andrum
Andrum turns the music down only where it covers the voice, and only while the voice is there. The mix stays full and the words come through.
14 days free with every feature. Audio Unit and VST3 for Mac.
Andrum measures the voice in this demo as about 41 % clear without Andrum and 84 % clear with it.
Andrum's own picture of the demo, drawn live from what it measured: the music in grey, the voice in white, and in violet the room Andrum makes. Press play and switch Andrum off and on.
Turn the dial to how clear the voice should be. Andrum makes the smallest cut that gets it there, and shows you how clear the voice is with Andrum and without it.
Andrum's window, running on the same demo. Press play to hear it in step.
A pad, the guitars, a beat, the music bed under a film: whatever should make room.
In a DAW, send the vocal to Andrum's sidechain; Andrum explains how in your DAW's own words. In Premiere Pro, Resolve or Final Cut Pro, put Andrum on the dialogue too and click This is the dialogue.
80 % is a good start. Andrum makes the smallest cut that gets there, and tells you when it can't.
Every five milliseconds Andrum compares the voice with the music in 61 narrow bands. It works out how much of the voice the music masks, the way your ear would, and turns down only the bands where a cut brings the voice back.
Across the whole demo, Andrum hears the voice 41 % clear without it, and 84 % clear with it.
The voice and the music are spread across the ear's critical bands, as masking spreads in the ear, and compared band by band: masked when the voice is 6 dB under the music, clear at 9 dB over. The bands where the voice carries most count most.
Where the voice is buried too deep for any cut you allow to bring it back, Andrum leaves the music alone. Cutting there would cost the music and give the voice nothing.
61 filters a sixth of an octave apart, solved every 5 ms and gliding sample by sample. No delay for your DAW to make up for, and every cut lands within 0.64 dB of where Andrum means it.
A ducker cuts as deep as you set it, every time the voice comes in, whether the voice needs it or not. Andrum asks how clear the voice should be and cuts only what it takes. When the voice already comes through, the music is left alone.
| The voice over the music | Ducker: cut | Ducker: clarity | Andrum at 80 %: cut | Andrum at 80 %: clarity | Clarity with neither |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| −6 dB | 10.8 dB | 87 % | 9.5 dB | 86 % | 35 % |
| −3 dB | 11.2 dB | 91 % | 8.9 dB | 88 % | 52 % |
| 0 dB | 11.4 dB | 93 % | 6.8 dB | 88 % | 66 % |
| +3 dB | 11.6 dB | 94 % | 4.8 dB | 89 % | 78 % |
| +6 dB | 11.7 dB | 96 % | 2.7 dB | 90 % | 85 % |
| +9 dB | 11.8 dB | 98 % | 0.8 dB | 91 % | 90 % |
| +12 dB | 11.9 dB | 99 % | 0.0 dB | 93 % | 93 % |
Measured with Andrum's own engine: a sung voice over pink noise, from 6 dB under the music to 12 dB over it, with the ducker being Andrum's Duck mode. Same test as in Andrum's test suite.
Every number here comes from Andrum's own test suite, run on the same engine you download.
Every tool here can turn the music down for a voice. They differ in what they listen for, and in what they leave alone.
| Question | Sidechain compressor | Dynamic EQ | Spectral ducker | Andrum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What gets turned down | The whole track | The few bands you set up by hand | Wherever the voice has energy | Only where the music masks the voice, in 61 bands |
| What you set | Threshold and ratio | Frequency, threshold and depth, band by band | How deep to cut | How clear the voice should be |
| When the voice already comes through | Turns down anyway | Cuts anyway | Cuts anyway | Leaves the music alone |
| Esses, breaths and reverb tails | Trigger it | Trigger it | Trigger it | Can be left out, so the music doesn't flutter |
| In a video editor | Needs a sidechain the editor can't send | Needs a sidechain the editor can't send | Needs a sidechain the editor can't send | Links to the dialogue, no routing |
| What it shows you | Gain reduction | Each band's gain | The cut | The cut, and how clear the voice is with and without it |
Compared by how each kind of tool works, not against any one product.
Vocals over pads and walls of guitars. Rap over a dense beat. A kick that punches through the bass, with Ghost Key making room on the beat and no routing at all. Reverb that steps back under the words and blooms in the gaps.
Logic Pro, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Cubase, Studio One, Bitwig Studio, Reaper and GarageBand.
Dialogue over a music bed, without drawing a single volume curve. Video editors can't send a sidechain to a plug-in, so Andrum links two copies of itself instead: one on the dialogue, one on the music. The music makes room in playback and in the export.
Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro.
€59One licence, no subscription
The trial runs for 14 days from the first time you use Andrum, with every feature. After that, Andrum lets the sound through untouched until you add a licence, so your sessions still open.
Something else? Write to david@nakaya.world.
How much of the voice a listener can make out over the music, as Andrum's model of the ear measures it: 0 % is fully masked, 100 % fully clear. You choose the clarity you want on the dial, and Andrum shows what it reached with and without its cut.
No. Andrum only changes the track it's on. The voice it listens to passes through untouched.
Logic Pro, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Cubase, Studio One, Bitwig Studio, Reaper and GarageBand, and the video editors Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro. Andrum comes as an Audio Unit and a VST3, plus a standalone app, and shows up in your plug-in list under David HJ Lindberg.
Not yet. Pro Tools only loads AAX plug-ins, and Andrum isn't available as AAX yet.
Not yet. Andrum is for Mac today.
No, Andrum runs at zero latency. For a kick and a bass you can give it up to 30 ms of lookahead, which your DAW compensates for.
No. With every feature on, Andrum runs about ten times faster than real time on one core of our test machine, and an instance whose inputs fall silent rests until they play again.
No. Anything can make room for anything: a kick through a bass, a snare through synths, a lead over chords, reverb and delay that step back under a vocal. There are 23 presets to start from.
Andrum lets the sound through untouched until you add a licence. Nothing in your sessions breaks, and once you add a licence it works exactly as before.
Yes. One licence covers one person on up to two Macs. When you get a new Mac, remove the licence from the old one in Andrum and add it on the new one.
No. Your licence is a short piece of text that Andrum checks on your Mac. Andrum never connects to the internet.
Download Andrum and use every feature free for 14 days.
