Better Mix Tools for Final Cut Pro

With Adobe announcing new audio tools in Premiere Pro, it’s time for editors to turn their eyes towards Apple again. One clearly missing component within Final Cut Pro – and a bone of contention for many professional editors – is an advanced mixing panel like the other NLEs and, of course Final Cut Pro versions 1 through 7. That’s not to say that you can’t mix in FCP the way it’s been designed – you certainly can. Nor that FCP’s audio tools haven’t improved or been enhanced through various updates. But a number of seemingly small feature enhancements could go a long way towards making the mix tools in Final Cut more versatile and “pro.”

Vintage EQ Collection

This first suggestion is probably the easiest feature for the ProApps team to implement. Some of the past audio enhancements have boiled down to porting over plug-ins from Logic Pro. These have included the digital parametric EQ and Logic’s compressor. The latter is actually seven compressor modes built into one plug-in with different UI skins and presets for each. These include the transparent, digital Platinum compressor, plus six “vintage” compressors that are inspired by popular analog compression hardware. These add “color” or “character” to the sound. They are modeled after the Focusrite Red, Urei 1176 Blackface, dbx 160, SSL G-Bus, UA 1176 Blue Stripe, and Teletronix LA2A.

What Apple has yet to do is port over the vintage EQ collection. It seems like a no-brainer to simply bring these into Final Cut Pro as a companion to the vintage compressors. These are often easier for some to work with than a graphical UI. The vintage collection includes three analog-style equalizer plug-ins inspired by hardware.

They include the Vintage Console EQ, which is designed after a Neve 1073 channel strip EQ. The Vintage Graphic EQ is Apple’s version of the API 560 EQ. And finally, there’s the Vintage Tube EQ – a software emulation of the classic Pultec EQ. Like the compressors, each of these analog-style EQs adds character/color/warmth to the audio in a way that the parametric EQ doesn’t. As such they would add more versatility to your Final Cut Pro mixing.

Mastering Assistant

Apple’s Logic Pro 10.8 audio application took a huge jump forward through the addition of the new Mastering Assistant. This is a combination of intelligent EQ, compression/limiting, exciter, and stereo imaging. It’s designed to be used as the final stage in your mix. The Mastering Assistant provides automatic analysis for how best to modify your mix in a similar way to what a mastering engineer does. While some of the parameters are adjustable, the plug-in is intentionally minimalistic with much of the processing happening under-the-hood. Although many might view this as a gimmick, the results are actually quite good and very competitive with other mastering plug-ins, as well as numerous online mastering services.

To date, I’ve run over 60 tracks through it and found the results to sound very good. This includes a few TV mixes as a test. Even with those, Mastering Assistant enhanced the mix done in the NLE. Mastering Assistant would be a perfect audio addition to Final Cut Pro – fitting in well with the design direction of the NLE. It would be applied to the output of the system and could be optionally engaged by the user. It’s useful in the current form; however, it would be best for Apple to integrate some presets for TV loudness targets.

Improving the Audio Roles function

One key innovation that came to Final Cut Pro over the past decade has been the addition of audio and video role assignments. Audio can be tagged according to default and/or custom roles (dialogue, sound effects, music, etc), as well as custom subroles (Tom, Jerry, Susan, etc – or – lav, boom, handheld mic, etc). Internally these are grouped into audio lanes. In a conventional NLE, individual clips and source audio channels would be edited onto different tracks of the timeline. But, since FCP is trackless, roles/lanes become a virtual set of “tracks” organized via these metadata tags.

Click to expand and see more detail.

There’s a downside to the current implementation of audio roles. If you want to work with roles/lanes as if they were tracks or buses, then you first have to compound the sequence. You can then adjust levels and/or apply effects to the whole compound, but also expand audio and adjust levels and add effects to individual roles and subroles. However, if you need to make editorial changes or adjust the audio of one or more individual clips, then you have to step into the compound. Once you do, you can’t hear any of the adjustments made at the top level of the compound clip. This would be like adjusting an individual channel fader in a DAW without hearing the combined levels through the master output.

