U&I Software has announced the release of an update to its award-winning sound design, sampling, and music production application for macOS. MetaSynth CTX 2.x brings major architecture enhancements, workflow streamlining, and advanced sound design capabilities to the image-to-audio standalone digital audio workstation.
MetaSynth CTX 2.x features
- Dynamic Image Synth Presets: Enhances preset management by turning .presets files into dynamic mini-databases, allowing for smarter organization, tagging, and recall.
- Quantized Live Image Synth: Improves real-time performance by allowing live Image Synth preset switches to wait smoothly for measure boundaries, playback continues even if the image sizes vary.
- Spectrum Synth 2.0: Features four times the slice resolution for ultra-precise spectral analysis and resynthesis. Includes a new multithreaded rendering engine for rapid processing and advanced formant tools for deep vocal and harmonic manipulation.
- HiDef Audio Engine: Offers pure, uncompressed audio pathing with no built-in limiting or randomization required, preserving the full dynamic range and absolute fidelity of your source material.
- No Audio Interface Recording: Simplifies your setup by allowing direct recording. Plug in any USB microphone or input device and record directly into MetaSynth without configuring an external audio interface.
- Nested Project Architecture: Expands composition structures by allowing multiple .presets inside a single Montage (.mont), and hosting multiple .mont arrangements within a single, unified MetaSynth Project.
- Streamlined IS Sound Folders: Rewrites how temporary files are handled. You can now safely trash the Image Synth sound folder to instantly force a clean, from-scratch re-render of your graphics-to-audio assets.
- macOS Finder Integration: Enhances workflow speed with full drag-and-drop support, letting you drop compatible audio and image files directly from the macOS Finder into the MetaSynth workspace.
- Frequency Standardization: Matches absolute tuning across tools, standardizing A4 to exactly 440 Hz across both MetaSynth and the Xx sequencer.
- Odd-Meter Looping: Expands rhythmic and time-signature flexibility with native support for looping odd numbers of beats or bars (e.g., loops of 3, 5, 7, etc.).
MetaSynth CTX 2.x is available to purchase for macOS from $343.85 USD. A dedicated MetaSynth VST plugin for Windows is in development.
U&I Software has also released a major update to its audio-visual synthesis environment for macOS. ArtMatic combines procedural graphics, animation, and sound design, allowing users to build synthesizers to generate samples, and use sound to control visual systems—or explore the audio generated by what they see.
ArtMatic Designer CTX 2.x
- Complete synth editing in one text view: Modify all synthesizer parameters from a single text-based interface, providing a faster way to inspect, edit, save, and share complex patches.
- 48 kHz audio synthesis: The audio synth engine now supports 48 kHz operation, in addition to the previously available 44.1 kHz sample rate.
- Expanded Image-to-Audio Read patterns: The number of Image-to-Audio Read patterns has increased from two to four, offering more ways to translate image structures into sound.
- Three new example synthesizers: New example patches provide starting points for exploring ArtMatic’s procedural synthesis and audio-visual capabilities.
- ArtMatic CTX 2.x also introduces: drag-and-drop support for images and video, Ray Tracing to OBJ export for 3D printing, optimized tree and file management, and additional components.
ArtMatic Designer for Mac is priced $159 USD.
More information: U&I Software