Mind the Gap, A.K.A. MtG is MAAT Labs’ time-saving solution to looping, and filling blank spaces when editing audio for videos, films, games, podcasts, etc. This plugin was released a few years ago, and it’s a fantastic simplifier of a particularly annoying part of the editing work: matching the room tone and filling the gaps.
It lets you capture audio to automatically loop it during the silent gaps between lines after cleaning up. The plugin is good for capturing and looping any audio at any sample rate, handling even as high as 384KHz.
In this MtG review, we cover whether it’s really worth it and how it can help your recording/music production workflow.
MtG is a fantastic workflow tool for anyone who works with recording vocals, podcasts, etc. It saves thousands of hours of work with annoying room tone editing, by analyzing your file or room and inputting it for you – making your vocals sound natural, without you wanting to smash your keyboard.
- Automatically loops and inserts user-defined content
- Quickly build music beds, dialogue & foley backgrounds, layered effects
- Works at HRA sample rates
- Integrated loop editor
- Fast and efficient
- Seamlessly fills gaps of any length
Contents
What Is MAAT MtG & What The Hell Does it Do?
Compatibility: Win, Mac, VST, AU, AUv3, AAX, 32 & 64-bit
Price: $99
MtG is a dialogue editing assistant that automatically fills gaps in edited tracks with looped audio. MtG was designed to speed up the creation of music beds, ambiance, foley, and anything that requires continuous and seamlessly looped audio.
During dialogue editing, this plugin is terrific because it’s incredibly transparent and saves you a good half hour or more of editing work by filling the gaps and smoothing the clicks.
However, MtG is not limited to just dialogue editing. Youtubers, podcasters, and all sorts of content creators can benefit from using it to loop music beds, fix awkward silent spaces in their recordings, or for creative purposes.
Recording Quality & Features – How Does MtG Compare To Its’ Competitors?
The good thing about MtG is that it’s foolproof. What you see is what you’ve got; not more, not less. You only need to know a few things and you’re all set!
You can record a room tone from both internal and external sources clicking on the “record” button. Before the recording starts, it’ll ask you to name it to then store and proceed to record it as a wav file.
MtG lets you recall any of these audios and load any wav file from your sample library, as well, which can be helpful if you’re editing different editions of a podcast or YouTube video.
Right below, when you click on “edit” it’ll let you filter the loop even further to exclude whatever junk audio which could’ve got recorded in the capture. However, you’ll be limited to set the in and out bars to select the looped region. The button will change from “edit” to “play” so that you can audition the loop before settling.
With the “bias” dial, you’re able to trim the level of the loop. You can only boost and attenuate 6dBs, which I’d improve on, because it’s not much and inconvenient if the input is too loud or normalized.
You can also zoom the waveform in and out in the editor’s visualizer, although I personally didn’t really find it to be of much help.
The visualizer also displays where the plugin uses the loop to replace an empty space with the little zebra straps.
Finally, the status indicator tells you whether your DAW is ready or not for playback, in order to prevent errors and crashes. When the lights turn red, it means that the DAW won’t let MtG output sound while your project’s paused or stopped.
To work around this error, you only need to mute the track in which the instance of MtG is running, and start playback and you should be able to audition your room tone.
How Does MtG Help Your Workflow? – UI & Usability
When editing dialogues, I usually want to get rid of any “blank spaces” between lines. Typically, this would require me to craft a noise tone similar to the recording environment with a noise generator and processing. That process can take at least a good half an hour; MtG takes less than a minute.
The ability to record and isolate specifically what I want to use in the background is now something I need to have all the time. This plugin is a great workflow accelerator if you’re using it for audio editing.
There is a noticeable difference in time, especially for simple edits, like interviews, conferences, or voiceovers, because it’s not necessary to spend more than five minutes capturing and leveling the room tone after cleaning up the audio to move forward.
When working with film audio, it makes it a lot easier to extend backgrounds and music sparing you from the pain of manually editing the loop.
I’ve also used it for soundscapes and FX to create glitches, and robot sounds, by capturing weird stock library sounds and looping small portions of them as you can hear in the sample.
I’ve found this plugin to be extremely helpful for broadcasting, too. It’s the ideal set-and-forget kind of tool for music beds and ambience. This is also a major workflow benefit for any form of video content, be it YouTube, live streams, podcasts, or advertisement, which usually require dialog editing and music loops.
What Scenarios is MtG Be Useful In? – How We Incorporated MtG into Our Daily Workflow
MtG is a huge time-saver if you’re editing a vlog, podcast, or any other form of content that needs vocals. It saves time because you can cut and edit sections, moving them closer together and still input room tone to make it sound natural. This could save you hours of audio editing or the money to hire a freelancer.
