And at the same MSRP as the original AVOX, AVOX 2 matches its unbeatable creative power with truly unbeatable value.

The AVOX 2 Antares Vocal Toolkit includes:

Harmony Engine Vocal Modeling Harmony Generator

With four independent harmony voices, a variety of powerful harmony generating modes, humanization features for natural sounding performances, and a flexible real-time preset system for harmony and vocal type, Harmony Engine provides incredibly easy-to-use tools to quickly and easily produce virtually any vocal arrangement you can imagine.

Whether you¡¯re an experienced vocal arranger, a songwriter looking for that perfect backup vocal, or a composer experimenting with unique vocal effects, Harmony Engine gives you entirely new ways to create the harmony parts you hear in your head. In fact, experimenting with different harmonies is so easy (and, dare we suggest, fun), you may find yourself using Harmony Engine to explore harmonic alternatives you may have never otherwise considered.

MUTATOR Extreme Voice Designer

MUTATOR provides a combination of tools for creating unusual, weird, or downright wacky voices. With high-quality pitch shifting, throat modeling, pitch-tracking ring modulator-based ¡°Mutation,¡± and a mind- bending Alienization function, MUTATOR is the perfect tool for unique vocal special effects and post-production sound design.

ARTICULATOR Vocal Formant and Amplitude Modeler

The alien offspring of a vocoder and a modern-day version of the venerable talk box, ARTICULATOR lets you extract the formant and amplitude information from a vocal (or other dynamic source) and apply it to any other audio track or to a built-in broadband noise generator. Perfect for talking guitars, singing synths, whispering voices, and a wide range of special effects.

WARM Tube Saturation Generator

Based on Antares' legendary Tube plug-in, WARM warms up vocals with Antares' world-renown analog tube modeling technology, while being so processing-efficient that you can put an instance on pretty much every track in a project and still barely see your CPU meter twitch.

With two tube models, a variable Drive control to set just the right amount of dynamic saturation, and an innovative OmniTube¢â function to apply the tube effect to the entire signal (as opposed to just the transients), WARM is a great-sounding, incredibly easy-to-use tool for giving your vocals the benefits of a wide range of modeled analog tube effects.

ASPIRE Aspiration Noise Processor

ASPIRE is the world's first tool for modifying a voice's breathiness independently of its harmonic content. Whether reducing a bit of vocal rasp or adding a bit of smokiness, ASPIRE allows modification of the amount and quality of a voice¡¯s aspiration noise without otherwise affecting the vocal¡¯s harmonic characteristics.

When you speak or sing, air from your lungs is forced through your vocal chords, causing them to vibrate. The resulting waveform is propagated through the throat, the mouth and out through the lips. It is the shape of these structures that create the resonant characteristics that define a unique vocal identity.

But going into a bit more detail, the vocal waveform is actually a combination of two different components. One, the one we usually think of as the primary element of vocal timbre, is the harmonic content generated by the process described above. However, there is a second component that is generated by the turbulence of the air rushing past the vocal chords. This component, aspiration noise, does not have harmonic content and can roughly be thought of as ¡°breathiness.¡±

Aspiration noise presents itself in a variety of ways, from a subtle bit of breathiness to a full-blown rasp. Of course, whether it¡¯s a problem or not depends on the amount of noise and the style of a performance. A whole lot of roughness that would work well for screaming punk or roots blues might well be a problem for mainstream pop or a smooth ballad (of course, it also might not). Up to now, there wasn¡¯t much you could do about it. Now, with ASPIRE, there is.

THROAT Physical Modeling Vocal Designer

THROAT is a radical new vocal tool that, for the first time, lets you process a vocal through a meticulously crafted physical model of the human vocal tract. THROAT begins by neutralizing the effect of the original singer's vocal tract and then gives you the ability to specify the characteristics of the modeled vocal tract.

THROAT's controls allow you modify the voice's glottal waveform as well as globally stretch, shorten, widen or constrict the modeled vocal tract. For even more detailed control, THROAT's graphical Throat Shaping display allows you to individually adjust the position and width of five points in the vocal tract model, from the vocal cords, through the throat, mouth and out to the lips. Finally, THROAT's Breathiness controls let you add variable frequency noise to the model, resulting in a range of vocal effects from subtle breathiness, to raspiness, to a full whisper.

While THROAT has been designed to allow subtle modifications to a voice's vocal quality, the range of the controls also allows the creation of vocal tract models well beyond the limits of physical human anatomy, offering the possibility of vocal characteristics that are simply unattainable by any other means.

DUO Vocal Modeling Auto-Doubler

DUO automatically generates a doubled vocal part from an existing vocal. In addition to allowing programmable variation in pitch, timing and vibrato depth, for even more realism, DUO also includes a simplified version of THROAT's vocal modeling to provide timbral variation for the doubled part. DUO's output section gives you independent control of the level and stereo position of the original and doubled voices.

CHOIR Vocal Multiplier

Neither a harmonizer nor a conventional chorus effect, CHOIR is a unique processor that actually turns a single voice into 4, 8, 16, or 32 distinct individual unison voices, each with its own pitch, timing and vibrato variations. The voices can, if desired, be spread across the stereo spectrum. Assign an instance of CHOIR to each of four voices singing four-part harmony and voilà, instant choir.

PUNCH Vocal Impact Enhancer

PUNCH is a unique processor that, as its name so ably implies, lets you give your vocal more dynamic impact, allowing it to cut through a dense mix with clarity and power. Combining advanced dynamic processing with an incredibly easy-to-use interface, PUNCH gives professional results while letting you focus on your music.

As Paul White put it in his review of PUNCH in Sound On Sound:

"...you can nail the level of a vocal track in a mix without being a compression wizard...If you can't get your vocal to sit in a track using this, it's probably deficient in some other way."

SYBIL Variable Frequency De-Esser

SYBIL tames vocal sibilance with a flexible compressor with threshold, ratio, attack and decay controls as well as a variable highpass frequency to match any vocal performance.

The AVOX 2 bundle, which represents a greater than 60% savings over the MSRPs of the individual plug-ins, is available at your local Antares dealer in versions for RTAS (Mac OS X and PC), VST (Mac OS X and PC), and Audio Units.

SPECIFICATIONS

AVOX 2 is available for:
Macintosh (Universal Binaries)
* RTAS
* VST
* Audio Units

PC
* RTAS
* VST

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Macintosh Versions

RTAS:
* Pro Tools HD or Pro Tools LE 7.x or later.
* Mac OS 10.4 or later as required by your version of Pro Tools.

VST:
* A host program that supports the VST format.
* Mac OS 10.4 or later as required by your host.

Audio Units:
* A host program that supports the Audio Units format.
* Mac OS 10.4 or later as required by your host.

PC Versions

RTAS:
* Pro Tools HD or Pro Tools LE 7.x or later.
* Windows XP or Vista as required by your version of Pro Tools.

VST:
* A host program that supports the VST format.
* Windows XP or Vista as required by your host.

MIDI

AVOX 2 authorization requires an iLok USB smart key (sold separately) and the ability to access ilok.com (from any computer).