VST plugins

In addition to Audio Unit plugins, TwistedWave now supports VST (Steinberg’s Virtual Studio Technology) plugins. It is now possible to use with TwistedWave the effect plugins that are not available as Audio Units.

TwistedWave handles VST plugins exactly as Audio Units. They can be loaded in an effect stack, or used with the batch processing.

Import YouTube soundtracks

TwistedWave can now import the soundtrack directly from a YouTube movie. Select “File / Import from YouTube” from the main menu, and you have the option to provide the URL (the web page address) of a YouTube web page. TwistedWave will then start loading the movie’s soundtrack which you can then edit, and save as a file on your disk.

Speech synthesis

TwistedWave now integrates Apple’s speech synthesis. Enter your text, select a voice, and the corresponding synthesized speech will be inserted in the current sound file.

Support for Audiobook .m4b files

It is now possible to read and save audiobook files in the .m4b format. When an audiobook is read or saved, TwistedWave converts the chapters to markers and back. This makes it very easy to add, rename or move chapters in an audiobook or podcast.

When the file is loaded in iTunes or an iPod, the current chapter is displayed, and it is possible to skip to the next/previous chapter, making it easier to navigate inside a long audio file.

Improved batch processing

The batch processing offers new actions, such as:

• A cut action to remove or keep a specific part in the audio file.
• Two actions to apply fades in or out to the beginning or end of the audio file.
• An action to reorder the channels in a multichannel audio file.
• A few actions to work with markers, such as adding or removing markers, or splitting the file by the markers.
• An action that can copy a metadata field to another, or save the file name in a metadata field.

Support for trackpad swipe and pinch gestures

TwistedWave now understands trackpad gestures. You can use pinch to zoom, and swipe to quickly move to the beginning or the end of the file.

Additionally, scrolling with the trackpad or magic mouse has been improved and is much smoother.

Improved the insert silence effect

If a region is selected when applying the insert silence effect, instead of inserting the silence at the cursor position, the selected region is first deleted, and replaced by the silence.

This new behavior can be particularly useful in combination with the silence detector. When you have selected all the silences, inserting a silence will automatically make all the selected silences the same length.

TwistedWave 64 bit

With Mac OS 10.6, Apple has completed the transition to 64 bit computing, and it is time for TwistedWave to jump on the bandwagon.

By going 64 bit, TwistedWave benefits from the ability to use a lot more memory, and deliver faster performance.

Running TwistedWave 64 with 32-bit Audio Units

In theory, a 32 bit application can load only 32 bit plugins, and a 64 bit application can load only 64 bit plugins. This would mean that TwistedWave 64 will not be able to load 32 bit Audio Units.

The problem is that today, the vast majority of Audio Units available is 32 bit only. In fact, from the hundred of plugins currently installed on my mac, all of them are 32 bit, except from the built-in Apple Audio Units, since Mac OS 10.6.

Using 32-bit Audio Units is possible

Without being able to run 32-bit Audio Units, a 64 bit TwistedWave would be useless to many.

For that reason, TwistedWave 64 incorporates a new technology that makes it able to load 32 and 64 bit Audio Units transparently. You will not even have to know you are running a 32 bit Audio Unit with TwistedWave 64.

Silence detector

If manually cutting a long file into many different parts, and saving them as individual files looks like a big waste of your time, you will be happy to use the silence detector built in TwistedWave that allows you to do exactly that.

In just a few steps, you can:

• Detect the silences
• Name the different parts
• Export as individual files

You can read more on how to automatically split an audio file.

The detailed list of new features, fixes and improvements can be found in the release notes. The most important ones are detailed below.

Batch processing

TwistedWave now has a very powerful batch processing engine. It can work on any number of files, and apply any number of effects on them, such as amplifying, applying an Audio Unit or changing the frame rate, for instance.

After a file has been processed, it can be saved in a different file format. Because TwistedWave can read and write in many different file formats, this makes a very powerful batch converter.

The batch processing can also be used to generate the waveform image from a list of files. This can be used to generate small images representing sound files to build a web site, for instance.

DIRAC Time Stretch/Pitch Shift technology

Before TwistedWave 1.7, the Change Pitch and Speed effect was using Apple’s built-in implementation.

Now, it uses the DIRAC Time Stretch/Pitch Shift technology, licensed from The DSP Dimension. It sounds very good, and is really usable for pro audio work.

The “Change Pitch and Speed” window has been extended with a few settings specific to the DIRAC algorithm, such as the formant correction that makes it possible to do a more natural pitch transformation.

