ARA2 Integration

[dePUNDIT]

Hi there, the truth is that it would be a chunk of work to add support for it. Our ARA implementation pre-dates the JUCE one so it's not a simple case of flipping a switch. The JUCE implementation is also big and complex so that would be a task in itself to adopt. Our implementation was also targeted specifically at Melodyne as it was the only ARA plugin when we developed it.

The other half of this is that there just isn't much demand for ARA2 or other ARA-enabled plugins.
Other requests come up far more often so we have to prioritise those I'm afraid.

All the best and thanks for registering your interest in ARA2,

This is the response I got from Tracktion support team earlier today in regards to ARA2. I've started this poll to see how many people actually would use ARA2 in Waveform. Please do vote to show that this is a necessary feature for most of us. Especially those of us who work with a lot of vocals from artists that are not so great and rely on us to make them sound professional.
I've setup this poll to run for 30 days. Let the voting begin.

[pough]

Could you provide some examples of ARA2 plugins? While I'm sure there are some users who know what's missing, you might also get more votes from users who don't know what they're missing.

[Watchful]

Well, possibly the big one is Melodyne. That's a massive example used in countless recordings and projects (I am biased here as I use it heavily).

[pough]

Well, possibly the big one is Melodyne. That's a massive example used in countless recordings and projects (I am biased here as I use it heavily).

You mean the plugin that comes with the Pro version of Waveform and currently at least seems (to me) to work? "Ah, if only Waveform could do what it already does..." isn't super compelling so far. There must be other plugins or at least specific features in Melodyne that are desired but not available.

I'm definitely not against further development. I just think it would be a more compelling case if someone put a little work into giving us a real "why". I suppose I could do some searching on my own, but I'm not the one putting forward the idea. As of this moment, I just kinda don't care. So far ARA2 is just a TLA and a number.

I'll admit that I haven't used Melodyne in a while. Did it stop working?

[dePUNDIT]

Could you provide some examples of ARA2 plugins? While I'm sure there are some users who know what's missing, you might also get more votes from users who don't know what they're missing.

Some of the major ARA2 plugins include...

iZotope RX Spectral Editor:
Provides advanced audio repair and restoration capabilities, now with faster ARA2 integration.

Antares Auto-Tune Pro:
Widely used in the music industry for both real-time vocal processing and detailed audio editing. The software offers two main modes: Auto Mode for real-time pitch correction and Graph Mode for in-depth pitch and time editing.

Synchro Arts RePitch, VocAlign, and Revoice Pro:
These plugins, focused on vocal and audio alignment, benefit from ARA2 for faster processing and integration.

Sound Radix Auto-Align 2 and Auto-Align Post 2:
ARA2 support streamlines the process of aligning multiple microphones in both live and post-production scenarios.

Celemony Melodyne:
A well-established tool for detailed audio manipulation, Melodyne's ARA2 integration allows for faster workflow with DAWs.

SpectraLayers:
Steinberg's Spectral editing tool also supports ARA2, allowing for more seamless integration with DAWs.

Dreamtonics Synthesizer V:
A vocal synthesizer.

VOCALOID:AI Synthesis Engine:
The core of VOCALOID6 is its AI-powered engine, designed to produce vocals that sound more human-like and expressive.

[dePUNDIT]

The biggest benefit to ARA2 integration is the fact that all of the current issues with using Melodyne ARA in Waveform is fixed by ARA2.

• You can easily duplicate a clip with melodyne edits all over your projects and retain the edits all round.

• If you already had a clip (say the hook of the song) duplicated and spread out across your arrangement, depending on the implementation of ARA2 employed (if the implementation is track based instead of clip based), as long as its the same source file, editing/tuning one instance, tunes all the other copies on the track.

• File transfers (sharing projects) between computers will also retain Melodyne edit data.

• Existing projects already using the current ARA implementation will also not be affected negatively as it has backwards compatibility in my experience.

Some other benefits include...

Seamless Integration:
ARA2 allows plugins to access and modify audio data directly within the DAW, eliminating the need to bounce or render audio for processing.

Real-time Editing:
Changes made in the plugin are reflected immediately in the DAW, allowing for a more intuitive and responsive editing experience.

Enhanced Collaboration:
ARA2 facilitates better communication between the plugin and DAW, enabling more sophisticated workflows and easier collaboration on projects.

Faster Processing:
By eliminating the need for roundtrips, ARA2 can significantly speed up processing times, especially when working with complex audio tasks.

[pough]

Thank you! So from what I can tell, Melodyne currently works in ARA mode but would work better in ARA2 mode and all of the others only work in ARA2 mode. Is that correct?

Here is some info from Wikipedia that I think should be mentioned and you're very welcome to make corrections and/or additions*.

Version 2 of ARA was announced during the NAMM Show in January 2018, introducing new features such as the simultaneous editing of multiple tracks, transfer of chord track information, and undo synchronization with the DAW.

Concrete details are much more convincing to me than market-speak like, "more sophisticated workflows". I'm not interested in the sophistication level of anyone's workflow, but I do appreciate undo actually working.

* Which I can see you did while I was typing this post.

[dePUNDIT]

Thank you! So from what I can tell, Melodyne currently works in ARA mode but would work better in ARA2 mode and all of the others only work in ARA2 mode. Is that correct?

Here is some info from Wikipedia that I think should be mentioned and you're very welcome to make corrections and/or additions*.

Version 2 of ARA was announced during the NAMM Show in January 2018, introducing new features such as the simultaneous editing of multiple tracks, transfer of chord track information, and undo synchronization with the DAW.

