Soundminer PLUS - Pro Pack Expansion

Expand your Soundminer PLUS toolset with additional features and turn your file management system into a sound design workstation!

Create new sounds with the Soundminer Radium Sampler or use the record switch to record all your experimental sound mods in PLUS – the same way assistants used to record their engineer's sound experiments with tape machines. All you have to do is load your plugins into the DSP Rack to turn your edit system into a sound lab.

If you are a dialogue editor, the Leg Picker will quickly become your new best friend: use Leg Picker to click through the channels of multitrack recordings and transfer individual clips directly from the tracks to the edit system.

In terms of format conversions, the Mirror Tool leaves nothing to be desired. In addition, the Tag To Database feature allows you to efficiently transfer audio material between databases. This is particularly useful if you need to quickly collect audio material for a new project.

See more info about individual features below.

It didn't take long for the Soundminer Radium Sampler to become a fan favourite. The Radium Sampler communicates directly with your archive, which is part of the reason why it has become so popular. Most importantly, it was developed specifically for sound designers working in audio post-production. The Radium Sampler will open up a whole new world of sound creation for you!

Exploring every feature included with the Radium Sampler is, unfortunately, beyond the scope of this article. But this official Soundminer intro video from 2019 covers pretty much all the basic functions of the Sampler. Although additional features have been added to the app since the video's release, the basic functionality has remained the same.

Expand your sound design toolset with the DSP Plugin Rack and load your plugins directly into the PLUS audio stream. This will allow you to listen to all effects in real-time and render them as a new sound. With the DSP Plugin Rack you can create entire chains of plugins to help you modify your sounds.

The following is a list of features offered by the DSP Plugin Rack:

• Create new sounds with more than 20 plugin slots per signal chain
• VST and AU plugins (AU only for Mac)
• Recall plugin chains saved as presets
• During transfer, all active plugins will be rendered into the transferred audio material, thereby creating a new sound (unless you deactivate this feature in the settings)
• Record all modifications made with plugins and Pitcher with the REC switch. This creates a new audio file that can be imported and subsequently modified

Record all your real-time modifications as a new audio file with the REC switch!

Feel like experimenting? Just press REC. PLUS will create a new audio file in the background and record all your modifications. In other words, it records the PLUS audio output. So, no matter what you do, PLUS will record a new file that contains your latest sound creations.

According to a legendary sound designer (whose name I don't recall), "magic happens with a fingertip." Yes, it's that simple!

The origin of the REC switch goes back to the analogue days, when assistants would record all of the engineer's sound experiments. They were well aware that whatever magic they captured on any given day with tape reels, effects, and pitch shifting would be almost impossible to reproduce later on, so they just recorded everything, every time.

Hence the REC switch, which captures these precious experiments and allows you to modify them at a later stage.

Navigate the individual audio tracks of multi-channel recordings.

Click through the individual audio tracks of a multi-channel recording and transfer the selected material directly into your edit system.

This is particularly useful for dialogue editing, allowing you to select individual words and syllables from a sentence or even alternative words from other takes.

The Leg Picker will display the selected track(s) and will play it/them exclusively.

Copying track names from iXML data

The Leg Picker communicates with the iXML data from the recording devices used by the production sound mixer. To make the data visible in PLUS, you will need to create PLUS databases by using the iXML data field option.

Now you will see the original labels of the audio tracks, i.e the way they were originally labelled. It goes without saying that this is an indispensable tool for anyone working with production sound recordings. It will help you find that proverbial needle in the haystack in no time!

The Soundminer Mirror Tool - a Soundminer V6 PRO favourite - is available as a Pro Pack add-on for PLUS. Mirror covers all the bases when it comes to transferring and converting between audio formats. From single files to entire archives with thousands of folders and sounds, Mirror will make exact copies of everything in the format and resolution of your choice.

Create customized folder structures

If required, Mirror will create a new folder structure based on your metadata: if you select 'Build Using Category', all sound files in a given category will be transferred to the designated folder when copied.

The above image shows the extensive list of commands offered by Mirror: the options available for transfer and file structure leave nothing to be desired.

Mirror is yet another indispensable professional tool for everyday use.

As the name implies, Combine allows you to combine several selected audio tracks in a new file.

Tag to Database is a useful tool for brainstorming sessions at the beginning of a new project.

With the Tag To Database command you will move data files to another database (your project database, for instance). This allows you to quickly collect choice sounds for your current project, while keeping the number of sound files at a manageable level.

Tag to Database also allows you to add notes to the metadata fields (e.g. which scene a sound is intended for).