1 GETTING STARTED
1 GettingStarted
The Sonnox Fraunhofer Pro-CodecPlug-In is designed forthe real-time auditioning, encoding and decoding of audiosignals by the Fraunhofer codecs. In the past it has notbeen possible to critically audition and then encode multipleformats in real time within a host DAW environment. The
revolutionary Sonnox Fraunhofer Pro-Codec now makes thispossible, and includes the Pro-CodecManager – apowerful desktop application designed for offline batchencoding, decoding and metadata editing of your encodedfiles.
Thisdocumentprovidesaquick-startoverviewoftheSonnoxFraunhoferPro-Codec. Formoredetailpleaserefertotheproductmanual.
www.sonnox.com 2 Gototop
1 GETTING STARTED
InstallingtheiLokLicenceManager
The iLok Licence Manager application must be installed onyour computer in order to use the Pro-Codec Plug-In andManager. You can download this from www.ilok.com
ActivatingYourLicence
The Pro-Codec requires that the licence ‘NATFPCG5’ isactivated to a 2nd GenerationiLok. To activate your licence,sign into the iLok Licence Manager application, connectyour iLok, and drag the licence onto it.
Forfurtherinformation, pleaserefertothedocumentA QuickGuidetoiLokwhichisavailablefromourdocumentationpages(www.sonnox.com/documentation).
Installation
Plug-in installers are available from your order email.
On Mac, the Manager application installs to:/MacintoshHD/Applicaions
On Windows, it installs to:C:\ProgramFiles(x86)\Sonnox\Apps
www.sonnox.com 3 Gototop
2 THE PRO-CODEC PLUG-IN –AUDITIONING CODECS IN REAL-TIME
2 ThePro-CodecPlug-In–AuditioningCodecsinReal-time
2.1 AuditioningandComparingCodecs
Insert the Plug-In; this can be on any track that containssome audio material but is most sensibly used on the outputbus.
By default, the Pro-Codec Plug-In has only a single codecloaded – AAC-LC, CBR, 256 kbps. To change these settings,just click on the row in the CodecList to open the CodecSettings Selector panel. To add another codec, click in oneof the four empty rows in the CodecList.
To copy codec settings to a new row, just Alt+click anddrag an existing codec row to an empty row.
To remove a codec, click the red ’X’ that appears when thecursor is over a codec row.
When you start playback through the host, by default youwill hear the encoded audio (if the MASTER IN button isenabled).
To audition other codecs, click on the MON button for anyactive codec row.
For glitch-less bypass, toggle the MASTER IN button. Themonitor LEDs at top right indicate codec or input as themonitored signal.
www.sonnox.com 4 Gototop
2.2 Metering 2 THE PRO-CODEC PLUG-IN –AUDITIONING CODECS IN REAL-TIME
2.2 Metering
2.2.1 FFT Display
The FFT display shows the signal frequency content. Theinput signal is displayed in yellow, whereas the red traceindicates the spectral content of the difference signal of theselected codec (ie. the difference between the input signaland the encoded/decoded output signal).
Alternating between CODEC and DIFF buttons on theoutput section allows monitoring of the codec output or theaudio that is removed by the encoding process.
Also shown is the NMR indicator, predominantly green inthis screenshot, which is an indication of the audibility ofoutput artefacts and codec-induced noise.
2.2.2 NMR (NoisetoMaskRatio)
All lossy codecs will produce a very slightly different outputfrom their input. Sometimes, if you listen to the difference
signal it can sound significant; however, the very nature of aperceptual coder is that this difference signal should beinaudible (i.e. masked by the output signal). A user canchoose to trade off more data compression (and smallerfiles) against increased audibility of artefacts andcodec-induced noise. Theory states that this codec-inducednoise should be inaudible when the NMR indicator is green.Under some circumstances (codec, frequency and inputsignal dependent) this NMR indicator turns red, indicatingthat the induced noise is possibly audible.
2.2.3 LISS Display
Click the LISS button at the top of the display area to switchto a Lissajous display. The left display shows the input andoutput envelopes, while the right display shows the stereospread of the codec and diff signals. ALT +drag in the rightdisplay to zoom.
www.sonnox.com 5 Gototop
2.2 Metering 2 THE PRO-CODEC PLUG-IN –AUDITIONING CODECS IN REAL-TIME
2.2.4 BitstreamLevels
Any form of filtering can, under certain circumstances,increase the level of the signal. If your input is hot, this canpotentially produce overloads when the signal is decoded.This effect can be very easily demonstrated with thisplug-in.
Use the TRIM tab to monitor for these overloads. Thepost-decoder level of each codec is continually monitored,and any overloads are shown on the small meters.
To compensate for these overloads, click+drag down onthe relevant TRIM dB control. The trim value is applied at
the input to the encoder, and removed after the decoder, toallow for equal loudness signal comparison and differencesignal calculation.
Or, clickanddrag the MAX dB value onto the TRIM dBcontrol to apply that precise gain trim. Each time this isdone, the MAX dB value is added to the existing TRIM dBvalue.