Concrete details are much more convincing to me than market-speak like, "more sophisticated workflows". I'm not interested in the sophistication level of anyone's workflow, but I do appreciate undo actually working.

* Which I can see you did while I was typing this post.

If you have actually used Melodyne ARA2 integration in Cubase, Studio one, REAPER or even ProTools in comparison to Waveform, you would be asking me to edit the poll and make it possible to vote in favour of this feature multiple times.
Please download REAPER (for the sake of download file size) at least and try using Melodyne ARA2 on there and compare with Waveform.
Also try out the demos of some of the other ARA2 enabled plugins on the list I posted and see if it wouldn't be massively benefitial to your workflow to have ARA2 implemented in Waveform.

[Watchful]

I had a post here that seems to have vanished.

Anyway, in it I compared ARA2 to MPE.

If you don't use it, you might not see the big deal or why anyone needs it.

If you do use it, you use it a lot.

Waveform was one of the first--if not THE first--DAW to incorporate MPE, which is something that initially drew me to it. There probably wasn't that much demand for it at the time, but the Tracktion devs knew it was a good thing and they were right to support it.

ARA2 is very much like that, except there IS demand for it (and has been since about 2022) right now. It was one thing when JUCE didn't support it, but dePundit proved to me it's fully supported now in JUCE and has been for sufficient time. I don't know if the devs provided that email response or just a support person, but saying "it would be work" is a little bit of a weak answer IMO. Everything is work.

My concern is that a lot of potential ARA2 users will go to ANY of the dozen DAWs that do support ARA2, so demand here may be falsely lower than expected. Yeah, if you don't offer it, people leave and so don't respond to polls...kind of like Apple putting out a poll how many Logic users want Windows support. You're not going to get many responses in the positive.

[edrickblade]

Synchro Arts products doesn't work with Waveform's ARA, you need to use them the old way transferring the audio, if you use for example, RePitch, it going to take more time recording and rendering audio, with ARA2 just double click the audio clip and Synchro Arts products will open like your DAW's stock piano roll. We really need ARA2, it's already 2025!

[dePUNDIT]

I had a post here that seems to have vanished.

Anyway, in it I compared ARA2 to MPE.

If you don't use it, you might not see the big deal or why anyone needs it.

If you do use it, you use it a lot.

Waveform was one of the first--if not THE first--DAW to incorporate MPE, which is something that initially drew me to it. There probably wasn't that much demand for it at the time, but the Tracktion devs knew it was a good thing and they were right to support it.

ARA2 is very much like that, except there IS demand for it (and has been since about 2022) right now. It was one thing when JUCE didn't support it, but dePundit proved to me it's fully supported now in JUCE and has been for sufficient time. I don't know if the devs provided that email response or just a support person, but saying "it would be work" is a little bit of a weak answer IMO. Everything is work.

My concern is that a lot of potential ARA2 users will go to ANY of the dozen DAWs that do support ARA2, so demand here may be falsely lower than expected. Yeah, if you don't offer it, people leave and so don't respond to polls...kind of like Apple putting out a poll how many Logic users want Windows support. You're not going to get many responses in the positive.

Well said.

[dePUNDIT]

Synchro Arts products doesn't work with Waveform's ARA, you need to use them the old way transferring the audio, if you use for example, RePitch, it going to take more time recording and rendering audio, with ARA2 just double click the audio clip and Synchro Arts products will open like your DAW's stock piano roll. We really need ARA2, it's already 2025!

Thank you very much. There's a lot of extra value that ARA2 would bring to Waveform. It would greatly improve the already unique workflow in Waveform and make it more appealing to use.

[rickpress]

Agree - I think the hard thing with updates and new features is trying to appeal to everyone as everyone's needs are different. No idea where they take Waveform from here. I would imagine improving the mixer (Mixcraft / Mixbus / Mulab 10) style, improving the racks to have more modular features aka Bitwig / Mulab and adding AI assistance / ARA 2 is probably high on the books.

One thing I would love to see is the ability to autosample VSTs in Tracktion as you can in Fl Studio. Be a great way to help
save CPU and also share sounds with people you collaborate with that dont have certain plugins but yes I agree with you ARA 2 is a big need. Lots of the killer plugins people want now use it so not being able to use those plugins probably in your workflow is something holding Waveform back potentially from certain users.

[rickpress]

Waveform as it is now is pretty solid, and has a very good feature set. Just see where they go from here I guess. Im pretty sure whatever they drop will be a solid update as they usually are. Waveform just seems to be progressing fairly steadily.

[dePUNDIT]

One thing I would love to see is the ability to autosample VSTs in Tracktion as you can in Fl Studio. Be a great way to help
save CPU and also share sounds with people you collaborate with that dont have certain plugins but yes I agree with you ARA 2 is a big need. Lots of the killer plugins people want now use it so not being able to use those plugins probably in your workflow is something holding Waveform back potentially from certain users.

I think what you're referring to here might actually already be available in Tracktion Waveform. Its called "Track Freeze". You can freeze tracks which renders them to audio (however, does not display the rendered audio on the track but keeps the audio in the background and plays it back) and the track turns white with a "Frozen" displayed in the middle. Haven done this, you can now send the track to whomever you wish to send it to and the plugins won't be an issue unless of course, the person unfreezes it. What I like about freezing in Tracktion Waveform is that you can freeze a track at any point in the chain.
I just wish the display of frozen tracks could be better. Instead of the white track, it would be better to have a frozen track display the rendered audio instead. You'll always know it's a frozen track because the Freeze Item is still there in your insert slot. It could also be possible to have the frozen audio waveform show a snowflake in the name, or on the top with the other buttons and icons there.