Nugen Audio has announced Halo Upmix, the first product based on the company’s new, proprietary processes for upmixing stereo audio to 5.1/7.1-channel surround in television and film production.
Available in Avid AAX, VST, and AU formats, Halo Upmix automates the creation of a stereo-to-5.1/7.1 downmix-compatible upmix with unique centre channel management, and spatial density controls. ‘Halo Upmix fills an important role in TV and film production,’ says Nugen Audio Creative Director, Jon Schorah. ‘It’s a radical new approach to upmixing that not only provides the assurance of downmix compatibility needed for TV surround production, but also delivers enough creative malleability to satisfy film audio.’
Combining several technologies including frequency- and time-domain energy distribution and neural network artificial intelligence, Halo Upmix enables producers to target various upmix goals including full stable surrounds, exact downmix matching, and/or full dialogue isolation. In addition to stem and group upmixing, producers can use Halo Upmix’s centre channel control and management to fine-tune a surround mix and to create intricate mixes when there is no access to the original stems. Centre channel control includes Nugen Audio’s proprietary neural network-based dialogue extraction.
In addition, Halo Upmix performs powerful real-time analysis of the original stereo material by identifying and extracting location cues. This enables the solution to extend the sound panorama naturally without introducing artificial reverberation, chorusing, or delay into the downmix. In this manner, operators can preserve the inherent character of the original source material when repurposing stereo for cinematic release. Halo Upmix is downmix-safe, providing coherent spatial sound to assure high-quality downmix performance for work in which correlation between original, upmixed, and downmixed versions is imperative, such as TV repurposing. Also, full control is available for all relative surround balances (up to 7.1 channels) for those applications that require a more immersive, ‘big cinematic sound’ experience.
‘Whether their goal is naturally extracted and expanded soundscapes or full cinematic big-stage enhancement, producers can tackle upmixing tasks easily and intuitively,’ Schorah says.
More: www.nugenaudio.com