Post-decode level overloads are still visible when the TRIMtab is not in use, via the small overload LEDs next to theMON buttons.
www.sonnox.com 6 Gototop
2.3 A-B andA-B-X Testing 2 THE PRO-CODEC PLUG-IN –AUDITIONING CODECS IN REAL-TIME
2.3 A-B andA-B-X Testing
Both A-B auditioning and A-B-X testing are provided in theplug-in. To switch between the two modes, click the smalldown-arrow on the A-B/A-B-X tab. For both modes, clickan LED in the A or B column to assign a codec to the A or Baudition channel. If desired, the input signal can beassigned to the B channel instead of a codec, by clickingthe I/P LED.
A-B
Click the A-B buttons to toggle between the last two listitems selected. This is ideal for critical listening tests.
Click HIDE to make the current selection anonymous. TheA-B buttonstilltogglesbetweenthetwoselectedcodecs.
Click BOTH to display both DIFF signals (the currentlyauditioning signal is drawn in front).
A-B-X
To begin an A-B-X test, first assign a codec to A andanother codec (or the input signal) to B. X is randomlyassigned to either A or B. Switch between A, B and X, andtry to hear whether A or B is the same as X. When decided,click CHOOSE to select the one that you think is the same.This reallocates X to either A or B and increments thecounter. To complete another test cycle, simply repeat thisprocess.
After at least 10 test cycles, click REVEAL! This will displaythe percentage number of correct guesses.
For a thorough test, repeat the audition and CHOOSE cycleup to 20 or 25 times. For further details, please refer to thePro-Codec User Guide, or this Wikipedia page.
www.sonnox.com 7 Gototop
2.4 EncodingFilestoDiskinReal-Time 2 THE PRO-CODEC PLUG-IN –AUDITIONING CODECS IN REAL-TIME
2.4 EncodingFilestoDiskinReal-Time
Sometimes it may be desirable to quickly write an encoded file (or files) to disk in real-time during playback.
Record-Ready Recording in progress!
To encode a file in real time, you first have to record enablethe codec. To do this, just enable a codec’s ARM button.Then enable the MASTER RECORD button. If this isenabled during playback, recording will begin immediately,otherwise recording will begin at playback start. Recordingstops when the host playback stops.
By default, the encoded file(s) will be written to:
Mac:/Users/<username>/Music/Sonnox/EncodedFiles
Windows:\Users\<username>Music\Sonnox\EncodedFiles
... Click the FILENAME button to change the outputpath and adjust the output filename settings.
www.sonnox.com 8 Gototop
3 THE PRO-CODEC MANAGER –OFFLINE PROCESSING
3 ThePro-CodecManager–OfflineProcessing
3.1 Overview
...
Browse to a folder(or drag a folder
onto the Manager).
Audio files in the selected folder will be displayed here.Click to select a file to encode.
Command+Click (Mac) or Control+Click (Win) to selectmultiple files, or Shift+Click to select a range of files.
.
Click to add or changecodec settings
.
Drag to configure filename format(click the cog for more options)
.
Click to add metadata to bewritten to the encoded files.
.
If an MP3 or M4A file is selected,click WritetoFile to write the
metadata to that file immediately.
.
Click ‘+’ to save a codec preset(or metadata preset in the other tab)
Click a preset name to load.
.
Click Encode to encode the selected files to disk!
www.sonnox.com 9 Gototop
3.2 BatchProcessing 3 THE PRO-CODEC MANAGER –OFFLINE PROCESSING
3.2 BatchProcessing
It is possible to select multiple files in the File List, forencoding/decoding to the same output format(s). To selectmultiple files:
• Command+click (Mac) or Control+click (Windows) toadd a file to the current selection.
• Shift+click to select a range of files.
• Press Command+A (Mac) or Control+A (Windows) toselect all.
The available bit rate list for each codec changes dependingon the source sample rate and channel configuration.Because of this, and the modality of the Codec Selector and
decoder output format selector, there are necessaryrestrictions on the types of files that can be selectedsimultaneously:
1. Encoding and Decoding cannot coexist in a singlebatch operation
2. When selecting uncompressed WAV or AIFF files forencoding, all files in the selection musthavethesamesamplerateandchannelconfiguration.
In order to enforce these restrictions, when keyboard focusis set to the File List, and a multi-select modifier (Command(Mac), Control (Windows), or Shift) is held, incompatiblefiles in the list are greyed out and cannot be selected.
www.sonnox.com 10 Gototop
3.3 LevelCorrection 3 THE PRO-CODEC MANAGER –OFFLINE PROCESSING
3.3 LevelCorrection
When encoding, enable ClipSafe to prevent your encodedfiles from producing overloads in the playback system. Ofcourse, if your files have been correctly prepared using thePro-Codec Plug-In, this will not be necessary.
When decoding an M4A/MP3 file to WAV/AIFF, enableClipSafe to preserve decoding overloads that can occur asa result of improper attention to the encoding process.
Normalise can also be enabled during encoding anddecoding to ensure that the level of the resulting file is asclose to 0 dBFS as possible.
3.4 MetadataEditing
Metadata can be written to files during the encodingprocess, or added to existing MP3/M4A files by clicking theWritetoFile button.
When encoding, all metadata in the metadata editor will bewritten to all of the encoded files. The only exceptions tothis are the Webpage, Publisher, Original Artist and Remixertags which are unavailable for M4A files; these will beskipped for M4A files, but still written to MP3 files.
www.sonnox.com 11 Gototop
