Thanks for the heads up.

They seriously need ARA 2 integration nowadays.

The released it. No ARA integration

And they want me to update without it? Steinberg Spectralayers Pro 7 is looking tempting for me now as a Cubase Pro user primarily except they still haven't got a demo available. Definitely makes this one a tough decision. At least I should be able to demo RX8 and see whether I think the update is worth it without ARA 2 integration.

Which version on vocalign are you using? I have sampletude and a older version of vocalign I don't use because I thought it was not about to be used in sampletude. Would be great to be able to use it in sampletude

I understand that ARA gives some additional options but as I said why don’t you use macros to recall RX? I’m using Advanced and it’s very convenient to use macros to call it in and make changes using any modules. I’m just curious maybe I missed something?

I could be wrong, but isn't the difference that with Spectralayers and ARA you get "instant" access to undo/redo the processing that you did. With iZotope RX you don't if you leave Cubase/Nuendo and process within the standalone app, which a lot of people including myself do quite frequently... especially when we need to work on things using the spectral frequency domain view..

Yes, you have to commit to changes and can’t go back and re-do what you did with RX. I don’t think it’s a big deal as RX is mostly used for noise reduction and similar tasks, but it’s me.

Thank you, mattias.

The thing about it in Cubase/Nuendo is that with the undo history per event it's hypothetically possible to execute another process before having used RX. So now if you want to adjust that first process you can't really do it because you can't automatically redo the RX one that comes after.

I agree that it's easy enough to learn to live without it, but I'm just pointing out the benefit with ARA as far as I understand it.

To provide a little more informations about ARA2, it synchronises the following data with the host:
-clips size and position
-clips name
-clips color
-playhead position
As well as keeping your edit history as mentioned above, and track how you clone or duplicate your clips.

An update coming later this year pushes the SL+Cubase/Nuendo integration even further (but I can't say more at this point).

I have had RX for years and now Spectralayers 7. I think they are very different beasts. S7 is much more for creative sound design work and RX for restoration/repair etc. There is overlap but I am glad I have both. RX seems to be going down the individual modules as plugin route rather than going for ARA2

FINALLY, TRIAL NOW AVAILABLE!

About time lol. They are probably realising they might lose out if they don't allow a trial now that Izotope's RX8 has dropped.

On Steinberg's website.

Only minor added features though for those of us that already have RX 7. I don't think Steinberg needs to be that worried. It's a bit of apples/oranges it seems.

That’s what I’m sensing as well, at least from YT clips I saw before... now when the demo has been anounced, I have to test it within Nuendo 10. I had high expectations regarding SL7, because of ARA2 and eventual tight integration with Nuendo... and because Nuendo is mainly about postproduction, I believed that SL will be “that” Steinberg-kind RX tool for spectral editing. For now I’m doubt; it seems that SL is better suited for remixing abd sound design... Will see after I’ll be done with demoing. I guess, that Steinberg needs to make a clearer positioning of SL7 as a tool. For instance, I’m looking for arsenal to repair / restore some very noisy optical soundtrack from a pre-WW2 movie and I know that just denoising or declicking will be not enough and the right spectral editing tool could be paramount.

That's mostly because the new videos highlight other, less explored aspects of SpectraLayers for creation; but it's originally a software designed for advanced repair, restoration and unmixing of sound. The original idea behind SL was to go beyond the process-oriented approach (which will always be limited by nature) such as RX, by providing several advanced spectral tools with direct feedback. This allows you to directly edit the spectrogram to the finest details, combined with a layer system to transfer data back and forth.
It really is Photoshop for sound, so you can hardly reduce it to just repair, restoration, editing or a creative tool, it's all at once.
Anyway, give the tools and the layers a try, it's probably easier to understand what I mean

Vocalign Pro, latest version.

There was a trial for SL6 until SL7 was released. It just takes time to create the trial version/license system for a new version.

I picked up SL7 not long after release for a repair project and I really like it. I prefer using SL to RX.

Moving forward in the science re: the art of extraction of say, three guitars from a mono mix...which is time consuming to do circa 2020....

MIT is almost three years into a project that can extract difficult mixed instruments..like separate guitars...via a novel approach....like...oh yeah, that makes sense.

Let's say you have an old audio mix of three guitars. For the moment, let's say it's stereo instead of a mono mix. A steel string guitar being flat picked on the left, a classical fingerpicked guitar on the right.....separation not too good...and...right on top of everything, sorta spread across the panorama, a metal-fingerpicked electric guitar.

A nice tapestry, nice arrangement, each guitar doing a unique thing but....because there are sooooo many notes....and guitars being similar sounding no matter how well your brain can isolate them.....it's difficult to massively impossible to extract the three onto resulting separate mono tracks....circa 2020.

Well......

To shorten this most interesting AI research development story......

Take the recorded audio....get in front of a camera (you yourself with a guitar), make sure you yourself know how to play those 3 guitar parts pretty damn well...and....

do a video of you sitting there, playing along with the recording of the left guitar....NO MIC. Remember, the left guitar is an ac flat picked. The camera just has to SEE your both hand movements.

Next, do the video for the classical guitar part....with a classical guitar.

Third...do the electri guitar part.

Do body/head movements that are appropriate for each pass.

Edit the videos so all three of "you" are now simultaneously on the screen "playing" the synchtonized audio.

The point?

The MIT project software (I'd name it Hal 9000) uses ai....'watches" you, listens to the recorded guitars, instantly figures out....by seeing you....which guitar part goes with which guy....and then.....splits the guitars into mono....that can be turned up/down/isolated.