The way to fix this would be to create a lanes mode where you can work with audio lanes (roles) and the full mix without having to compound the clip first. In short, you want to be able to set the level for a complete role, such as dialogue, but then tweak the level on any individual clip and hear and further adjust those levels interactively. That cannot currently be done. Such a feature enhancement might be a minor software revision or it could require a huge architectural change in the code. I have no idea which one of those is the case. Nevertheless, this would be a major improvement over the current design.

Audio Roles Mixer

A version of what I’m talking about in the previous section has been described as an audio roles mixer. This has been proposed as a sort of middle ground between Final Cut Pro as it is now and a full-blown audio panel, like DaVinci Resolve’s Fairlight tab. Nevertheless, the ability to treat audio subroles and roles as tracks through a separate window or floating panel would be worthwhile.

Hypothetically, this could be similar to some of the virtual channel strip plug-ins offered in the audio world. For example, take a look at Waves’ CLA MixHub plug-in. This was developed in conjunction with renowned mixer Chris Lord-Alge as his take on an SSL channel strip. Unlike other SSL channel strip emulations, MixHub turns your DAW application into a virtual SSL analog console.

Once you apply the MixHub plug-in to each track, you can then call these up in groups, dubbed “buckets.” MixHub will accommodate up to 64 instances, which can be viewed in groups of eight channels at a time within the plug-in’s “bucket view.” To see each group of eight, simply tab through the various buckets (1-8). The panel displays the four key sections of the plug-in (input, EQ, dynamics, output) for up to eight channels side-by-side. For example, if you select the EQ section in the first bucket, then you can focus on just the EQ settings for channels 1 through 8, much like a physical console. Switch to the dynamics section to see the compressor settings for all and so on.

If this concept were to be applied to Final Cut Pro, then it might not include the EQ or dynamics and instead focus only on output/mix levels. That alone would be huge game changer. In a recent documentary that I edited in FCP, over 40 speakers were featured, plus location mics for walk-and-talk dialogue and nat sound. Each speaker was assigned a separate subrole by their name. If something like the CLA MixHub concept existed, then I could simply adjust “track levels” (preferably with track automation) for any of the various interview subjects.

I’m not sure where Apple is headed with future enhancements to Final Cut Pro or how many new audio features might be on their radar. Whatever the case, I certainly hope to see some of these improvements in future updates to the application.

©2024 Oliver Peters

DIY Music Mastering with Logic Pro

I’ve owned Apple’s Logic Pro for nearly a decade. Since I’m a video editor and not a professional audio mixer, it’s been a tool to deal with certain issues, test audio plug-ins for reviews, and to capture and clean up vinyl recordings. I’ve always had a love for music and if I hadn’t become a video editor, my path might have gone the route of audio engineering.

Two years ago I decided to dive deeper into what Logic Pro was really designed for – mixing music. Over this time, I’ve mixed multiple songs for fun from available, downloadable multitracks. It’s both a hobby and a tool that helps me to better understand how to improve my mixes on video projects. With all the free or low-cost DAW applications on the market, I would highly recommend this to any video editor. Don’t forget that if you have DaVinci Resolve, you have the built-in Fairlight DAW. If you subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, then Adobe Audition fits the bill, as well.

Over these past two years my mixing journey has evolved. At the start, I’d build up tracks with plug-ins to shape the sound. Then I’d apply a series of processing plug-ins on the 2-bus (stereo output bus). Some mixers call that approach “top down” mixing. This mean they apply a series of plug-ins on the 2-bus and mix with those enabled, thus “pushing” the track mixes into them. The opposite approach is to build up the tracks first and then as a final stage apply minimal 2-bus processing. Both approaches work and there are successful engineers who use each of these as their workflow. For much of this time, my workflow was a hybrid of both.

Mastering as you mix versus mixing, then mastering

As my mixing changed, I decided to turn this into a two-stage process: mixing and mastering. In most commercial music mixes, the final sound you hear is the result of the enhancements performed by a mastering engineer to the studio mix done by the recording/mixing engineer. Originally, mastering was a simpler process of level adjustment, compression, and limiting to prepare a recording for successful cutting, pressing, and distribution on vinyl. Modern mastering engineers are less concerned with vinyl and tend to focus on levels for CDs and streaming services.

