Waves Cloud MX Audio Mixer
Waves Audio, a leading developer of professional audio signal processing technologies and plugins, announces support for NDI (the globally standardized video-over-IP technology) with the Waves Cloud MX Audio Mixer, a cloud-based audio mixer for broadcast professionals.
With the move to cloud-based broadcasting accelerating, broadcasting and media companies have been able to migrate many production tools to cloud environments. “Though the deployment of video production technology moved quickly to software-driven workflows, until now, the true pro audio component has been lacking,” the announcement states. “Subsequently, as broadcast production workflows evolve from entire on-premises control rooms to remote integration (REMI), hybrid or completely cloud-based environments, there is a crucial and urgent need for efficient cloud-based audio mixing. Processing, mixing and routing the production audio directly in the cloud complete this new-generation workflow from source ingest to program distribution.”
One key technology that has helped facilitate this transition is NDI (Network Device Interface), a high-performance network protocol for transporting media streams over Ethernet. NDI, part of the Vizrt Group, is a royalty-free technology that allows video and audio sources to be shared bi-directionally across a network, eliminating the need for direct connections, cable runs, and infrastructure upgrades while turning every source into a destination available anywhere on the network.
Waves’ announcement says broadcast and media production teams can now add Waves’ Cloud MX Audio Mixer directly in the cloud workflow with routing of audio inputs and outputs via NDI.
“We adopted NDI technology, as it is a proven system for professional cloud production environments,” says Mick Olesh, Waves Managing Director and EVP of Sales. “The ability to process, mix and route all audio streams in the cloud, and without converting protocols, simplifies the workflow so that production teams can now focus on delivering a superior sounding program feed to the audience.”
Broadcasters and media organizations can now add state-of-the-art audio mixing and processing to their professional cloud-based workflows. Cloud MX Audio Mixer’s double-precision 32-bit-float mixing engine is augmented by Waves’ collection of cloud-licensed audio plugins.
Waves’ Cloud MX Audio Mixer is NDI-compatible, fitting into NDI-based environments, with patching and routing of NDI audio streams.
“The cloud is revolutionizing live production and creative workflows; broadcasters and creators need professional audio tools to manage audio streams seamlessly over the cloud. With Waves Audio adopting NDI, the Cloud MX Audio Mixer now offers mixing, processing, and routing without the need for converting or transcoding, thanks to NDI and its wide adoption.” says Suso Carrillo, NDI Marketing Lead at Vizrt Group.
Waves Cloud MX Audio Mixer can also be deployed on AWS, improving integration with new or existing cloud production systems. Cloud MX Audio Mixer also allows users to scale productions with any number of audio mixers, without the operational costs involved in shipping, maintaining or scheduling on-premises gear and personnel.
All Waves Cloud MX Audio Mixer packages come with the cloud-licensed Waves eMo plugins (eMo D5 Dynamics, eMo F2 Filter, and eMo Q4 Equalizer), which form the mixer’s channel strip. “You can expand your audio capabilities even further, by upgrading to Cloud MX Audio Mixer Plus, with 11 extra cloud-licensed plugins such as the Primary Source Expander for automatic mic bleed elimination, the legendary Renaissance Vox vocal compressor, the surgical F6 Floating-Band Dynamic EQ, MaxxBass, the L2 UltraMaximizer and more; or to Cloud MX Audio Mixer Premium, which adds over 150 cloud-licensed plugins covering every audio need, including the Dugan Speech plugin for real-time automatic mixing of multiple mics,” the announcement states.
Each of these packages are available as 1-month or 1-year licenses. The Plus and Premium tiers present many cloud-licensed audio plugins, covering broadcast audio needs from multi-mic auto-mixing to noise reduction, audio restoration, and beyond.
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