Peak Pro 6 Nominated for TEC Award

Peak Pro 6 was recently nominated for MIX magazine's highly prestigious Technical Excellence & Creativity Award, for outstanding achievement in the Workstation Technology category. Since 1985, the TEC Awards program has recognized the achievements of individuals and companies — and technical innovations in recording, film, TV, and live performance. Nominations are made by a panel of industry professionals and voted upon by subscribers of Mix magazine. Awards will be presented at a ceremony on October 3rd at the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco, during the annual AES (Audio Engineering Society) convention. Click here for more info.

Mix subscribers: Vote for Peak Pro! Look for a ballot in the August issue!

BIAS Appoints Sonic8 as New UK Distributor

BIAS is pleased to announce a new distribution partnership with Sonic8 Limited, serving the UK and Ireland. Sonic8's diverse audio expertise includes everything from cutting-edge audio software to studio hardware, and their professional staff is committed to providing the highest level of service. Their complementary product lines, and steady growth over the past five years, makes them a perfect fit for selling and supporting BIAS products. BIAS software users in the region will benefit greatly from Sonic8's experience, and will find working with a local distributor in their part of the world extremely convenient, for both placing orders, and receiving technical support. Click here for more information.


What's DDP?

Jeff Rona — award-winning film composer and recording artist — was recently putting the finishing touches on his latest CD project, the new Liquid Cinema Premier Trailer Music Library, using Peak Pro XT 6. He got a call from the replication firm he works with, asking if the final pre-master could be delivered in DDP (Disc Description Protocol) format, rather than the familiar Red Book CD format Jeff had worked with previously.

"What's DDP, and how do I make it?" thought Rona, and contacted Jason Davies, a long-time acquaintance and technical supporter — and BIAS' VP of Sales & Marketing.

Jeff recounted the situation, and Davies explained that DDP is a modern, flexible, and secure format for delivering audio material for mass replication, and that more and more labels are requesting this from artists they work with. As a pre-master delivery format, DDP offers numerous benefits over Red Book CD, including the ability to upload files to a replicator over the internet, which allows for faster project turnaround. DDP files also offer additional security and data integrity as they can be encrypted for file transfer. Since DDP file sets are not subject to manipulation like audio tracks on a Red Book CD pre-master, they ensure that the final product ends up exactly as the artist intended.

Once Jeff realized that full-featured DDP creation (with CD-TEXT, ISRC codes, etc.) was a standard feature in Peak Pro XT, he was able to easily deliver a pre-master that met the replicator's specifications.

To learn more about Jeff Rona, click here — and be sure to check out this month's Tech Note, which describes how to make your own DDP pre-masters.


Cutting Tracks in Peak Pro's Playlist

When working with a single audio document that contains a number of separate tracks, such as a DJ mix or live recording, Peak Pro 6's Playlist offers a great new way to cut it into individual tracks prior to CD burning or sending to iTunes. Here's how it works:

Open the long audio document that contains multiple songs and add it to a Playlist.

Click the Playlist's Conform Source Regions to Playlist Events button, so the edits you make in the Playlist are reflected in the source document.

Click or drag the playhead cursor in the timeline, until you reach the point where you wish to create a track break.

Click the Split Playlist Event button to make a cut — each Playlist Event becomes a track when burned to CD or sent to iTunes.


Creating DDP pre-masters for commercial CD replication

DDP, or Disc Description Protocol, is a delivery format for CD pre-masters, which is growing in popularity and becoming a standard for both large and small record labels. The benefits of delivering your pre-master as a DDP file set include:

  • Artistic integrity — DDP files are not subject to manipulation, and end up exactly as the artist intended.
  • Data security — DDP files can be encrypted for secure transfer to replicator.
  • Delivery speed — ability to transfer pre-masters over the internet speeds up production process.
  • Replicator specifications — many labels now only accept DDP pre-masters, as they are faster to work with, and less prone to costly manufacturing errors.

Peak Pro supports the latest DDP 2.0 specification and is capable of creating DDP filesets complete with CD-TEXT, ISRC codes and all other optional metadata that can be used to produce commercial Red Book format audio CDs. Once a mastering project is complete in Peak, DDP is just another delivery option and is as simple as burning an audio CD. DDP support is included in the Peak Pro XT bundle and is an available option for Peak Pro.

Here's how to create DDP files with Peak Pro:

  • Create or open a Peak Pro Playlist
  • Click the Bounce Playlist button
  • Select DDP 2.0 File Set from the File Format menu
  • Click the Bounce button
  • Name your DDP file set folder
  • Click the Save DDP Fileset button

Hot Summer Offers on BIAS software!

There's never been a better time to upgrade to Peak Pro 6. With special pricing on individual Master Perfection Suite plug-ins, as well as savings on the Peak Pro XT crossgrade, creating great-sounding projects has never been more affordable. To find out more, or take advantage of our hot summer deals, click here.

BIAS FORUM

Did you know that BIAS has an online forum where users exchange ideas and help each other out? Click here to join the forum.

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