NUGEN Audio Unveils New Halo Downmix

At NAB 2017, NUGEN Audio unveiled its new Halo Downmix, a highly creative solution for precise downmixing of feature-film and 5.1 mixes to stereo.

Halo Downmix is a new solution for delivering accurate downmixes that are no longer limited to typical in-the-box coefficient-based processes. It allows for unprecedented adjustment, and provides visual controls for relative levels, timing and direct vs. ambient sound balance. With Halo Downmix, dialog level can be maintained effectively with phantom center ratio controls and excess ambient sound from rear channels can be managed easily. Low frequencies can also be regulated to ensure appropriate levels in downmix, and timing artifacts in surround channels introduced by legacy upmix practices are now easy to fix, either manually or by using the Halo Downmix auto detection functionality. In addition, Halo Downmix introduces a surround-to-surround mode for adjusting existing 5.1 or 7.1 mixes for better downmix compatibility or re-balancing of the surround mix.

"We are excited to showcase our new Halo Downmix solution at NAB this year," says Jon Schorah, founder and creative director, NUGEN Audio. "Halo Downmix is an ideal solution for re-purposing cinematic releases for stereo television, restoring surround archive material, providing fine adjustments to surround recordings or facilitating real-time OB downmixing. Halo Downmix is everything audio professionals need to accurately and easily deliver an original surround mix in stereo."

NUGEN Audio also demonstrated the latest update to Halo Upmix, the company's solution for upmixing stereo audio to 5.1, 7.1 or 9.1 surround sound.Based on NUGEN Audio's proprietary upmixing processes, this update includes algorithmic improvements designed to enhance multichannel-to-multichannel mix and upmix adjustments to further enhance existing surround recordings.

At NAB this year, new 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos compatible audio tracks could be found on display for the first time ever in Pro Tools and Avid demo artists showcased Halo Upmix support for this new environment at Avid Technology's.

"Halo Upmix, generating 7.1.2 audio in Pro Tools, is just the latest innovation from NUGEN Audio, our prized Alliance Partner whose range of breakout AAX Plug-Ins are available now on Avid Marketplace," says Ed Gray, Avid's director, Partnering Programs. "We hope NAB visitors will visit Avid and NAB to see Halo Upmix in action and learn more about the ways NUGEN is addressing critical workflow needs from surround production to Live Sound to the home studio."

Also on display was NUGEN Audio's Loudness Toolkit 2 and AMB Processor. The Loudness Toolkit contains VisLM-H 2 Loudness Meter, ISL 2 True Peak Limiter and LM-Correct 2 Loudness Correction Tool, three innovative solutions that are also available individually. VisLM-H 2 Loudness Meter provides smarter metering with full history and logging. ISL 2 True Peak Limiter provides transparent brick-wall limiting for the assurance of True Peak compliance at all times, and the LM-Correct 2 Loudness Correction Tool enables quick check and correction processing at up to 100x faster than real-time, in NLE or as a file-based standalone application.

AMB is a powerful software solution that radically expands on the concept of NUGEN Audio's industry-leading loudness management batch-processing technology. AMB enables post-production facilities to accelerate workflows significantly and reduce delivery times for a range of different tasks such as loudness correction, dynamics adaptation and upmixing. AMB offers best-in-class processing speed and for greater scalability, both Queue Expansion and Thread Expansion modules are available, in addition to processing options for audio within MXF and ProRes files.

www.nugenaudio.com

This article is also available to read in the latest edition of Broadcast Film & Video here, page 56.

(JP/MH)