104 MACWORLD APRIL 2020
PLAYLIST AIRPODS PRO & APPLE’S AUDIO-PROCESSING REVOLUTIONwhen I need to.
But this is just the beginning. I agree
with my colleague Dan Moren that the
features of AirPods Pro hint at Apple’s
future in augmented reality tech (see page
47). As Apple increases the amount of
processing power that it can fit into
AirPods, Transparency mode is a huge hint
of the audio-processing possibilities to
come.
SOFTWARE THAT WORKS
LIKE MAGIC
I produce a lot of podcasts (go.macworld.
com/icom), many of which feature
speakers who are participating from
challenging audio conditions. They’ve
often got bad (or no) microphones, they’re
in echoey rooms, and frequently there’s a
heater, air conditioner, or fan running in the
background. (Nothing marks the passing
of seasons for a podcast editor more than
hearing the recordings move from the hum
of AC to the buzz of heating!)
What I’ve learned in the last few years
as I’ve become more savvy about audio
software is that for a few hundred dollars,
you can buy software that will process
audio in ways that seemed impossible (go.
macworld.com/prcs). I own plug-ins that
will remove electrical hums and
broadband hiss from the background of an
audio file automatically and in a very short
period of time. That person who recorded
next to a blasting air conditioner in the
middle of summer? My software can make
it so you wouldn’t even know the AC unit
was there.
Then there’s the de-echoing software,
which can take the sound of someone
who is in a room full of hard surfaces and
sounds like they’re at the bottom of a well,
and clean them up to the point that they
sound almost as good as someone in a
sound booth.
Blowing wind? There’s a plug-in for
that. Extraneous breathing? There’s a
plug-in to wipe that out. The list goes on.
Professional audio software is really good.
Way better than I ever expected.
Which brings me back to AirPods Pro.PROCESS MY WORLD
Right now, AirPods Pro has three audio
modes. In the first, there’s no processing at
all—the outside world is only filtered out
because you’ve stuck little earbuds in your
ear holes, which naturally blocks some of
the sound. In the second, the AirPods
each use two microphones to monitor the
noise in your surrounding environment
and then generate an inverted waveform
to cancel out that noise—that’s how noise
cancelling works.
The third mode, Transparency, is the
most interesting. It relays sound from an
external microphone and layers it over
whatever you’re listening to, so you are