The lambda setting offers the ability to select a time/frequency tradeoff. You can find more information on this in the manual, available directly by pressing the (?) button in the lower left corner of the window.

Pitch correction

Another feature available with the DIRAC technology is the automatic pitch correction. Given a piece of audio, DIRAC will automatically pitch shift it to the closest note. This is available from the main menu, in Effects / Pitch Correction…

Other improvements

• Support for saving WMA files.
• Added support for the MS and IMA4 ADPCM codec.
• Clicking on a marker moves the cursor.
• Selecting markers in the markers window selects the corresponding audio regin.
• Avoid doing a selection by mistake with a simple click.
• More bug fixes and improvements…

It’s been a long time since the last update, but the good news is that
I have now started working full time on TwistedWave, and it shouldn’t
be long before updates with more exciting new features are released.

Minor improvements

• Adjustable buffer size.
• The selection is now replaced when pasting.
• Move the cursor to the beginning/end of the selection with option-left/right.
• Scroll left or right with page-up/page-down.
• The cursor remains visible when moving it with the arrow keys.

Fixes

• Improved play through with lower latency.
• The crash recovery could fail in some cases.
• A crash when loading T-RackS 3 plugins.
• Ozone4′s GUI could disappear in some cases.
• The audio could get corrupted when recording with an Apogee duet.
• Playing 192kHz files was broken.
• The manual would not open correctly from the help menu, or the help buttons.
• Marker names with accents wouldn’t show up correctly.
• Markers would be duplicated when converting to mono.
• The audio units from the effect stack were applied in the reverse order.
• Some audio unit plugins, such as soundhack’s ones could produce a few seconds of silence.
• TwistedWave could record with a wrong sampling rate, resulting in a pitch shifted audio.
• When recording, play through could play only on the left side in some cases.
• Some jpeg files did not work properly in mp4 files artwork metadata.
• Scrolling with shift + mouse wheel was broken.

New Features

• Support for markers.
• Added the ability to manipulate cuts/crossfades.
• Automatically restore the session after a crash.
• Drag and dropping the selection.
• Play through when recording.
• Saving the color scheme presets.

Fixes and Improvements

• Wave64 support was broken on 10.4/intel.
• Ability to zoom when command dragging the overview window.

Support for markers

Editing cuts and crossfades

When applying a crossfade, it is not always easy to figure out what
part of the audio to select, and what the crossfade duration should be
for the best results. Undoing and trying with new settings each time
can quickly become tedious.

After a cut or crossfade is applied, TwistedWave now shows some
handles that allow you to tweak the duration of the crossfade, as well
as the in and out points.

Powerful crash recovery

If TwistedWave crashes, because of a faulty Audio Unit, a bug in
TwistedWave, or even a power failure, your work is not lost. The next
time TwistedWave is opened, all the documents you were working on will
be opened in the same state, your unsaved changes will not be lost,
and even the whole undo history remains intact.

Even if the crash or power failure happens during a recording, all the
sound recorded up to the crash will be restored.

Drag and dropping the selection

Right above the vertical ruler, a small icon represents the current
selection. If you drag and drop it in the finder, this will create a
new audio file containing the selected sound. If nothing is selected,
the whole sound will be exported.

This can provide a very fast and efficient way to split an audio file
into many different parts.

Because dropping repeatedly in the same folder will always create a
new file each time, it provides a convenient way to keep the whole
history of a file, by saving it after each edition.

Play through when recording

In order to monitor the sound exactly as it is being recorded,
TwistedWave now offers the option to play the recorded audio through
the output device.

To enable it, check the corresponding check box in the devices tab of
the preferences window.

Saving the color scheme presets

The waveform colors can be customized to a great extent, making
TwistedWave look exactly the way you want.

It is now possible to save the color schemes, and easily select one of
the previously saved schemes. Color schemes are saved in individual
files, allowing you to move your settings from one computer to
another, or exchange color schemes with friends.

New Features

• Added the ability to automatically apply a crossfade when deleting a region.
• Ability to export channels as individual files.
• Added the ability to register TwistedWave for all users.

Fixes and Improvements

• TwistedWave remembers the selection and cursor position when performing an undo/redo.
• The TimeReference is correctly updated when exporting the selection, creating a new doc with the selection, or changing the sampling rate.
• Fixed a crash when reading large files.
• Fixed some clicks when reading a 32bit floating point wav file.

Crossfades

Deleting a region from the middle of a file will produce a noticeable cut in the resulting file. This is often not desirable, and a common solution to such a problem is to apply a crossfade.