Apparently, it's like our mind workings at a party...you may hear a cluster of voices, but if your eyes focus on a guy twenty feet away who is using various body motions, your brain can pretty solidly radar in and "isolate" his voice so that can can catch just that conversation.

Pretty neat eh?

MIT was calling the thing PixelPlayer three years ago but have just renamed it as the reasearch advanced over the past six months.

Works on existing video as well. My tutorial was for where you have no video....but want to extract very difficult stuff.

Heck...you could extract a mixed trumpet/trombone/sax/tuba via video....even if you don'y play those instruments. You'd simply hold them and mimic movements for the camera.

Such interesting possibilities. Such interesting times.

I post this here on purpose for Steinberg/SL to see.

Someone's gonna grab the code and work it into what I've described.

Who will be first?

Thanks for your r input; good to know it! I just started my trial month today. The first thing I've noticed, is that it "eats" pretty little amount of CPU's power; the visuals are great.

Yeah, the tools are very PS-like indeed. But now I'm a bit confused about the workflow. I'm eventually going to use SL mainly as a spectral repairing tool within Nuendo, as ARA2 process. Now I'm realizing, that SL "replaces" the common Sample Editor I'm used to open by double clicking on Audio Event. When SL is activated for a particular Audio Event, the Sample Editor is automatically deactivated.

It got me to thinking I cannot do any "traditional" editing functions Nuendo's Sample Editor provides, be it cutting, redrawing of waveforms or stuff like that, while SpectraLayers is On.

Does it mean, that - regarding workflow - one first has to do all necessary manipulations using SL, then apply them (by Render in Place? or doing something similar to Flatten All Layers command we know from Photoshop?) and only after that, when SL is removed via command "Remove extension from selected events", there will be time to do "simple stuff" like cutting etc. using Sample Editor?

Do we have to put attention on any consecution / order of processes when SL is involved in the editing chain?

Thanks in advance!

I also find that with ARA 2 you should be able to open multiple things at once and work on them at the same time by switching between pages/tabs etc.
This is annoying with using VocAlign and Melodyne together with ARA 2...

Imo, this is a non-issue. It's not hard to determine what it is you need to work on and what to do first, whether using Editor or SL.



I started using SL6, and am very happy to update to SL7 for what it adds. Great new features.

Patch 2 has just been released, and adds several popular requests such as Unmix Stems: Sensitivity or Export Stems. It also fixes several issues.
Check out the patch notes: https://download.steinberg.net/downl...on_History.pdf
The patch can be downloaded from here: https://www.steinberg.net/index.php?...ralayers_7&L=1

There often are situations when you just need to move forth and back in editing / processing for different reasons.

A question: say I have several audio events, each of them has his "own undo-history" regarding SL via ARA2. Now how do I apply a single editing process - say Noise reduction, for example - for all of them at once, using SL? Given, that they are separate audio clips / events, as I mentioned.

The only workaround I'm seeing is to do spectral editing on each event and then apply Noise reduction using some other software as an insert for, say, a Group channel all of those audio events are routed to.

Testing the stem separation in SL Pro7 with one of my older tracks, it sounds very convincing, totally up to par with RX8 Advanced. In the video below the default setting for the component separation was used.

Imprinting the sound of gibbons in the jungle onto a female soprano voice with doppler FX using SpectraLayer 7 (moulding function).

The description sounds like a good intro for 70s-80s low budget horror movie

Anyway, sounds really interesting. Shows the creative power of SL.

LOL.

I have been an RX user for a while. Have basicaly everything from izotope as i liked the idea of a cohesive and interconnected mixing workflow.
However, i am finding more and more that i prefer other individual plugs for most things. So i have been looking elsewhere.
PLUS i am just about to demo cubase. After going through just about every DAW out there, i think Cubase might actually have the feature set that most suits me.

I am also very much attrated to the steinberg eco system as a whole. It seems very complete.
Which got me thinking about spectra layers.
I like that it is great for sound design...but is it up to scratch for restoration?
TBH i would still be interested if it isn't, but i would like some opinions.
Have also been looking at the Accusonus bundle...supposedly they are very good.

Anyone have experience with all of them?
Does anyone know when the ARA2 version drops?
Will probably put some cash aside for black friday sales and buy as much of it as i can during that time.

I used RX5 for a while, and just used RX8 demo. I really like how Spectralayers separates things into layers - it's much easier to tailor things that way. Download the SL demo!

Don't forget the cross-grade option from Steinberg's own site if you own a recent version of RX Standard or Advanced as it knocks a nice chunk off the price.

Nice! That is awesome. It is def looking like i am migrating over to cubase. Just been trying the demo with my raven (and my studio in general) and so far i am seriously impressed.
It has all the features i actually want. Can't believe i slept on this one. I have been through literally every major DAW in recent years, looking for one that suits what i am doing.
So yeah, will probably buy cubase in three weeks when the demo is up..i am assuming that would make me eligible for some kind of crossgrade?
I will shoot them an email asking what the best route is.
If i am buying in, i may as well go the whole way - cubase, spectralayers, wave lab...i have also wanted backbone since it came out.

The only reason i didn't try this stuff for ages is because i didn't have a dongle.

Re: splitting into layers - that approach seems to make sense and seems alot more intuitive. I will try it tomorrow.
To be honest i will likely get it even if it is mostly good for sound design. The question then is 'does it do repair and noise reduction as well'
The other contender there, for me at least, is the era 5 bundle.
They have an offer on their subscription which is about to run out. Lots of demoing to do