BIAS Ships Peak Pro 5

Aug 29, 2005 1:07 PM

           
 

BIAS is shipping Peak Pro 5 (Mac; $599), an application for stereo recording, editing, mastering, and content delivery. Peak's Playlist has been revamped: In addition to the list view window, the Playlist includes a graphic waveform view featuring optional staggered or linear views with optimized Quartz-2D drawing and transparency, allowing crossfades and tracks to be adjusted visually. The Playlist also features unlimited Undo/Redo. The program supports keyboard triggerable controls for auditioning and nudging, as well as bounce to multiple word lengths using POW-r dithering.

Peak Pro 5 now offers replication-ready CD burning that conforms to the full Redbook specification. New features give you ISRC entry and let you write CD track indexes, edit PQ subcode, and create CD-Text. Users of Peak 5 Pro will also soon be able to purchase an optional extension for DDP file export. (Many major record labels require mastering engineers to deliver their pre-masters in DDP format.)

Vbox, Peak's graphic effects routing window, now supports Audio Units plug-ins as well as VST plug-ins. Plug-ins can alternatively be instantiated using five available inserts. Peak Pro 5 adds support for VST and Audio Units instruments within both Vbox and the plug-in inserts. Instrument playback is available using a dedicated keyboard window or from an external MIDI keyboard.

Many of Peak's on-board DSP algorithms have been improved, including Change Pitch, Change Duration, and Sample Rate Conversion, and new DSP processes have been added, such as Auto-Define Regions, Strip Silence, and Envelope From Audio. ImpulseVerb has been given a new skin and now offers gain control for both impulse response and source.

Peak Pro 5 offers additional new features and enhancements, including a new high-resolution Tape Style Scrubbing tool using CoreAudio. The Batch File Processor now lets you preserve file resolution and type. The Recover Audio File command lets you recover damaged files, and the New Region Split command makes the region creation process faster and easier than before. Peak Pro 5 includes support for Unicode, allowing the use of non-English file names, and support for file names longer than 32 characters has been added.

Peak Pro 5 can record files up to 10 GB, and an improved sample-rate conversion algorithm ensures higher quality audio playback than previous versions. A new waveform drawing algorithm lets more audio phase information be seen in the audio waveform display, and SMPTE HD units have been added to the time display. Multimedia developers will appreciate the addition of Snap to CD Frames, PS2, Xbox Units, and Custom Expression Evaluator in the Actions menu.

Customers who purchased the full edition of Peak before April 1, 2005 can upgrade to Peak Pro 5 for $179. Customers who purchased the full version of Peak after April 1, 2005 can upgrade to Peak Pro 5 for only $39. For more information, visit BIAS-Inc.com.