steven m. massey
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Massey Tools v0.5.0 beta
 13 June 2008
DISCLAIMER

This is a free set of plugins issued without warranty or a commitment to future maintenance.
This will not be ported to Windows XP or earlier versions of Pro Tools!

REQUIREMENTS

Pro Tools v7 or higher and Mac OS X.

INSTALLATION

An installer application is not provided. To install, unzip the download and move the .dpm bundle into your Plug-Ins folder:
/Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plug-Ins/

USAGE

Included plug-ins are:
  • High-Resolution Meter plug-in (RTAS/TDM, mono, stereo, 5.1)


    -- a configurable meter showing RMS, peak, and peak hold. To change the meter's configuration, use a property list editor (Here is a freely available PList editor: PrefEdit) and modify:

    com.massey.hrmeter.mono.plist
    com.massey.hrmeter.stereo.plist
    com.massey.hrmeter.5dot1.plist
    These plists are created the very first time you activate each plugin in a session. They are found in:
    [your home folder]/Library/Preferences

    The properties are fairly self-explanatory. For the surround meter, the "Channel Order" value is 1, 2, or 3:
    • 1 = L C R Ls Rs LFE
    • 2 = L R C LFE Ls Rs
    • 3 = L R Ls Rs C LFE

    Set "RMS +3dB" to 1 to add a 3dB compensation to the RMS portion meter. Set it to 0 to disable.

    You must deactivate and reactivate the plugin for the configuration settings to take place.


  • Listen plug-in (RTAS/TDM, stereo) -- The opposite of a meter plugin. Will dramatically improve your mixes!!


  • Slacker (RTAS, mono)

    Slacker is an experimental tool to perform automatic backups of your session's audio files. 

    It's a mono RTAS plugin that can be inserted anywhere in a session.  The insert does not affect audio on that channel.  It is like a permanently bypassed plugin.

    To use:
    1. Insert Slacker on any mono track.
    2. Click the area that says "Click here to select backup destination folder."  Navigate to and select a folder where you want to store the backup files.  Obviously, you want this folder to be on different hard drive than your session's audio.
    3. You can now close the plugin window if you wish.

    Whenever the session transport stops, the plugin will copy any newly created audio files in the session audio folder to the backup destination.  The square indicator next to "Backup Path" in the UI will turn red to indicate disk activity. On an HD system, the plugin clip indicator will also turn on during disk activity.  If you're working with a very dense session, you may wish to wait until the disk activity completes before restarting the transport.
  • Talkback (RTAS, mono)



    This plugin mutes the audio under two conditions:
    1. The transport is running.
    2. A user-defined volume threshold is exceeded.

  • WetDry + Mono->Stereo (RTAS) - This plugin combo lets you add wet/dry auditioning around another plugin or set of plugins.



    1. Insert the "Mono->Stereo" splitter plugin on a mono track
    2. Following the splitter, insert a multi-mono version of the plugin you want to wet/dry audition. Unlink the left & right channels. Bypass the right channel. The right channel now serves as the dry signal and the left as the wet, so make all adjustments on the left channel.
    3. Insert the WetDry plugin after the multi-mono plugin.

    All plug-ins are supposed to respect the rule of having the same sample delay bypassed or un-bypassed. However, this is not always the case. So, I've included the "DRY DELAY" control which can delay the right channel as needed to match the sample delay of the left channel (the wet signal). But, hopefully you can just leave this at 0 most of the time.

  • Mid/Side (M/S) encoder/decoder plugin (RTAS, stereo)

    The plugin implements the formulas:
    Lout = (Lin + Rin)/A   (mid)
    Rout = (Lin - Rin)/A   (side)

    In encode mode, A = 2. In decode, A = 1. In encode mode, the gain controls affect the inputs. In decode, the gain controls affect the inputs.

  • Recall Notes (TDM, RTAS, mono, stereo)



    Spreadsheet plugin for keeping settings of outboard gear. To create a popup list use the text format:
    popup: item1; item2; item3; etc

HISTORY
  • 28 June 07: v0.2.1 - Modification to Slacker that will hopefully fix random crashing problem.
  • 26 March 08: v0.3.1 - Added talkback plug-in
  • 27 March 08: v0.3.5 - Added WetDry plug-in
  • 27 March 08: v0.3.6 - Ooops! The v0.3.5 WetDry plugin was out of whack.
  • 30 March 08: v0.4.0 - Added M/S plugin. Fixed clip light problem on HR meter.
  • 13 June 08: v0.5.0 - Added Recall Notes plugin. Fixed Slacker.