[BIAS Peak Pro 6.2 (Full Crack)
Facunda Ganesh
BIAS Peak is a very well established piece of Mac-only audio software. It's designed specifically to edit mono or stereo audio files, so it should be considered as an adjunct to a conventional DAW rather than as an alternative to one. It can edit files down to single-sample precision and is widely used for mastering finished stereo mixes and for creating Red Book standard CD-Rs (with CD-TEXT, ISRC codes, and PQ subcodes) based on playlists. It is also a very practical and comprehensive sound design environment for creating and manipulating audio samples, as its use by many top sample-library creators attests. Previous versions of Peak already included sophisticated looping and tempo-analysis tools for sample-creation purposes, and they have been enhanced in this new version. Other applications include editing sound for picture and restoration.
Peak is now available in several 'weights' and with differing bundled content. Peak Pro XT 6 packs the biggest punch: as well as Peak Pro 6 itself, you get BIAS's SoundSoap 2 and SoundSoap Pro noise-reduction tools, the Reveal analysis tools, PitchCraft pitch correction, Repli-Q 'fingerprint' equaliser, the SuperFreq paragraphic EQ and the Sqweez three- and five-band compressor/limiters. Both the standard Peak Pro 6 version and Peak Pro XT 6 also come with SoundSoap LE, Reveal LE, WireTap Pro, SFX Machine LT and a one-year membership to Broadjam.com, plus a new selection of sound effects and other audio content from Hollywood Edge, Sound Ideas, Power FX and AMG. The more affordable Peak LE, meanwhile, dispenses with some of the more advanced Peak Pro features, but is still very powerful. A table outlining the full differences between the three versions is available at www.bias-inc.com/products/peakFeatures/index-verbose.php. This review covers the top-flight Peak Pro XT 6 package: for more on the bundled plug-ins, see the SOS reviews of BIAS's Master Perfection Suite (July 2008: /sos/jun08/articles/biasmps.htm) and SoundSoap Pro (February 2005: /sos/feb05/articles/soundsoap.htm). The LE versions are identical to the stand-alone versions, except that they can only be used within Peak and not within other DAW applications.
Peak 6 is optimised for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and for machines using Intel processors, but being 'Universal', runs just as happily on G5s or even earlier G4s, albeit less briskly. Installing, registering, and authorising Peak Pro is straightforward as long as your studio computer has an Internet connection, and as soon as you input your details and serial number, you're up and running. If your machine isn't connected to the Internet, you can transfer a generated authorisation request file to a machine that is. Each of the components of the Pro package has its own serial number and so must be authorised separately, but I found that the whole process went very smoothly.
Peak is already a hugely comprehensive program, so this review will concentrate mainly on the new additions and changes in version 6, though so many functions and tweaks have been added that it's very hard not to keep saying 'and another thing...'
Word lengths of eight to 32 bits are supported, at sample rates up to a theoretical maximum of 10 MHz (96kHz for Peak LE). The file-format support extends to AIFF, Sound Designer II, WAV, QuickTime, Raw, System 7 Sound, Sonic AIFF, Paris, Jam Image Files, AU, MP2, MP3, MP4 (AAC) and FLAC, with a batch converter for processing or converting multiple files. As before, both VST and AU plug-ins are supported, and the two types can be used in combination within Vbox 3, the latest incarnation of the BIAS 4x4 plug-in routing matrix. A number of useful plug-ins are included even in the basic Peak LE, while Ambrosia Software's WireTap Pro allows for directly recording Internet or system audio. In a similar vein, Cycling 74's Soundflower enables the audio output of other audio programs to be recorded directly into Peak Pro, where they appear as virtual input sources.
The Vbox plug-in matrix supports VST and Audio Units effects and instruments, and now offers a variety of ways to cross-pollinate their outputs!Vbox has been able to play and record virtual instruments since Peak version 5, but now features a 'cross-synthesis effects' facility that allows one sound source to modulate another. You can use an audio file and a software instrument or two instruments as sources, and four different kinds of cross-synthesis are available: ring modulation, convolution, 'magnitude multiplication' (which is similar to convolution except that the output remains in phase with the input), and vocoding, for those classic 'talking synth' effects. The degree of modulation can be manipulated using a MIDI modulation wheel.
