Three Technologies That Could Shape The Pro Audio Industry In The Future
Just when you thought the audio industry had run out of ideas, another innovation inflection point occurs and we find ourselves with new possibilities. In this article we discuss how three technologies could change everything for all of us working in music and post production.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
No prizes for guessing this one; AI and ML are set to revolutionize the professional music and post-production industry in ways we could have only imagined before. With the power of artificial intelligence, tasks that were once time-consuming and labour-intensive, such as audio editing, mixing, and mastering, can now be automated with unprecedented precision and efficiency.
Machine learning algorithms can analyze vast amounts of audio data, learning from it to assist in tasks like restoration, vocal tuning, timing correction, and even generating creative ideas.
This technology not only streamlines the production process but also empowers musicians and producers with new tools and possibilities for creativity. As AI continues to advance, we can expect to see an even greater integration of these technologies, leading to a transformative shift in the way music and post-production are approached, ultimately pushing the boundaries of artistic expression and sonic innovation.
Will it replace audio professionals? Possibly, but unlikely, our investigations of the technology over recent months suggest that it has the possibility to assist us in tasks, helping us to streamline our workflow. For example:
New noise reduction tools can do in seconds and with minimal intervention tasks that previously took even the best audio professionals hours to do or couldn’t be done at all.
Tools can interrogate entire drives of audio data and tag them with meaningful metadata for easy search and recall of files. Imagine a world where you no longer get a mix full of ‘AUDIO01, ‘AUDIO02’ files? Who wouldn’t want that?
We are already seeing tools that can set up a basic mix with a rough mix scenario so that the professional can concentrate on crafting that mix.
In a world that doesn’t give us budgets for mix assistants, audio edit assistants, and data wranglers, AI/ML has the potential to free us from the mundane and let us do the work we really love.
DAWproject
Image: Bitwig
A collaboration recently announced between PreSonus and Bitwig, DAWproject has the potential to do for entire DAW projects what MIDI has done for note and performance data. Creating a universal non-proprietary DAW standard for file interchange.
Here’s what Bitwig say about DAWproject;
“DAWproject files include all information related to time, tracks and channels, as well as all audio, note and automation data — and even the state of the plug-ins used in projects. That means you never have to bounce your stems to share or transfer a project again; you can save it as a DAWproject file and open it in another program, even if it has different features. DAWproject files are currently supported by Bitwig Studio 5.0.9, and in PreSonus Studio One 6.5. For a full rundown of the specific features that DAWproject supports and more details on how it works, check out our FAQs.”
Here is a helpful chart created by the team at Bitwig to compare DAWproject with other protocols:
If other DAW developers got onboard with DAWproject it could transform our ability to collaborate with other creatives. However, some DAW developers see their proprietary file formats as the thing that keeps users on their platform. They may be reluctant to make it easier for people to move around different DAWs and see this as a threat to revenue. We hope all of them are as forward thinking as PreSonus and Bitwig.
Listening Technology
When it comes to how we listen to audio, we live in uncertain times. On the one hand, we have monitoring formats that call for multiple speaker set-ups. On the other we have people consuming audio on headphones or single-channel smart speakers.
When it comes to consumer listening, convenience is king. Be that the use of Bluetooth for connectivity or wireless smart speakers, which offer more than just music playback around the house - most use them in mono, and often with a less than best-in-class sound.
It would be too much of a stretch to call this a ‘post-speaker’ period. Perhaps a better comparison would be with organised religion. In audio, for a long time, there was a ‘world religion’ of listening on two channels through physical speakers. This was, for many, the received audio faith, which we all subscribed to. Now, we have multiple audio faiths, and one can no longer assume everyone believes in the faith of two hi-fi speakers. In the religious world, it is called Pluralism - there couldn’t be a better word for it in audio-listening parlance.
The two hi-fi speakers listening faith faces an existential threat from all sides - from mega-bucks Atmos systems to someone happy to listen on their phone speaker or a single earbud!
For those of us mixing audio for music or for pictures, it presents a great challenge. We can’t ignore this new listening reality. One of the most solid foundations we had was that most would listen on a pair of speakers and in stereo. That is no longer a certainty.
Technologies are being created to help us face this challenge, such as binaural monitoring and virtual monitoring spaces, but our world of easy audio deliverables is changing fast, and we all need to keep up!
There are some technologies that offer metadata-based mixing, in other words, mixes that adapt to the playback device, Atmos being one such technology. This enables us to deliver one format and leave it to the consumer’s equipment to downmix that content to best suit the playback environment.
Perhaps we should spend less time thinking about audio flying around the room and concentrate on using object-based mixes that translate well across all devices. This is certainly an area where TV could benefit, having controllable audio objects using the MPEG-H format that offers the chance of turning the dialogue and music feeds up and down to taste.
In Closing
As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Two things are certain: death and taxes.” We’d like to suggest a third in the fast-moving world of professional audio, and that’s change!
These are three areas to watch, and certainly not subjects to ignore.