In order to apply a crossfade in TwistedWave, simply select the region you want to delete, and select Edit/Delete Crossfade… from the menu, or use the Command-Backspace shortcut. A window will pop-up asking you for the duration of the crossfade, and will then proceed to mix the audio before and after the region deleted in order to make the transition smoother.

In addition to the crossfade duration, a pop-up button allows you to use a fade out followed by a fade in instead of the crossfade.

Exporting individual channels

From the File menu, a new option allows you to save channels as individual files. It first asks you for a file name, then proceeds to saving the individual channels, each with a file name ending with _1, _2, _3… up to the number of channels present in the current document.

Registering TwistedWave for all users

When you register TwistedWave, either by entering a serial number, or by purchasing directly from within the application, TwistedWave becomes registered only for the user that is currently logged in on your computer.

In the preferences window, an option allows you to make the registration available to all the users. This can be convenient when TwistedWave is installed on a Macintosh with several accounts, where more than one person could be using it.

New Features

• Vertical zoom.
• Scrubbing.
• Support for WavPack and Wave64 files.
• Added a level meter.
• Added the File/Analyze menu item to gather some info about the waveform.
• Added the option to lock the channels together.
• Ability to display times in SMPTE.
• Uses the TimeCode reference from .wav and .aiff files.
• It is now possible to select the channels used for recording/playing.
• New shortcuts: shift mouse wheel to scroll, and command wheel for vertical zoom.

Fixes and Improvements

• The presets of individual effects in a stack would not always be remembered.
• When saving a preset, the new name was not taken into account when OK was pressed. Only when validating with return.
• TwistedWave now handles properly Audio Units whose GUI can resize.
• When saving a WAV file, TwistedWave would fail if the extension is not in lower case letters.
• Saving as OGG would only write 44100kHz files.
• Closed files would remain open by TwistedWave, preventing them from being emptied from the trash.

Vertical zoom

When the audio file being edited is very quiet, it can be very useful to zoom vertically in order to see more detail. TwistedWave now offers a few ways to zoom vertically:

• By clicking and dragging on the vertical ruler at the left of the waveform. This works the same as the toolbar icon. A double click will restore the zoom to its original value.
• With the Vertical Zoom toolbar icon. By clicking and dragging on this icon, you can adjust the vertical zoom. A single click will restore the zoom to its original value.
• By using the scroll wheel with the command modifier key.

Scrubbing

Scrubbing gives you more control on the position of the playhead, and allows you to listen to very specific parts of the audio and get a clear idea of where specific sounds are located in the waveform.

Scrubbing is performed by clicking and dragging the mouse in the rulers, above the main wave and the overview windows. Depending on your needs, three scrubbing modes can be selected from the preferences window.

• Repeat. In this mode, a small area around the mouse pointer is repeated continuously. The audio is played at the nominal speed, and sounds natural.
• Velocity. This mode allows you to control the speed at which the playhead moves in the waveform. This mode allows you to play the audio slower or faster than the nominal speed, but this also affects the pitch of the sound. This mode can be very effective when detecting clicks in the audio.
• Position. This mode is similar to the velocity mode, except that you have a direct control on the playhead position rather than its velocity. This makes it easier to play a very specific area.

Level Meter

A peak level meter is now visible at the right edge of the edition window. In addition to the instant peak level for each channel, a decibel value representing the loudness is displayed at the bottom of the level meter.

By default, this value gives the RMS power of the audio, integrated over a period of time that can be adjusted in the preferences window. It is also possible to display instead a Leq(RLB) value, commonly used in the broadcasting industry.

Time Code

TwistedWave now offers the option to display times in the timeline and the cursor position in the toolbar in SMPTE Time Code.

Additionnaly, when the file being edited contains some information about the time reference of the sample, TwistedWave can use it as the time origin for the timeline, and display the actual time for the curso position.

If the sound quality is a very important factor, you may as well keep the sound uncompressed, in a wav or aiff file, for instance.

In between these two extremes, we can find the lossless codecs, such as FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). Lossless means that the sound is compressed without any loss of quality.

Although TwistedWave fully supports the FLAC format, it is not yet the case with a lot of software, and converting all your files to FLAC may mean that you would have to convert them back to a more readable format if you wanted to play, or edit them.

This is where TwistedFLAC comes in handy. TwistedFLAC will show FLAC files as if they were WAV files. Any application can read these WAV files while TwistedFLAC transparently decodes the FLAC file in the background. If the WAV file was modified by another application, TwistedFLAC will automatically convert it back to FLAC, and update the original file.

