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CORE TECHNOLOGY 02 · KEY-AWARE EFFECTS

Effects that know your song.

In most studios an effect hears one track and nothing else. In Harmonic Pro Studio the song itself is an input: its key, its chords and the notes your tracks play reach the effects, so they can tell a problem from a note of the music.

THE SONG · WHAT THE EFFECTS HEAR
KEY
A minor
TEMPO
96 BPM
CHORDS
Am F C G
NOTES PLAYING NOW
F · A · C  from Piano, Bass and Lead Vocal
  • Advance EQ leaves F, A and C alone, cuts the ring at 3.1 kHz
  • Voice Factory sings a third above, on the notes of F
  • Voice Front removes the room’s ring, keeps the sung A
  • Harmonic Space shimmer moves to F with the band
An illustration: the song’s key, chords and notes reaching four effects.

WHAT THE SONG TELLS THEM

The key, the chords and the notes.

Set the key once, write the chords in the Arranger or on the chord track, and play. The effects pick up the rest as the song plays.

The key

The song’s Master Key, set once for the whole studio. Change it and every key-aware effect follows.

The chords

The chord track, written in the Arranger or in the DAW, including chords placed off the beat.

Notes on MIDI tracks

The notes your MIDI parts and the Arranger band play, at the moment they play them.

Notes on audio tracks

The notes heard on recorded tracks, such as a bass, a guitar or a singer, with nothing to write down.

The sections

Where the verse, the chorus and the bridge are, so a move can fit the part of the song it is in.

Nothing to set up

Add the effect and press play. The song reaches it on its own; you can still choose by hand when you want to.

THE KEY-AWARE SUITE

Four effects, one song.

Each one does its own job, and each one uses what it knows about the song to do it better.

AUTOMATIC EQ

Advance EQ

An automatic EQ that cuts what gets in the way and explains every move.

WITH YOUR SONG

  • Reads the song’s notes, chords and sections, so it never cuts the notes your track is playing
  • Hears the notes played on audio tracks too, and on a bus the notes of every MIDI track routed into it
  • Lists every move with its reason; Commit, Lock or Ignore any of them
  • Cuts only unless you allow it to boost, with its output matched in loudness
Everything about Advance EQ →
Harmonic Pro Studio Voice Factory vocal harmony plugin

VOCAL HARMONIES

Voice Factory

One vocal in, up to eight voices out, made from the singer’s own take.

WITH YOUR SONG

  • Hears the key of your take and the chords your band plays, from MIDI parts, the Arranger band and audio tracks
  • Or follows the chord track, the key, or a MIDI harmony part you wrote
  • Real intervals: thirds stay thirds and sixths stay sixths, on the notes of each chord
  • Shows the note the singer sang and the note every voice sings, with the next chord in view
Everything about Voice Factory →

VOCAL CHAIN

Voice Front

A complete lead-vocal chain: clean, ride, de-ess, tone, compress and colour.

WITH YOUR SONG

  • Its Resonance stage tells the notes your singer sings from the rings a room adds
  • Removes only the rings, so sustained notes never go dull
  • Learn sets Clean, Ride, Bright and Body from a few seconds of singing
  • Auto-gain and delta listening, so you judge the sound and not the volume
Everything about Voice Front →
Harmonic Pro Studio Harmonic Space reverb plugin

REVERB

Harmonic Space

The studio reverb, from a small room to an endless shimmering cathedral.

WITH YOUR SONG

  • Two-voice shimmer, fixed or following the song’s key or chords
  • The shimmer moves with the changes instead of smearing across them
  • Pre-delay locked to the tempo, and ducking from the track or another one
  • Zero latency, so you can use it while recording
Everything about Harmonic Space →

WHY IT MATTERS

Fix the problem. Keep the music.

A ring in a room and a note in a song can sit at the same frequency. Only an effect that knows the song can tell them apart.

Clean without going dull

Resonance and tone moves stay off the notes of the key and the chords, so a vocal or a guitar keeps its life.

Harmonies that belong

Voices land on the notes of each chord, not on a fixed interval that clashes when the chord changes.

Reverb that follows the changes

Shimmer moves with the song’s chords instead of holding a note that no longer fits.

Less setting up

No key to type into each plugin and no MIDI to route by hand: the song reaches the effects by itself.

Honest comparisons

Loudness-matched output, A/B compare and delta listening let you hear what an effect really does.

You stay in control

Every automatic move can be taken over, locked or switched off, and every edit is one step on the studio’s undo list.

Questions

Do I have to write the chords down?
No. Advance EQ and Voice Factory hear the notes on your MIDI and audio tracks by themselves. When the song has a chord track, from the Arranger or the DAW, they read it as well.
Where does the key come from?
From the song’s Master Key, which you set once for the whole studio, or from the chords and notes the effects hear while the song plays.
Can my other plugins do this?
A plugin from another company only hears its own track; it cannot read your song’s chord track. The key-aware effects are built into Harmonic Pro Studio, so the song reaches them.
Will they change my sound the moment I add them?
No. Advance EQ only cuts unless you allow it to boost, Voice Front starts with every stage off, and Voice Factory never touches the lead vocal: it only adds voices.
Which editions include them?
Harmonic Space comes with the Home and Studio editions, and Voice Factory with Studio. The editions for Advance EQ and Voice Front are announced at launch. For the first 60 days every edition has everything.

THE CORE TECHNOLOGIES

They work together.

Everything in Harmonic Pro Studio →

Write your next song with a band behind you.

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