RipX DAW for Apple Vision Pro: Spatial computing is going to need spatial audio

No sooner had we pressed the button to publish the story about Final Cut Pro on Apple Vision Pro than Hit’n’Mix announced a dedicated version of its RipX spatial audio DAW for the platform.

Whatever your thoughts about spatial computing, one of the undeniable attractions of it is the way that it plays with audio.

Audio basically plays a vital role in guiding user attention and enhancing spatial awareness in virtual environments. Mapped reliably into a 3D space, spatial computing platforms will be able to create auditory cues that assist users in navigating complex scenes, locating objects, and interacting with virtual elements more intuitively.

It’s not just alerting gamers to a zombie creeping up behind them or movie watchers that a character on the left is speaking, it’s also about locating objects in virtual spaces where not everything is necessarily in the field of view.

For sound designers, it’s an exciting prospect, and some of the first tools that are going to allow them to really lean into the technology and make it sing (literally) are starting to emerge. 

One of them — the world’s first Spatial & 3D AI DAW, according to its developers Hit’n’Mix — has just been announced.

The company reckons that this is the next evolutionary stage of its award-winning RipX AI DAW, and one that comes with no need for waveforms or even mouse clicks in what it describes as a rapidly developing, immersive, modern music-making world.

“Imagine,” a press release says, “A 3D display sits before you. All audio, whether live recorded, MIDI, or stem-separated, is presented as fully editable notes, with instruments distinguished by distance. This is a DAW unlike any other. No waveforms in sight, just pure sound as you hear it.”

This is probably one of those occasions where a video shows it best. So…

"One of our aims in recent years has been to not only create an AI DAW that simplifies and de-clutters the music-making experience, but to also innovate within the fledgling virtual music-making space,” comments Martin Daw, Hit’n’Mix CEO and the creator of RipX DAW. “So, whilst we are delighted that RipX DAW is gaining recognition as the best and only AI DAW of its kind, we are excited to announce that soon, with Apple Vision Pro, RipX DAW will also offer a completely new, interactive, compositional experience, giving users much more freedom to view and create music in their chosen surroundings - all utilizing our unique, note-based Rip audio format.”

The list of what the company says RipX DAW & RipX DAW PRO exclusively offer together with Apple Vision Pro is below. No ETA on the new software yet, and by way of a guide price, the current versions run out at RipX DAW $99/£99/€114 and RipX DAW PRO $198/£198/€228. 

But it is definitely interesting to see the new generation of initial interfaces for professional tools in the spatial computing / AR space start to emerge, and it will be even more fascinating to watch them develop from here. 

RipX DAW allows you to walk around and interact with melody while it plays

Here’s that list.

• MIDI and audio ‘as one’ - no separate audio and MIDI tracks. Once MIDI and audio are inside RipX DAW they are in Rip Audio format, and all features including editing and effects can be applied, no matter what.
• 6+ tracks of stem/instrument separation each of which can be independently muted, soloed, extracted and adjusted.
• Further separation of stems/instruments into fully editable notes, chords and unpitched sounds.
• The ability to customise, clean-up, transform and rearrange ideas directly from AI Music Generators.
• Sound blending and substitution - blend and replace instruments and sounds with different instruments and sounds to adapt and be creative with performances.
• The world’s first audio separation sampler – rip your song into layers, add sounds from them to the Sounds Panel, then re-perform with a controller into a new or existing layer.
• Advanced remixing capabilities even within ‘fixed’ stereo audio files.
• Note and chord recognition to help musicians learn parts to songs.
• A user-friendly, note-based interface - for transparent pitch/time-based editing and effects, with instant visual feedback.
• Colour-coded notes and Layers used throughout to enable a clearer understanding of the music and applied effects.
• The ability to apply/randomise scales and keys of newly separated stems, all in one app.
• One-click effects, sound replacement and Combo Effects - quick and easy to set-up, tweak and combine, versus stock DAW plugins and chained plugins.
• Ripping of favorite VST3 instruments - to re-perform and manipulate in any way imaginable.
• Unprecedented control over notes, harmonics, noise and unpitched sound using Audioshop tools, the Harmonic Editor, Repair Panel and RipScript Python scripting.
• The ability to import your own background images to set the mood.