Good mastering can sonically enhance the mix and add depth. Some mastering engineers also provide the service to master from stems (instrument groups), giving the engineer the ability to rebalance the recording in the mastering suite. As the mastering process has changed, so have the tools. The types of consoles, processing hardware, plug-ins, and even monitors will be different in most mastering suites as compared with mixing studios.

I typically work in 48kHz projects. I suppose if I did this for a living, it would be 96kHz. In my two-step approach, I complete the mix adding only light compression and limiting on the 2-bus. This is bounced out (exported) as the “unmastered” track (48kHz/32-bit float) and then imported into a new, fresh Logic Pro project. Here I add a series of mastering-style plug-ins, shaping the sound to add width, impact, and loudness. Regardless of the tools used, the advantage of this two-stage process is that you think differently. When you are trying to do everything within the same project, then you are always mixing. You’ll tweak a plug-in on the 2-bus and then decide to go back and tweak again at the track level. Thus, you can find yourself chasing your tail.

When you apply this separation (often with a literal day or two in between), then it allows you to focus on a better mix while you are mixing, without the crutch of smashing the mix through 2-bus plug-ins. This is essentially how mixers work in studios with real consoles (as opposed to “in the box” DAW mixing). Then, when you shift to the mastering stage, you can focus on enhancing the mix, not necessarily changing it. The mastered version is then bounced out as the final file (48kHz/24-bit, dithered).

Enter the Logic Pro Mastering Assistant

Logic Pro 10.8 introduced an intelligent Mastering Assistant plug-in. This is always applied (initially disabled) as the last effect on the stereo output bus. Once you click on the name, it is automatically enabled to immediately analyze the mix and then apply suggested processing (more in a moment). Once this step is completed, you can move the Master Assistant effect to a different slot in the effects stack. For example, I typically apply a metering plug-in after Mastering Assistant.

Of course, Apple is by no means the first to offer this. There are other plug-in developers and online services that offer similar “instant mastering” products. You might look at something like this and consider it a gimmick; but, Mastering Assistant in Logic Pro is actually quite good. On the other hand, like all art, this is subjective. Whether or not you get equal results to a leading mastering engineer is hard to say. Probably not, but it might just be good enough for your needs.

The Mastering Assistant signal chain is a combination of intelligent EQ, exciter, compressor/limiter, and stereo imager (width). There are four “character” styles: clean, valve, punch, and transparent. Only clean is available on Intel Macs. Depending on your track, the recommended EQ curve after analysis is a series of boost and cuts across the frequency range of the mix.

From what I’ve seen so far, many of the mixes tend to result in what mixers call the “smiley face” curve. This means that the low and high ends are boosted, while much of the midrange is attenuated. Some analysis results in an EQ curve with the “Pultec trick” – a big boost at the bottom with an immediate cut right next to it at the low end. This tends to focus the low end. You cannot change the specific boosts and cuts within the analyzed EQ curve; however, there are custom low and hi-end shelf controls, plus a midrange adjustment. The slider at the left lets you manually accentuate or tame the boost and cuts of the generated curve.

The dynamics are set for the common streaming service target: -14 LUFS and -1 dB true peak. Adjust the loudness dial to increase or decrease levels, which can be metered when you hit the start and reset buttons. Most of the time, the default value is fine. There’s also an exciter circuit, which is disabled by default. An exciter adds saturation (harmonic distortion) to the top end and can make some mixes sound brighter and more open. Care is needed when you use this, because it can add distortion. For example, in my mastering template, I apply Logic’s Vintage Console EQ plus the FabFilter Saturn 2 saturation plug-in ahead of the Mastering Assistant. These already add saturation and character, so applying the exciter function usually pushes the mix over the edge with hot peaks sounding raspy and unpleasant.

At the bottom right of the interface is a width control to spread or tighten the stereo image. Changing width can induce phase problems, so there’s a phase correlation meter next to it. I believe this is a full-spectrum control (I’ve found no specific documentation), which isn’t always what you want. For example, widening a bass guitar or a honky-tonk piano often causes part of the mix to be out-of-phase. In the modern world, mono listening is less of a factor, but I’d rather err on the side of caution. For example, iZotope’s imaging effect is multi-band. This allows me to keep the low frequencies mono, while spreading the mid and upper ranges of the mix.