More evolutionary than revolutionary is the added choice of alternative pitch/time algorithms for optimising results with vocals or musical content, but it's still very important: with some material, transients must take priority, while elsewhere, smoothness is the most important quality.
For sample editing, the looping tool set has gained Perpetual Looper, on top of Loop Surfer, Crossfade Loop, Loop Tuner and Guess Tempo. This newcomer appears to use a form of frequency-domain resynthesis (presumably taking a different approach from the existing phase vocoding option) to ensure glitch-free loops in typical monophonic sound sources, and is a very useful tool for creating smooth sample loops from material that refuses to play ball with a simple crossfade. Providing you use monophonic material that isn't too different in character at either side of the edit, the algorithm will smooth over the transition to stop the loop sounding 'lumpy'. You set the pitch range that best suits the audio you are working with, then use the Preview Button, adjusting the smoothing sliders to achieve the best result. When you're happy, hitting Apply processes the file. Controls include the means to separate partials from residuals: for example, you can separate the breath sound of a flute from the pitched tonal component.
There are several settings you can tweak to achieve the best subjective results; I found that processing non-monophonic material or using extreme settings occasionally produced interesting abstract sounds that bore little resemblance to the original, so there's clearly some creative potential here too. Loops may be loaded directly from Peak Pro into an SMIDI-compatible hardware sampler. Hardware sampler support has been in Peak for as long as I can remember and is still around in version 6, which is good news for those not already seduced by soft samplers.
While Peak 6 should feel quite familiar to users of previous versions, the sheer flexibility of the program means that newcomers might miss out on many of its less obvious capabilities unless they do the unthinkable and read the manual, though basic editing is as intuitive as it ever was. There's really so much in Peak now that it would take a book to list everything it can do, but BIAS have to be commended on the way they allow you to use the program at pretty much any level and don't intimidate first-time users. The manual is also very thorough, with examples of key processes that you can work through step by step. Peak is really two programs in one: for the sound designer, it offers some very sophisticated looping and slicing tools, which, in conjunction with the new virtual instrument powers of Vbox 3, make it a real heavyweight for creating sample-library material. Perpetual Looper is a welcome addition in this department, and has plenty of potential for 'creative abuse' as well as for its intended purpose of looping monophonic material.
As a stereo editor, Peak takes over where your DAW leaves off, providing a remarkable range of editing and restoration tools, including the ability to remove clicks and glitches. What's more, that tool set gets better with every new version, and the additional plug-ins you receive with the Peak Pro XT 6 package let you get very serious about mastering. Peak's ability to handle batch processing takes the pain out of repetitive tasks, a degree of plug-in automation is now supported, and when you have your individual tracks tidied up, you can compile them into a playlist to burn your CD master or image file with all the necessary fades, crossfades, level envelopes, track markers and metadata. I really like how the playlist has developed over the past few versions, to the point where it now offers the best of both list and waveform views, with the ability to apply level envelopes to audio within the playlist and also to bring in plug-ins where necessary. The new high-resolution metering also offers a welcome degree of reassurance.
Alternatives to Peak depend very much on your needs and on the computer platform you use. The closest Windows equivalent is probably still Steinberg's Wavelab, while DSP Quattro and Audiofile Engineering's Wave Editor for the Mac offer all the basics in a friendly format. I don't think anything rivals Peak's feature set, though.
Podcasting has become something of a big deal in recent times, so Peak 6 now allows users to publish their own podcasts directly to a .Mac or FTP server, with a user-definable bit depth and compression setting. All the necessary info is filled in on a single form to accompany the podcast.
To ease the creation of podcasts, there's also a new facility for Voiceover Ducking in the DSP menu, to automatically attenuate the music bed during a voice-over. This works by opening two audio files, the voice and the music bed; then you set the ducking attack, release and depth parameters to achieve the desired type and amount of ducking. Once set, the voice can be added to the ducked audio to create a new file. Another nod in that direction is the ability to drag and drop audio between iTunes and Peak playlists (you can also 'Send to iTunes' documents or playlists automatically without leaving Peak, choosing between using iTunes encoders, Peak's encoders, or sending uncompressed). This can streamline sending audio from Peak to your iPod.
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