Skip to content

DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve does not host ARA plug-ins, so the Acoustica ARA plug-in is not available on the Fairlight page. Instead, Resolve can hand a clip straight to Acoustica through its External Audio Processes feature, which gives you the full Acoustica editor on the clip and drops the result back into your timeline.

Recommended: add Acoustica as an external audio process

This is the way to work with Acoustica from Resolve. Once it is set up, editing a clip in Acoustica takes a right-click from the timeline or the media pool.

Adding Acoustica as an external audio process

You only need to do this once.

  1. Open DaVinci Resolve > Preferences... and choose Audio Plugins, then Setup External Audio Processes.
  2. Click Add, then double-click the Name area and name the entry Acoustica 8.
  3. Click the Path section and locate your Acoustica 8 installation.
  4. In the Type column, choose Command Line.
  5. Click Save and restart DaVinci Resolve.

Choosing the Type

Command Line is the right choice for Acoustica. Acoustica opens any file path it is given when it starts, and hands the path to the running instance if one is already open, so Resolve can launch it with the clip already loaded.

The other two types are fallbacks for applications that cannot do this. Clipboard opens the application and copies the file location to the clipboard, and Reveal opens the application and shows the file location so that you can drag the file in yourself. You should not need either with Acoustica.

Editing a clip in Acoustica

  1. Right-click a clip in the timeline or the media pool.
  2. Choose Acoustica 8 from the External Audio Processes submenu.
  3. Make your edits in Acoustica as you normally would.
  4. Save the file without changing its name or its location.

Resolve reads the file back from the same path, so the edited audio appears on the clip in your timeline.

Save in place, and keep the original

Resolve finds the edited audio only if the file keeps the name and location it had when Resolve handed it over. Use Save, not Save As..., and do not export to a new folder.

Because your changes are written to the audio file itself, Resolve's Undo will not revert them, and your Acoustica edit history is not stored in the Resolve project. If the recording is irreplaceable, work on a copy — Resolve's own Clip Attributes and media management make it easy to point a clip at a duplicate first.

Using Acoustica as a standalone editor

Setting up an external audio process is a convenience, not a requirement. You can always open an audio file in Acoustica directly, edit it and save it, then import or refresh it in Resolve. See Acoustica and your DAW for how the integration methods compare.