Sonnox

with many harmonics, or a more CPU-hungry
Parametric response, for situations with fewer
harmonics present. You can set the fundamental
frequency of buzzes manually with the large Hz
knob or by using the efective Auto mode, which
quickly zeroes in on hum. You can set the
sensitivity (to avoid over-zealous EQing), degree
of removal in dB and much more besides.
The remaining plug-in, DeNoiser, has three
sections: Detect, Remove and De-Hisser. It’s
designed to remove constant broadband noise,
such as tape hiss. Like other such plug-ins, it
basically works by breaking the signal into many
separate frequency bands and individually
gating them according to the settings. This
works best when the plug-in knows the
frequency curve of the noise (aka, noise proile),
and the DeNoiser can automatically calculate
this for you if required. To inluence which
frequencies are targeted most aggressively, you
can drag points on the display to create a bias
curve, eg, to remove more high-frequency noise.
The Colour and Air knobs are simpler tools for
tweaking the bass and treble response.
To deal more efectively with noise that’s
constant in its frequency response, you can play
back a section featuring only background noise
(eg, between songs on a tape), wait until the
plug-in has discerned the noise proile, then hit
the Freeze button to ‘lock’ its proile.
As with any denoiser plug-in, extreme noise
removal can result in the audio becoming dull
and soft, and to this end, there’s a Warmth knob
that reintroduces some of the ‘lost’ harmonics.
There’s also a De-Hisser section that works
independently from the rest of the plug-in, for
more aggressive reduction of treble noise.
Beyond compare
All three plug-ins enable you to audition the
removed noise events using the Dif button
(very handy for making sure you’re not
removing too much good audio), and they all
have A/B functions and undo/redo. There are
many more features than we can possibly cover
here, so check out the manual on the
DVD to
ind out exactly how the Restore suite works.
Sonnox spent 18 months on R&D for Restore
and it really shows. They’ve done an excellent
job of crafting a well-rounded set of intuitive,
versatile tools that are perfect for almost any
restoration situation and capable of balingly
good results – we were able to salvage some
audio material that we previously assumed to
have been beyond repair. We used Restore to
salvage material from old cassettes and vinyl,
multitrack recordings on two-inch tape (that
sufered from ‘ghost noise’), and takes that had
been infested with mains hum. We tried the
plug-ins from iZotope RX (the Advanced version
of which costs $1199) on the same material, and
found Restore to be superior, both in terms of
sonic quality and worklow (but note that RX
also ofers powerful spectral editing functions).
Though the price tag puts it out of the reach
of the casual hobbyist, for anyone who does a
lot of restoration, mastering or ilm work,
Restore could well be a sound investment and
perhaps even an essential purchase.
Contact [e-mail]
Web www.sonnoxplugins.com
Verdict
For Easy to get good results
Best noise reduction we’ve used
Well thought-out controls
Perfect for ilm or dialogue work
DeBuzzer is scarily efective
Against Professional price tag
For cleaning up your musical act, Restore
is a irst-class restoration plug-in package,
knocking the spots of others we’ve tried

Alternatively
Wave Arts Master Restoration
N/A >> N/A >> $400
Has anti-noise, -click and -hum
plug-ins, with a gate, too
iZotope RX
125 >> 10/10 >> $349
Ofers spectral editing and aims to
eradicate noise, hum, clicks and
even clipping
Activate the DeClicker’s Dialogue Mode
and a bunch of extra controls pop up.
This mode is designed speciically for
dialogue restoration work, and works
by separately categorising events as
dialogue and non-dialogue, then
enabling you to process them
separately with two full sets of
DeClicker controls. Thus you can
use more aggressive settings on the
non-vocal sections without adversely
afecting the audibility of the vocal
sections – very clever!
In practice, it’s pretty easy to do. You
set the voice threshold control much as
you’d set that of a noise gate, so any
audio events breaching it are
processed with the Above Set
parameters, and the others with the
Below Set. To ine-tune the way the
DeClicker categorises events, there are
sidechained low- and high-frequency
ilters and a real-time spectrum
analyser, not to mention a level proile
chart, both of which appear at the
bottom of the main window.
This mode can work magic on video
footage, and despite being dubbed
Dialogue Mode, it’s suitable for other
restoration situations where you
need diferent settings for loud and
quiet events.
Dialogue box
The red lines indicate problem frequencies as detected
by De-Buzzer – click one to target it for hum removal
“Tools that are perfect
for almost any audio
restoration situation”
The DeClicker’s Dialogue
Mode ofers separate
controls for vocal and
non-vocal sections
June 2010 /  / 101
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