The hottest new plug-in at NAMM came from Sonnox. Developed with Fraunhofer IIS, Pro-Codec revoluitionizes mixing and mastering workflows. Pro-Codec enabels you to listen several codecs live while mixing or masterng. But the real kicker is that you can also listen to the “minus” or difference signal – i.e. what you lose with the data compression – in real time. All major codecs, including mp3, mp3 Surround, AAC-LC and HE-AAC are supported, as are lossless codecs such as mp3 HD and HD-AAC.
Integrated FFT display shows the input signal, output difference signal and a unique graphical indication of the codec-induced noise. Bitstream integrity meters reveal potential decode overloads. Loads of more clever features for comparison of the codecs etc. are included as well. We don’t want to hype but it’s hard to imagine a serious mixing or mastering engineer who does *not* want this plug-in. Stay tuned for availability later this spring, we can’t wait to get our hands on it.
