Edit Review: Apple Soundtrack Pro 2

Apple Soundtrack Pro 2, which ships as part of Final Cut Studio 2, excels at automatic dialogue replacement.

I remember attending an AES convention held in San Francisco in the mid-1990s where Avid formally announced its purchase of Digidesign, the fledgling company that was producing some startlingly powerful audio products for the Macintosh. The potential advantages for the audio post community were obvious. Over the years, the promise of this merger has been realized, most completely in the advances made in Pro Tools, which has been the de facto standard in audio post for some time. Its price tag, of course, is daunting to some. Final Cut Studio 2 (FCS 2), which includes Soundtrack Pro 2 (SP 2), offers the audio post pro working at all levels of the industry a set of tools that are intelligently designed, easy to use, and capable of helping turn out thoroughly professional projects. (For a review of Final Cut Studio 2, see digitalcontentproducer.com/videoedsys/
revfeat/apple_final_cut.)

I conducted this review on a Mac Pro system provided by Apple that included a 3.0GHz dual-core Intel Xeon processor, a system/application drive, a second storage drive, and a pair of 23in. flatscreen monitors. FCS 2 had been preloaded; my only setup responsibility involved downloading and installing the appropriate drivers for my RME Audio Fireface 800 audio interface card from the distributor's site. After opening up Soundtrack Pro 2for the first time, I navigated over to the recording tab, selected the Fireface 800 as both my input and output device, and established contact. All of the setup procedures are neatly laid out in the PDF manual that ships with the product; it should be pointed out that no hard-copy manual is available.

My space is limited, so I'm going to gloss over the tasks that SP 2 handles similarly to most other applications of its kind. You can, for example, set up the multiple panes that comprise SP 2 to maximize your workflow. This system had two monitors, so I detached the video view, dragged it over to the right monitor, and saved the project. Timelines can be set up to reflect SMPTE locations, bars and beats, or both — you get the idea.

Soundtrack Pro 2 lets you work in two different project categories. A multitrack project is just that: a multitrack recording environment where you can record audio — including automatic dialogue replacement (ADR) — import foley and music clips from the extensive library included with Soundtrack Pro 2, and mix your collected audio in either stereo or surround sound. The implementation of surround sound is excellent.

An audio file project lets you concentrate on a single piece of audio that requires some polishing. You can clean up noise or change its level. It's nice to have this option, but you can easily highlight an individual audio file within a multitrack project and perform all the non-destructive edits you need to make. (Edits are saved with a project, leaving the original audio unblemished.)

For starters, I decided to create a music mix made up entirely of audio clips from the library included with Soundtrack Pro 2. I chose a tempo of 116 beats per minute. I auditioned drum loops from the program's browser and selected one. In short order, I added a two-bar electric piano groove, and then a bass guitar pattern — both of which happened to be played in the key of A major. Next came a few percussion loops: shaker and tambourine. After copying each of these loops to create a 16-bar phrase, I set out to mix this masterpiece using the enclosed signal-processing (i.e., DSP) effects.

Before discussing the mix, I need to point out that I experienced some digital distortion at odd times while working with SP 2, including multiple incidents that occurred while I was auditioning loops. SP 2 can incorporate clips recorded at different sample rates — 44.1kHz and 48kHz, most commonly — into a single project, and that capability may have led to some of the confusion that the system experienced. Or SP 2 might not work seamlessly with my RME Audio hardware at this time. Apple tech support had no clearer idea of what might lie at the heart of the problem, which I experienced sporadically. At any rate, reselecting the Fireface 800 as my audio output device and choosing 44.1kHz as my sample rate cleared up the problem every time.

The application does not yet allow you to bring third-party VST or Asio plug-ins into the system (probably for marketing reasons, but it's still a pity), so it's important to examine the quality of SP 2's effects.

Fortunately, the signal processing that ships with with SP 2 is, by and large, very good. Back to my mix, I added a Space Designer reverb to the main output bus — one of three busses that are included. Then I EQ'd the drum loop to boost the kick drum and sculpted out some of the same low-frequency range in the bass track to make room for it. I added a flanger. Finally, I put a delay on the shaker track. Surprisingly, the system crashed on me several times while I worked on a track, including once when I was working on a single file in an audio file project. I also got a “computer dropping audio” error message on several occasions.

