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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/838
100 MacDirectory
REVIEW | MUSIC
For years, audio engineers have been
playing with your mind as well as your
ears. It's subtle, but sometimes you may
notice that the sound from a TV
commercial seems to be coming from
your room and not just your TV.
The technology moves the sound from
the plane of your speakers and puts it
quite literally in your face. The effects can,
to some degree, be recorded into a
soundtrack. However, they're even more
effective when applied during playback.
That's where Hear comes into play. The
new program by JoeSoft (the software-
for-the-rest-of-us division of Prosoft
Engineering) can fine-tune your Mac's
audio to give you the sensation of being
immersed in audio environments as varied
as a cozy night club or a live fire fight (or
both, if Grand Theft Auto ever gets
ported to the Mac). Hear can reprocess
the sound from any program on your Mac
enhancing it to take full advantage of your
specific sound system, whether it's a high-
fidelity desktop setup, the little speakers
on your MacBook or a pair of earphones.
Combining a little patience with the
program's well-designed, graphically rich
interface and well-written documentation
will produce results that are as rich to the
ear as HDTV is to the eye.
Getting Set
Hear's main interface is the Mixer panel.
This will display all the programs you have
running and let you designate those Hear
will either enhance or ignore. A panel at
the top of the window lets you toggle
Hear on and off, mute all sound and, most
importantly select from a huge number of
effects presets supplied with the program.
These are categorized by genre (styles of
music, types of games, and videos, etc.).
In some cases, the preset will indicate
whether it is designed for speakers (S) or
headphones (H). It may take some trial
and error, but when you hit the right
preset for your system, you'll definitely
know it. Note that the presets are only
really a starting point — suggestions that
will get you in the general ballpark. The
trick to getting the most out of Hear is to
fine-tune the presets to your specific
system and environment.
The General tab gives you an overview of
the effects that are enabled as well as the
ability to make some overall change to the
more significant ones. Until you get
familiar with the program, this panel will
make some broad-brush changes and
toggle the various effects banks on and
off (a good way to learn what they do).
Like most of the other controls, these are
set up as either sliders or knobs. (Knobs
are "twisted" by dragging up or down.)
The FX Chain menu controls the order in
which the layers of effects are applied.
Although both the General and Equalizer
panels provide volume controls, we were
surprised to discover that there was no
left-right balance adjustment —something
fairly important when you're dealing with
spatial effects. When it's set up correctly,
Hear won't color the sound; it simply
brings back the nuances that are lost in
recording, compression and playback.
The effects layers themselves range from
the conventional to the truly arcane. For
example, the multi-band equalizer and
compressor/limiter function very much like
their pro audio counterparts. Other
effects, such as the Brainwave Synthesizer,
come out of the sublime world of psycho-
acoustic research. The Space and Fidelity
effects fall somewhere in between and
both help provide the sensation that
you're immersed in an audio environment.
Once you learn a bit about how the
various controls affect the sound, you'll
get even better at fine-tuning the presets
for your system and your ears. When you
have everything dialed-in, you can save
the settings as your own custom preset.
Hear will continue to enhance your sound
with these settings, even when the
program isn't running.
JoeSoft offers a free, fully functional 30-
day demo of Hear, more than enough
time to find the best settings for your
system. Once you do, you'll probably
decide that the $49.95 price tag is a lot
less than that $400 speaker system you've
been eyeing.
HEAR > ENHANCING YOUR AUDIO ENVIRONMENT
WORDS BY RIC GETTER
Product Hear
Made by JoseSoft