ProWave Announces ProMix

ne of the things which the Flyer has always lacked has been truly professional tools for manipulating the audio portion of a clip. Thanks to the heroic efforts of the programmers over at ProWave, this is now a thing of the past.

ProMix Tools ($99.95) is a collection of four tools: MixAudio, AddAudio, InsertAudio, and JoinClips. This suite of tools allows you to import and export Flyer clips in a wide variety of audio formats, perform infinite audio mixdowns, add audio to video clips, and edit audio using a waveform interface.

While each tool in the collection has its own particular use, all can be used together. Imagine setting up a project using audio clips and appropriate fades, levels, timing and length. Then, with a click of the mouse, ProMix automatically will mix all of your audio and settings to a new single audio clip! You can also join clips together to make a single audio track.

One of the most powerful features of ProMix is the ability to add audio to any video clip. You can simply render out your animation, sequence sound effects or music tracks, and ProMix will add all of the audio directly to the animation. ProMix also comes with AudioBlackBox, our audio format import/export utility. Audio Black Box supports Wave, AIFF, IFF(8SVX), AU, Raw, AD 516 Studio 16), and CDDA (with appropriate CD ROM drive). Promix has also informed us that they will gladly add any other sound format so long as they get a request for it along with a sample and some info.

Here's a brief description of the ProMix components:

MixAudio - will mix any number of Audio croutons down to a single audio clip. You must have an audio-only project, or shift select audio clips from within a project to mix. We recommend you play your project to preview, as mix audio wil preserve levels, fades, pans, balance - anything you set on the clips in the final mix.

AddAudio - adds or replaces the audio portion of a video clip, still, or animation. It works by placing a video clip (or animation) in a project with one or more audio clips. AddAudio will then replace the audio on the video clip with the one you have selected. If that clip has audio, and the audio is turned on to play, AddAudio will first mix the two audio clips and then add it to the video.

InsertAudio - performs an insert audio edit on a video clip. This overwrites a portion of the audio on the clip without touching the audio before or after it.

JoinClips - joins a sequence of audio or video clips together, writing a new clip that preserves both the IN and OUT points in the project. This will handle cuts only and does not handle effects.

For that you also need RenderFX:

With Render FX ($129.95), it is possible to render any toaster wipe out as a new clip. The theoretically fastest time this can be done is about 1/2 second per color frame or about 10 seconds per 30 frame effect. It is pretty much independent of processor speed, because RenderFX doesn't use a paint package or LightWave to do this. ProWave has intentionally slowed the pre-release down to about 5 times this speed (about minute/second of transition), so they can determine if it is possible to do things this fast on all systems.

RenderFX works with Flyer Video clips and Flyer Stills and with practically any video effect. At the moment it does not yet work with Framestores, color backgrounds, ChromaFX, OverlayFX or CG pages, but the programmers at ProMix are in hot pursuit of these enhancements and they should be available soon. As it stands right now, RenderFX creates clips at about 1 minute per rendered second. So, a two second effect might take 2 minutes to render. For replacing effects (and creating the impossible) this speed is quite acceptable.

Promix also has an envelope requester which allows the user to create and render effects envelopes with ease. This means you can do a 50% dissolve, hold it, and return to the original clip. You could do the same for example with a split screen, or just layer a few effects.

The new clips are given an effect crouton like the one you are replacing, but with RFX stamped across it. This way, all such effects still look like transitions in your project and are thus easily found and deleted on the drives.

All orders can be placed at 800 930-2646. info is available at (205) 830-2767

ProWave@aol.com

ProWave
7950 Highway 72 West
Unit G102
Madison, AL
35758