Getting creativeĪs well as editing existing audio, you can also use SpectraLayers to create audio from scratch using a pair of drawing tools: Noise and Frequency. Once that's done, though, the results are often excellent. Once again, success is entirely dependent on your ability to select the offending frequencies, and that can take time. By extracting areas to new layers and using the layer phase reverse function, you can very successfully remove specific pitches, noises or, with the excellent Harmonics selector, more complex sounds. That said, once you get past the operational hurdles, what SL does do rather well, as shown in Sony's own demos, is remove sonic elements that you don't want. And with the frequency scale being linear - as opposed to logarithmic, like most spectral analysers and editors - we found ourselves having to zoom in and out far too much, as the vast majority of what we were interested in was stuffed into about a third of the display. In part, this is because, although you can audition selected sections, it can still be difficult to visually distinguish what's what. However, in use, we found that these could be tough to actually use accurately. So that's how you select and extract areas from the source file, but what can you actually do with them? The main tools let you reposition and pitchshift selected areas of the spectrum, and beyond that, three modify tools (Amplify, Clone and Eraser) facilitate more precise changes. "With the frequency scale being linear, we found ourselves having to zoom in and out far too much" For more precise selection, you get a further set of extraction tools (Area, Frequency, Harmonics and Noise), which enable direct extraction of more precisely shaped elements to a new layer. So far so good, but also slightly restrictive, as the selected areas must be square or rectangular. With the tools also available in 'frequency-only' and 'time-only' versions, making accurate selections is pleasingly easy. The basic ones (Select, Move and Scale) enable you to select, copy, cut, move and stretch sections of the spectral display. However, the real power of SpectraLayers lies in its editing tools. Colour coding is used throughout the process (green for active layers, red for soloed or selected ones), and this is augmented by further colours that are brought into play when you copy layers to the clipboard. When you've created the sound you want, you simply merge the layers and render the whole mix. "The real power of SpectraLayers lies in its editing tools - making accurate selections is easy"
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