Any recording application aimed at the audio post market has to handle ADR work efficiently, and SP 2 shines in this area. Set up a loop region to match your video and let talent record multiple takes. Then, when the session is over, you'll find that editing the best parts of the takes together into a single, collapsed track is a breeze. Again, most applications aimed at audio post let you do the same thing, but SP 2 handles this job quite comfortably.

You can automate volume and pan curves and similarly manipulate any of the effects that you have applied to an effect or bus. Even if you're just starting out as an audio editor, you'll find it easy to create cross-fades between ADR bits assembled across multiple takes. The multipoint spotting display lets you zone into your video with a precision that few, if any, other audio post software programs in Soundtrack's price range can provide.

Conforming audio to picture efficiently is critical — especially today, when picture changes seem to come throughout the entire audio post process. SP 2's auto conform feature is outstanding, particularly when it's used in conjunction with Final Cut Pro. All of the tedious tasks that an assistant used to have to do — comparing the current version of video with the last and making sure corresponding audio is lined up — have been eliminated. If you're bringing video in from FCP, all you have to do is direct Soundtrack Pro 2 to analyze the current footage against what you've been working with, and it will build a new audio project that reflects the changes, leaving the original untouched. The timeline in the newly conformed project reflects the picture changes, making it easy for you to see what areas need additional audio.

Another problem that audio post editors have to contend with regularly is audio recorded poorly in the field or under less-than-optimal conditions. Noise from air conditioners, audio tracked at low levels, and wind are common. SP 2 ships with a set of noise-reduction tools. Unfortunately, I did not find them to be the most effective aspects of this product. I have a set of noisy files that I keep on my computer, and I use them as a constant to check out various noise-reduction programs.

As with other apps, I sampled a portion of one of these audio files containing noise only and used it to create a profile that could be used to reduce this information data across the entire file. In my judgment, this component of SP 2 did not perform as well as SoundSoap from Bias or the superior noise-reduction tool in the Waves Restoration bundle.

Soundtrack Pro 2 is integrated smoothly with Final Cut Pro 6, and it's fully compatible with both DVD Studio Pro 4 and Motion 3, which are also bundled within the Final Cut Studio 2 package. (For a review of Motion 3, see digitalcontentproducer.com/desktoppost/depth/apple_motion.) SP 2 allows for the creation of podcasts, and the audio you eventually export for Internet upload can be downmixed to a variety of specifications.

For those more comfortable working with a hardware surface than the mouse, Soundtrack Pro 2 supports control surfaces that implement either the Mackie Control Universal or Tascam FireOne control protocols.

If you can't live without Audio Ease Altiverb or the Waves SSL 4000 Collection, you may need to bypass Soundtrack Pro and spring for Steinberg Nuendo or Pro Tools to get support for them. Considering that many potential users of Soundtrack Pro 2 will not be focused primarily on audio, however, the restrictions that Soundtrack Pro 2 imposes could be very minor. No one application that spans such a wide territory can cover all of its bases with equal authority, and there are certainly other programs that do a better job of performing specific tasks — including some third-party plug-ins that cannot be integrated into Soundtrack Pro 2.

Soundtrack Pro should prove powerful for audio post engineers who need to record ADR, conform audio to picture, and output in surround as well as in stereo to picture. Moreover, Final Cut Pro 6 editors doing audio themselves will be hard-pressed to find an application more enticing than Soundtrack Pro 2.

Company: Apple
www.apple.com

Product: Soundtrack Pro 2

Assets: Integrates smoothly with Final Cut Pro 6, DVD Studio Pro 4, and Motion 3, shines in automatic dialogue replacement, intuitive multitrack and single-track workflows, outputs in surround and stereo.

Caveats: Noise reduction not up to par, not compatible with Audio Ease Altiverb or the Waves SSL 4000 Collection, some system crashes and error messages in my tests.

Demographic: Audio post engineers who need to record ADR, conform audio to picture, and output in surround as well as in stereo to picture.

PRICE: $1,299 (FINAL CUT STUDIO 2 WITH SOUNDTRACK PRO 2); $499 (FCS 2 UPGRADE FROM FINAL CUT STUDIO); $699 (FCS 2 UPGRADE FROM FINAL CUT PRO OR PRODUCTION SUITE)