So I just received an email about Avid’s SpectraLayers Pro… not sure if I even fully understand what it’s for. Anyone care to enlighten me?
I wasn’t even sure what it was until you brought it up. That thing looks pretty cool holst, I’m gonna have to give it a try. It’s got lots of colors.
SpectraLayers Pro 4 is a unique layer-based spectral editor, that allows you to edit, extract, restore and design the smallest of details across all frequencies.
Confusing but I think it is no longer Avid. I think my mates at Magix have taken it over as part of the Sony grab they did a few months ago.
I read that too, but I still don’t quite understand what you’d use it for. 
Spectral editing has become the new thing IMO. It got big with iZotope RX (audio repair tools), but now seems to be coming in other apps and in DAW’s. I had just posted about the impressive Reaper update 5.50 the other day, and it now includes spectral editing. SLP4 seems to be taking it a step further, at least visually from what I can tell. I like how it’s very 3-D.
If you have ever seen a spectrogram of a song or any sound, that’s the visual representation of the sound spectrum. A spectral editor gives you a toolbox of ways to edit that spectral ‘waveform’ in ways we previously were unable to do. In iZotope RX, it gave you the ability to go beyond “noise reduction” and actually remove specific sounds from the audio - like someone in the room coughing or dropping something on the floor. I’m sure there will be tons of ways we can alter things now too, if desired.
Thanks @Stan_Halen! I had a hunch that it was something like isotope, but I couldn’t quite tell. Not sure what I think of it yet. I could see this being useful and yet potentially overused in the future. I guess we’ll see. Lol
I just found a Kenny Gioia video he put out 2 days ago that helps explain it, at least in Reaper. If you can watch it this may help explain what is going on. I struggled with spectrograms and spectral editing too, at first, and am still not fluent in it. The concept is pretty easy to get your head around after some study, but the editing learning curve does take some time IME.
Basically, the horizontal axis is your timeline, left to right. The vertical axis is the frequency spectrum; low freqs at the bottom and high freqs at the top. The different colors and intensities represent the different sounds and volumes etc.
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Been running spectral editing with Magix DAWs for some years now. Useful for cleaning up unwanted clicks and scrapes etc. Couldn’t live without it.
Spectral Layers is supposedly THE best.