TwistedFLAC also makes it a very easy way to convert many WAV to FLAC. Simply drag and drop a WAV file, or a folder full of them to the TwistedFLAC folder, and they will be converted automatically.

And the best of all this is that TwistedFLAC is available now here, and is completely free!

Enjoy!

New Features

• Support for metadata.
• Added a signal generator.
• A configurable special pasting that automatically fades in/out.
• Added an icon for the files saved by TwistedWave.
• Added the ability to export the selection.
• Added the ability to create a new document with the current selection.
• Added the ability to choose whether to open an untitled document at application launch, the last visited, or nothing.
• When applying an audio unit effect, there is an option to tell TwistedWave whether to truncate, insert, or merge the tail with the rest of the sound.
• Added the ability to have an audio unit applied globally to all documents.

Fixes and Improvements

• TwistedWave could crash reading some WMA files.
• TwistedWave could crash when using the Apple Matrix Reverb audio unit.
• TwistedWave could fail saving a file in some cases.
• Fixed a memory leak leading to some crashes when reading some large files.
• TwistedWave could not read wav files larger than 2GB.
• In some cases, when recording, only one channel would be recorded, or the channels could be swapped.
• TwistedWave could crash when selecting a region extending beyond the visible area.
• AIFF files produced by TwistedWave could not be read by MaxMSP.
• When editing keyboard shortcuts, all the menu items are now enabled.
• The audio units GUI would not display properly in some cases.
• The ‘Remove Channel’ command now removes the channel the cursor is in.

New icons

Files saved with TwistedWave now have a nice icon. Here is what they
look like:

Support for metadata

TwistedWave can now read and edit the metadata present in sound files
in the aiff, wav, mp3, mp4, flac and ogg/vobis formats.

In addition to the music metadata, TwistedWave also supports BWAV and
Soundminer metadata.

A note about metadata support in FLAC files. Although BWAV metadata
can only be present in WAV files, and Soundminer in WAV or AIFF files,
TwistedWave allows you to read and save these kinds of metadata in
FLAC files. When the FLAC codec is used to convert files from wav to
flac, it used to drop all kind of metadata, and keep only the sound
part of the file. Since FLAC version 1.2.1, the option
–keep-foreign-metadata allows the codec to save all the metadata from
the WAV file in the FLAC file. These are restored when decompressing
the FLAC files to get back the WAV file. What TwistedWave does is that
it saves the BWAV and Soundminer metadata as foreign metadata in FLAC
files, so that they can be restored by the FLAC decoder.

Special pasting

When copying and pasting an audio clip from one place to another, the
transition can be a bit rough, and unpleasant. In order to smooth
things a bit, TwistedWave offers a special pasting command that can be
customized in many ways, automatically adding fades in and out to make
the transitions smoother.

The options dialog even shows a preview of what would happen when
pasting, making immediately obvious where the fades in and out would
take place.

A signal generator

A signal generator allows you to easily generate waves in many shapes,
such as sine, rectangle, triangle or sawtooth, as well as white and
pink noises.

The generated signal can be either inserted in the document, replace
or be mixed with the selected sound.

New audio unit options

There are two new options in the audio units window.

The first one offers the ability to apply the unit globally. When this
option is checked, the audio unit is not attached to a single document
anymore, but remains open for all the documents you are working on.
This can be useful in particular with visualisation plugins. A VU
meter, for instance, could be useful for all the documents you could
be working on.

The second option allows you to specify what to do with the effect
tail. The tail of the effect is the sound produced by the Audio Unit
after it has finished processing the selection. Instead of discarding
it, it is now possible to insert it in the document, or merge it with
the rest of the document.

New Features

• Added the ability to move the cursor to the next transient.
• Saving OGG/Vorbis files (only reading was available).
• Reading WMA files.
• Added the ability to disable the automatic scrolling when playing.
• Added the insert silence effect.

Fixes and Improvements

• Improved the audio units management.
• When loading a split multichannel file, the document name was Untitled.
• The audio units GUI would not reflect the changes when a preset was loaded, on Leopard.
• TwistedWave would fail reading files that were several GB in size.

Transient detection

Among the new features, there is the ability for TwistedWave to detect
the transients in the document. Transients can be single shots from a
drum in a percussion loop, for instance. In the capture below, the
individual shots are clearly visible. It is often necessary to select
one of them to cut and paste it, or to apply an effect to a given
shot. However doing it accurately requires quite some dexterity.

TwistedWave is now able to detect these individual shots
automatically. Just press the Tab key, and the cursor moves to the
next transient. Shift-Tab, and the area between the cursor and the
next transient is selected. This is how the shot in the figure above
could be selected.