Finally, the plug-in includes loudness compensation for comparison. This way you aren’t fooled by the “louder sounds better” phenomenon when comparing active versus bypassed states. Be sure to turn this off when exporting the mix and/or checking against a downstream meter.

Mastering the mix

In my mastering project, I’ll bring the track it at -2 dB, route the channel to a submix bus, and then to the 2-bus (stereo output). I usually apply the Console EQ and Saturn 2 to the submix. Then the Mastering Assistant and Multimeter are applied to the 2-bus. The Console EQ is only there to provide some drive control, but it does give me the option for broad 3-band tweaks and low-end filtering. Saturn 2 is usually set to the “subtle tube” character with some occasional tone control tweaks.

A small percentage of the mixes I’ve done via Mastering Assistant don’t sound quite as good as I would have liked. And so, I also keep iZotope Ozone and the Waves J37 tape plug-ins handy in the template. These are disabled unless I need them. Overall, the results I get from Logic Pro’s Mastering Assistant sound very similar to the results from Ozone’s built-in Mastering Assistant. However, Ozone includes many more modular effects. Each module offers far greater control than the simpler Logic version. But, sometimes Ozone will sound too aggressive.

I recently tested a track using Mastering Assistant, Ozone, as well as the new Waves online mastering service. What I found was that Waves sounded a lot like the original, only louder. You have a few options, but you can’t adjust these. There wasn’t much EQ change, so the Waves master didn’t sound as open as the others.

iZotope’s Ozone and Logic’s Mastering Assistant were close to each other, but I’d give the latter the edge. I think this is partly due to the fact that its EQ changes feature many “micro-EQ” adjustments that sculpt the sound. These small changes go far beyond what you can do in most digital parametric EQ plug-ins. Consequently, for my mixes and sensibilities, what Logic Pro offers (together with a few additions) covers 80-90% of my mixes.

This new Mastering Assistant is good addition to Logic Pro and likely offers the right level of adjustability for most Logic Pro users. I wish that Apple had built in a bit more control, plus additional presets for other target loudness ranges. For example, CD mastering or TV mixes use different targets than a streaming service like Spotify or iTunes. Hopefully some future update will add a few of these presets. Of course, if you do own Logic Pro, then there’s nothing stopping you from exporting a TV mix from your NLE for a show, promo, or commercial and running it through the Mastering Assistant. I’ve tested this on several files and the results were an improvement over the NLE mix. In short, Mastering Assistant is a useful addition to an already powerful DAW.

©2024 Oliver Peters

Ten Tips for Better Mixes

Admittedly the professional projects I mix as an editor would fall into a more basic category. A handful of dialogue and voice-over tracks, some nat sound and sound effects, and a couple of tracks of pre-recorded music. Most of the time this involves level adjustments, basic noise reduction for location sound issues, plug overall EQ, compression, and limiting. However, I also mix music projects as an enthusiast – just for fun and the experience of learning and developing new skills. The knowledge gained here is transferrable to the simpler mixes on paying gigs.

As part of that path of learning, I’ve spent my share of time on YouTube and other places dissecting tips and tricks from the many voices, including a lot of experienced mixers. (I’ve included links below for channels worth checking out.) The following are tips that I’ve gleaned, which help me to make better mixes. Naturally, there are pros and cons to each approach, but these are good rules-of-thumb.

Gain staging. My track routing goes from a group of tracks to a summing bus, and then a group of buses to the mix bus. When you mix this way, levels build up from one stage to the next. Most DAWs process audio with 32-bit floating math, so in theory a hot level at one point can be pulled down at a later point and peaks are recovered without clipping. However, there’s no guarantee of this within plug-ins, especially third-party ones. If a plug-in clips because the input level is too hot, then you can’t recover that. Gain staging means that you should adjust input levels at each point in the process in order to minimize excessive peaks. To do this it’s often a good idea to lower the gain of all clips uniformly after import. This way you are starting with headroom to spare.

Subtractive EQ. When you increase the volume of an equalizer band you are also increasing the gain of any built-in noise or other artifacts of that recording. While there is no hard and fast rule, it’s often best to attenuate the frequency ranges that you don’t want to be prominent, rather than boost the frequencies that you do. And then adjust the other tracks around this.

