Meanwhile, on the “What’s new” front: only the new Fade and Sibilant Tools didn’t trickle down to Essential.
BUT Essential does include the other new stuff:
New: “Melodic” algorithm with sibilant detection – for perfect yet invariably natural-sounding results
New: Musically weighted pitch analysis – for psycho-acoustically optimal intonation correction
New: Leveling macro – reduce or eliminate excessive volume disparities between notes
New: Chord Track and chord recognition – bring notes into line harmonically, extract chords from audio
New: “Percussive Pitched” algorithm – for instruments such as tabla and berimbau or 808 kick drums
Yowza! Not bad for a free upgrade.