds dry, and noisy sounds clean, all in one window. Not only that, but this thing does not require a PhD in computing to understand or use. In its simplest guise, Accentize’s DX Revive has one control that does one thing: more or less. If that doesn’t do it for you, the Pro version does multiband and lands with four algorithms that let you decide between things like transparent treatments that keep the reverb, through to the two Studio algorithms that dare you to throw anything at them. Other tricks common to both editions include restoration of absent frequencies, elimination of codec artefacts (such as from Skype or Zoom recordings), recovery of clipped audio, and further spectral corrections. Does DX Revive sound too good to be true? All we can say is try it - it really is that good.

The End Of The Beginning?

No-one is pretending that any of these creations are a drop-in replacement for the skills of our craft as it is today. That said, it can be helpful to remember that the earliest recordists didn’t even use electricity for the earliest direct-to-disc experiments! That tells us a little about whether these tools are here to help us or replace us. It also serves as a reminder that today’s fixers’ shortcomings as seen by the user can be wiped out unexpectedly… Quicker than you can say “new update” to be precise.