Limit + compress. Some mixers often add a limiter and then a compressor in their signal chain for a track. While many compressor plug-ins can do both, the subtle application of a limiter first knocks down some of the worst peaks in the track. Since this happens in the circuit before the compressor, it allows you to better set compression levels. The plug-in is working with the meat of the signal instead of reacting to these peaks, which have now been tamed by the limiter.

Mid/side filtering for phase issues. Some recordings simply have inherent phase issues. The stereo recording of an old upright piano might be one example. One way to correct this is to use high-pass filtering with a linear phase EQ effect set to the mid/side mode. Dial in a shelf setting that filters the low end. This will clean up phase issues with minimal impact on the sound of the track. Monitor the signal phase as you increase the frequency of the shelf in order to not go any higher than needed.

Side channel compression filtering. Many plug-ins offer side channel controls. In a compressor, this allows part of the signal to alter the behavior of the compression being applied to a full signal. For example, a driving kick drum could cause compression being applied to the entire drum bus to pump. The compressor is unevenly reacting to the low end energy instead of the full drum kit sound. If the compressor features a side channel filter control, you can use this as a high-pass filter to exclude the kick drum from impacting the compressor. The kick drum frequencies pass through and the compressor reacts to the energy of the rest of the drum mix.

Multiband compression. A compressor responds to the dominant frequencies in a mix. If you want to be more selective, use multiband compression. These plug-ins split the frequency range into multiple bands (usually two to six). Each band can have separate compressor settings to tame individual frequency ranges within the signal. Multiband compression usually works best when used on the final mix bus and used sparingly. Don’t get heavy handed.

Stereo widening. This trick lets you spread a stereo signal farther left and right to create a mix that can sound more open. But used to extreme, it can also sound thinner, since phase issues are introduced. If you add a stereo imaging plug-in, use one that can be set up with bands. In most cases, you do not want to spread the full mix, because the low end is usually more mono. For instance, the iZotope imager (part of Ozone) can be set for individual bands. This allows you to widen the upper frequencies while leaving the bass end mono. Many mixers recommend applying widening only on individual buses or instrument groups and not the final 2-bus, i.e. stereo mix.

Single band filtering. An effective way to make instrument tracks stand out better in a mix is with simple high-pass and/or low-pass filters. Various plug-ins include those, but you can also apply single-band EQs just for that function. For example, you might want to dial out some of the low end of a lead guitar, because it’s muddy and conflicts with the sound of the drums and bass in the mix. Using a high-pass/low-cut filter will do just that. It might sound thinner on its own, but cuts through in the overall mix.

Less is more. Don’t pile on a bunch of effects to fix issues. Some of the most well-known and successful records were make with the basic, built-in EQ and compression of the console, plus a few select pieces of outboard gear. Get a solid balance first and then enhance with effects.

Mixing versus mastering. There are differing schools of thought, but a mastering step after the mix is key to modern music. Some engineers suggest you should have a mastering chain of plug-ins applied to your 2-bus and mix into that. But, this can mean you are constantly going back and forth between your channels and the 2-bus processing chain – never quite sure what to alter to fix an issue. I personally have gone in the other direction and treat mastering like its own thing, just as if I sent the mix off to a mastering engineer. I place basic compression and limiting on my 2-bus during the mix and bounce out a premaster file. Then I bring that file into a new session set up just for mastering. This allows me to concentrate on each phase separately.

To wrap this up, here are some YouTube channels worth checking out. If you want to learn mixing techniques and some of the nuts and bolts behind sound technology:

Produce Like A Pro – Warren Huart

Simply Mixing – Sara Carter

Production Advice – Ian Shepherd

Dan Worrall Tutorials – Dan Worrall

Make Mine Music (at Produce Like A Pro) – Marc Daniel Nelson

Joe Carrell (at Produce Like A Pro)

iZotope

Sage Audio

For some lighter fare, product reviews, and general concepts:

Lanewood Studios

White Sea Studio – Wytse Gerichhausen

Paul Third

Audio Masterclass – David Mellor

Andrew Masters

Colt Capperune

Streaky

If you are looking for multitracks that you can download and mix:

Cambridge Music Technology

Produce Like A Pro

©2023 Oliver Peters

Wild Plug-ins from Safari Pedals

Audio plug-ins typically come in one of two styles: graphical displays with curves, sliders, and numeric values; or skeuomorphic designs meant to emulate certain vintage hardware. However, if you are guitarist or bass player, your tone is enhanced with small, physical effects pedals, aka “stomp boxes” that are often engaged with a foot switch.

