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Waves Nx is a virtual monitoring plugin that simulates the ideal acoustics of a high-end mix room – inside your headphones.
Powered by Waves’ groundbreaking Nx technology, Waves Nx lets you hear, on headphones, the same natural depth, natural reflections, and panoramic stereo image you would be hearing from speakers in an actual room.
Check it out here.
Went and bought myself a copy I'll report back after I get some experience with it, but being someone who primarily uses headphones (and only listens to ambient through headphones) this is an insanely awesome tool to have.
EDIT:
Alrighty... after some time playing with the tool here's my 2 cents.
After quickly reading through the quick-guide I threw it onto the master track in Ableton. Instantly heard a difference, and my webcam kicked on because the plugin is capable of doing some head-tracking to further simulate the feeling of being in a professional mixing room. If you turn your head left or right, the signals respond in kind. Very neat, but I keep the head-tracking off most of the time. The interface is extremely simple and easy to understand, only a handful of controls or so.
There's a couple controls that you can change that correspond to your head-size that contribute to how you would actually interpret the sound in the room. The quick-guide details this a little further, but recommends the default settings, as it's the average human head-size. I played with the settings for the hell of it, can't quite describe what the changes were other than it was some kind of bi-spatial manipulation...
The main part of the plugin is really the spacing/position of the speakers, and you can even rotate them. You can also automate these parameters for special effect if you wanted to. On top of that, there is a room ambience controller which gives the "treated mix room" effect which you can mix in and comes with an additional controller that let's you cut the effect from the center so it only spatially effects the left and right. The overall difference you'll hear is a change in the stereo-image. Mixing with speakers definitely doesn't go as wide as with headphones, so keep this in mind, but you can definitely hear the mix "meld together" like it would in a mixing room when you're sitting in front of monitors. After you're done editing your mix and it sounds good, just bypass the plugin and export.
I'd recommend this tool for anyone who doesn't have access to any kind of studio room that's suitable for mixing. Not quite sure this could replace a mixing room, but this technology here, and I think it's definitely an alternative. I know I'll be using it in the future on all my tracks.
Powered by Waves’ groundbreaking Nx technology, Waves Nx lets you hear, on headphones, the same natural depth, natural reflections, and panoramic stereo image you would be hearing from speakers in an actual room.
- Get the ideal acoustics of a top mix room – inside your headphones
- Accurately judge mix depth, balance and panning over headphones
- Transparent sound that preserves your original tone
- Mix for 5.1 and 5.0 surround on your regular stereo headphones
- Personalize the plugin to your individual head measurements
- Use Nx with real-time head tracking for enhanced realism
Check it out here.
Went and bought myself a copy I'll report back after I get some experience with it, but being someone who primarily uses headphones (and only listens to ambient through headphones) this is an insanely awesome tool to have.
EDIT:
Alrighty... after some time playing with the tool here's my 2 cents.
After quickly reading through the quick-guide I threw it onto the master track in Ableton. Instantly heard a difference, and my webcam kicked on because the plugin is capable of doing some head-tracking to further simulate the feeling of being in a professional mixing room. If you turn your head left or right, the signals respond in kind. Very neat, but I keep the head-tracking off most of the time. The interface is extremely simple and easy to understand, only a handful of controls or so.
There's a couple controls that you can change that correspond to your head-size that contribute to how you would actually interpret the sound in the room. The quick-guide details this a little further, but recommends the default settings, as it's the average human head-size. I played with the settings for the hell of it, can't quite describe what the changes were other than it was some kind of bi-spatial manipulation...
The main part of the plugin is really the spacing/position of the speakers, and you can even rotate them. You can also automate these parameters for special effect if you wanted to. On top of that, there is a room ambience controller which gives the "treated mix room" effect which you can mix in and comes with an additional controller that let's you cut the effect from the center so it only spatially effects the left and right. The overall difference you'll hear is a change in the stereo-image. Mixing with speakers definitely doesn't go as wide as with headphones, so keep this in mind, but you can definitely hear the mix "meld together" like it would in a mixing room when you're sitting in front of monitors. After you're done editing your mix and it sounds good, just bypass the plugin and export.
I'd recommend this tool for anyone who doesn't have access to any kind of studio room that's suitable for mixing. Not quite sure this could replace a mixing room, but this technology here, and I think it's definitely an alternative. I know I'll be using it in the future on all my tracks.
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