WHEREVER THE files may end up, it’s always worth splashing out on some reassuringly expensive signal processing. Take Cartec Audio’s new Tone Harmonic Compressor, based on the classic Pultecs of yore, clocking
version comes in the wake of MFiT, and adds Apple’s iTunes Plus codec for direct mixing and mastering for that application and said to monitor the same clip behaviour as the iTunes encoding chain. “The Sonnox-Fraunhofer
Pro-Codec was created as a collaboration between Sonnox
in at a cool £3,349.00 or €4,257.00 – plus VAT. It’s a 2-channel hybrid compressor with eight valves and four discrete amplifiers controlling dynamic range, harmonic distortion and tonal balance. Input is divided into two
and Fraunhofer IIS to address the needs of mastering engineers wanting to monitor audio in real-time through a variety of codecs,” comments Nathan Eames, sales & marketing manager at Sonnox. “It was met with great acclaim in 2011 by mastering engineers, broadcasters and even mix
parallel paths and two stages: firstly a pair of variable transconductance EF183 valves operating in a push-pull configuration and feeding an ECC82 with an interstage transformer; and secondly a separate winding of the input transformer ultimately blended with the compressed output. There’s also an all-important variable, asymmetrical clipping threshold. Both signal paths each have a separate output fader before the discrete mix bus and transformer-coupled output amplifier.
engineers, who all felt that the plug-in saved them significant time at the final stages of production in quality controlling their output. “With the continuing adoption
of Apple’s Mastered For iTunes programme in the mastering world, Sonnox and Fraunhofer felt it would be useful to include
Apple’s AAC iTunes+ Codec in Version 2 of the Pro-Codec. “Using Version 2 of
Pro-Codec, the exact clipping behaviour of the iTunes encoding chain can be monitored and levels corrected if necessary. This has saved engineers a lot of time and trouble at the final mastering stages, and also given their clients confidence to know that what they’re hearing is exactly how it will sound when finally encoded by Apple for iTunes. Instead of mastering it well and then hoping for the best, it’s taken the guesswork out of what will happen when it gets sent to Apple.” It should be remembered,
of course, that at present Apple’s MFiT programme is only available to Apple Mac users as, therefore, is the section of Pro-Codec Version 2 that caters for it. The extent to which Apple might want to promote its solutions in the PC-populated world of professional mastering is a question for corporation- watchers: market share does not
always serve the same interests as consumer choice. “Mastered For iTunes requires
the down-sampling function within Core Audio,” points out Crispin Murray, now technical manager at Guilde Productions. “You supply 88.2kHz or 96kHz, and Core Audio reduces it to 44.1kHz and uses their latest algorithm to encode an AAC file. As I understand it, those algorithms are not public domain so, for non-Mac users, it’s not a real-time function: you have to render the whole thing out to a Mac and, if you wish, back again.” You might well wish, because
all of the established DAW platforms in professional mastering, from SADiE to Sequoia and Pyramix, are PC-based. The Sonnox- Fraunhofer Pro-Codec will allow auditioning of AAC – and of course MP3 – files in real time on these devices, but that’s not the same process as Mastering For iTunes. The algorithm is not the same. “Plus,” adds Murray, “the algorithm changes. It’s currently