Some DAWs, like Logic Pro, offer a complement of guitar amp and pedal emulations. These are intended to alter the sound in post of an instrument recorded directly (rather than recordings from a mic’ed guitar cabinet). Unless you are going for an unusual sound or type of distortion, pedals (hardware or software) aren’t often used for drum or vocal tracks.

Enter Safari Pedals and mixing/mastering engineer and developer Noam Levinberg. In designing his software plug-ins, the interface inspiration came from guitar pedals and not the all-too-common rage of console channel strips and vintage EQs, compressors, reverbs, etc. Each product bears an animal name with the goal of being playful – or as their website states, to let each person “go wild.” At the time of this post, Safari Pedals offers five plug-ins that feature guitar pedal-inspired designs. There’s a sixth coming with a more traditional interface. Finally, the company is moving in a companion direction and turning select software products into actual hardware effects pedals.

A tour through the zoo

I’ve been testing Flamingo Verb, Yak Delay, Time Machine, and Gorilla Drive. While the look and style of these are inspired by guitar pedals, they are intended to be used like any other software effects plug-in on any type of track or mix bus. I realize that the playful graphic art used for the interface might make some folks think that these aren’t serious tools. That would be a mistake, because these effects are easy to use and sound great.

The interfaces are resizable. Many other plug-ins can be resized, but usually only in fixed percentages. With Safari Pedals, simply grab the lower right corner and expand or contract the interface to the desired size. That’s a faster way to work. Common to each is input and output metering, plus blend and level controls. Use the built-in presets or create and save your own.

Time Machine

Time Machine is the only one without an animal in the name. It’s a collection of internal filters designed to mimic the sounds of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Each is a blend of compression, drive, and noise artifacts, such as pops and static. The compression knob is really a wet/dry control, because the compressor settings (threshold, attack, release, ratio, knee) are baked into the four era selections.

Time Machine features auto gain and a dial for the amount of noise to be introduced. Auto gain works by linking the input and output level controls. With it engaged the input and output dials rotate inversely to each other. With it off, then you have independent control over input and output levels. Play with this plug-in for a while and you get a nice sense of sounds from these eras with no fiddling. It works nicely on a drum bus and I found that picking 80s with aggressive compression (full wet) and no noise added a lot of fullness and punch to a drum kit.

Yak Delay

As the name implies, Yak Delay is an echo and delay effect. Use it for all of the common delay needs or for something that sounds very sci-fi. There are time, ping-pong, and repeat controls, plus high and low pass filtering. If you have no idea what you want, there’s a really wild random knob. When random is engaged, Yak Delay cycles through a series of settings. If you hear one that you’d like to try, disengage random and that effect will stick for you to evaluate with your track.

Gorilla Drive 

Gorilla Drive is a saturation plug-in that combines analog drive emulation with a tilt-shift EQ. There are level controls with auto gain and a phase shift button. This is a very simple effect to use and works great on guitar tracks. The input control drives the saturation (no pun intended). Once you’ve got that where you like it, dial in the tone control. Clockwise is brighter by boosting the high end, while counterclockwise results in a boosted low end for a warmer tone.

Flamingo Verb

The last of the four that I tested was the Flamingo Verb. This is a reverb plug-in based on four impulse response recordings (the natural reverberation of devices, spaces, and/or rooms). These include a small space, a short plate, a spring reverb, and a long IR. Controls include filtering, drive, plus delay times. Of these four, it’s the only one with stereo width control and oversampling. In addition to a lot of presets, this is a very easy reverb plug-in to get just the perfect sound. It works on any type of instrument, but in my testing, it was definitely a plus for vocals.