If you edit podcasts and audiobooks, you can confidently re-record some parts of it if needed and match the environment to maintain coherence across the entirety of the signal making your editing more transparent.
One thing I specifically found this plugin great for, is sound design. You can use the record tool to capture just about anything, internal and external, and fill the gaps. You can record any sound and then use a portion of it to create something cool and then cut off some blank spaces for the MtG to do its thing.
So far, I’ve personally used MtG for sound design, dialogue editing, and looping music beds. These three uses alone can apply for any form of content these days, which gives you a good idea of how flexible this simple plugin can be.
How Does MtG Compare To The Competition?
MtG is a lot simpler and less capable than most of other dialogue editing tools. Unlike other similar software like Accentize’s Chameleon or iZotope’s Dialogue match, MtG lacks the ability to recreate a room’s tone and reverb. However, out of all of the tools, MtG is probably the one with the most simple workflow and use.
Most dialogue editing tools are capable of learning and generating a room’s tone and natural reverb without the need to record it. These tools allow you to fine-tune several parameters to achieve the perfect room. MtG absolutely lacks this ability, instead, you need to record a room tone to loop it exclusively during silent gaps.
On the other hand, these plugins are usually pretty complex and require some background knowledge of their functions. This plugin can save you a lot of time trying to understand how to make it work and skip to the part where it solves the problem.
This is a major edge of MtG, because it just works right out of the box. No bells, whistles or 5 thousand buttons to learn. Just record your room tone, and voilla – MtG will fill the gaps!
Who Is MAAT Labs’ MtG For?
MAAT Lab’s MtG is ideal for podcast editors and YouTubers to keep interviews sounding natural after editing or cleaning. Youtubers and content creators can also find it helpful to loop or extend music beds.
This plugin doesn’t emulate a room, but rather records and loops a “room tone” automatically fill empty spaces, so if you’re looking for a plugin to recreate a space, I suggest you to try Accentize’s Chameleon or iZotope’s Dialogue match, because MAAT’s MtG won’t do the trick.
On the other hand, if you’re editing a track and you find it hard to craft a room tone similar to the original source, this is perfect. It’ll make a huge difference for sound-for-picture workers using it right after cleaning up the audio to get rid of silent spaces and keeping uniformity and coherence through the recording.
Is MtG Worth It For Beginners?
MtG is suitable for all levels of experience. Beginners will find this plugin beneficial because it’s not particularly complicated and you don’t need to have any background knowledge about audio other than what sounds good and what doesn’t. It just works.
One of the most complex and critical things to do in post is maintaining coherence after editing an audio piece, especially these days, when over 60% of final consumers use earplugs and headphones to cosume content.
However, most of the time editing requires you to remove silent spaces to get rid of unnecessary noises in the background. Still, dialogues need to sound natural, so you need to fill these silent gaps with something. This can be incredibly frustrating if you don’t know how to do it right, so MtG is a fantastic and simple way to move past this issue.
Verdict – Is MtG Worth It?
MtG is simple, efficient, and effective. It’s worth it for podcast and YouTube editors. However, if you’re a TV & Film editor, it’s best to invest in the more expensive brands like iZotope. For those of you that just want natural transitions for a fraction of the price of the professional tools – go with MtG. However, if you need to re-create reverb tones and more advanced sounds, go with iZotope.
I think that MAAT Labs nailed it making MtG this simple. It gives you more ways to adapt it to different situations and makes it more accessible for people who don’t know much about audio editing to have a tool that helps them improve the sound quality of their content.
Bottom line, it’ll always come down to what you’re doing with it. If you’re mixing a film, you’ll probably need to change rooms and ambiances dynamically because the story will take place in different spaces.
On the other hand, if you’re working with a steady environment, like a talk show, a podcast, or an interview, you really don’t need the muscle and resources of such complex software, so MtG is a blessing because it’s simpler, faster, and you don’t need to be an engineer to use it and understand what you’re doing.
MtG is a fantastic workflow tool for anyone who works with recording vocals, podcasts, etc. It saves thousands of hours of work with annoying room tone editing, by analyzing your file or room and inputting it for you – making your vocals sound natural, without you wanting to smash your keyboard.
- Automatically loops and inserts user-defined content
- Quickly build music beds, dialogue & foley backgrounds, layered effects
- Works at HRA sample rates
- Integrated loop editor
- Fast and efficient
- Seamlessly fills gaps of any length
Javier is a mixing and mastering engineer who specializes in Rock and Hip Hop, and writes and produces his own music. He is additionally a TV, Film, and advertising audio editor who has been working freelance for 7 years. He loves sound design and is an avid expert in his field, having written hundreds of articles for other publications online about music production-related topics. To put it simply – Javier knows his stuff.