I’m probably not to first to say that the graphic design of these “pedals” is a bit goofy. Yes, the idea is playful, but don’t let that turn you off. These plug-ins do sound quite good and the interface actually works quite well. Aside from resizing, which I mentioned before, the controls respond well when you tweak them with a mouse. Consolidating the operations into a few simple controls is always a winning idea in my mind, especially when workflow and staying in the groove are important. You aren’t bogged down by a million settings.

Safari Pedals offers reasonable pricing for individual products, as well as plug-in bundles. And no subscriptions. There are Windows and Mac versions and these use a simple installation process. Not sure? Each product can be downloaded as a fully functioning 14-day demo. So, if you are into audio plug-ins, then check them out and see what you think.

©2023 Oliver Peters

New FxFactory Audio Effects

FxFactory has been known as a platform for video effects and motion graphics templates, primarily focused on Final Cut Pro. Of course, many of their products do support more editing applications on the Mac than just FCP. Maybe less known is the fact that the catalogue also includes audio plug-ins. Previously these came from Accusonus and Crumplepop; but changes at those companies meant that their offerings had to be discontinued. But fear not, FxFactory now introduces excellent new audio tools from German plug-in developer Accentize.

Audio plug-ins that are of most interest to video editors focus on dialogue – noise reduction, equalization, and volume control. FxFactory now offers both DeRoom and DialogueEnhance. Both plug-ins install via the FxFactory platform and work in Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, GarageBand, Premiere Pro, Audition, DaVinci Resolve, and Pro Tools. They are compatible with both Intel and Apple silicon processors.

DeRoom

Between the growth of remote interviews and the proliferation of podcasts, video editors and audio engineers have had to contend with dialogue contaminated by echo and reverb from room acoustics. Clean-up/restoration tools are more important than ever. DeRoom uses AI to reduce reverberation in real-time. You can simply accept the default or tailor the sensitivity and amount of reduction. The operation is just that simple.

I compared DeRoom to both Final Cut Pro’s voice isolation effect, as well as Premiere Pro’s native DeReverb plug-in. Each of these comes standard with the NLE. DeRoom is very good and even an extreme setting doesn’t suffer too badly from the “underwater” artifacts common with many noise reduction effects. It was definitely superior to Premiere Pro’s DeReverb. On the other hand, Final Cut Pro’s voice isolation sounded pretty good. So it was a toss-up between DeRoom and voice isolation. However, with DeRoom you have a single plug-in that can be used across multiple audio and video applications on the Mac.

DialogueEnhance

This tool is a module that includes four processes – noise reduction, Dynamics Control (compression), Spectral Correction (EQ), and Loudness Boost (gain). In fact, these are the same selection of plug-ins that I would typically add to any on-camera or voice-over dialogue track. DialogueEnhance places these adjustments conveniently into a single effects panel.

As with DeRoom, you can simply run the plug-in and these four components in an automatic mode or manually set the parameters for each. You can also disable any of the four individual processes. When these four effects are set to automatic, the processing is dynamic. EQ, compression, and loudness adjustments change on-the-fly in response to the audio being fed into them.

Noise Reduction applies a corrective algorithm in real-time. You can dial in the amount of reduction, but that’s all. Loudness Boost automatically lifts your signal to a target level, based on the LUFs value that you’ve set. In the automatic mode it will balance out level changes over time.

The middle two effects allow for a bit more manual control. Run them in the automatic mode if you like, but in a manual mode the operation is similar to other EQs and compressors. When you deselect automatic, the Dynamics Control becomes a soft-knee compressor. You can set the threshold and compression ratio. The Spectral Correction effect becomes a low/mid/high EQ controlled through a simple graphic UI. Low and high points are shelf controls while the middle point is a bell-curve EQ control. In addition, there’s a make-up gain control.

I find both of these plug-ins to be a good addition to any editor’s toolkit. They are easy to use and sport a simple, modern, and scalable interface. Final Cut Pro isn’t always a good host application for third-party audio plug-ins. I didn’t encounter any issues in FCP with these; however, changes to the settings were less responsive there than in a dedicated audio application, like Adobe Audition. Nevertheless, the bottom line is – “Will it make speech sound better?” That’s a definite “yes.”

©2023 Oliver Peters