R/E/P Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Goodbye Sony restoration tools  (Read 6154 times)

Peter Beckmann

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 434
Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« on: July 16, 2007, 01:24:15 PM »

I occasionally use the Sony restoration tools, and I had assumed that when the plugins were transferred to Sonnox it was pretty much just a change of name.

err, no

It seems of all the licenses sold or transferred to the new company, only the Restoration Tools wasn't part of the deal.
Having spoken to Sonnox today it would seem there will be some maintennance releases, but essentially that is it. You can no longer buy a license and there are no plans to make the licenses available again in the future.

Whilst not a miracle cure, I have found the restoration tools useful in the past, with hum removal from live recordings and LIGHT de-crackle where necessary.

Is it time to step up to the Sonic package for Protools, what else do people here use?
Has anyone got Soundblade and NoNoise working?

PB


Logged
Peter Beckmann
Technologyworks
http://www.technologyworks.co.uk

TotalSonic

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3728
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2007, 01:56:48 PM »

darn... that's a shame.  I had seen some glowing reviews of these plugs and their hum remover in particular and I was hoping Sonnox would be handling a port to PC VST now that they've ported nearly everything else in the Sony Oxford line.

As far as NR: the solutions I've been using have all been PC based, but are very inexpensive relative to other choices out there, yet I've found them fairly effective.  
In particular I recently have been pretty impressed with the Acon Digital Studio Clean DX plugin suite - http://www.acondigital.com/us_StudioClean.html

I'm always on the look out for other solutions, but currently can't justify the expense for CEDAR or Algorithmix's offerings.  
I've been pretty unimpressed with Waves X-Noise suite, but haven't demoed Z-Noise yet.  Diamond Cut's Live Forensics app has a number of very good algorithms, but its interface and work flow is a bit clunky for me.

I wonder what Sony's plans are for these plugins?  Their own NR 2.0 DX suite (which was initially developed by Sonic Foundry in the late 90's) is getting a little long in the tooth, so it seems a port to PC would actually be to their advantage.  Maybe someone else holds the rights to the restoration suite?

Best regards,
Steve Berson

carlsaff

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 773
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2007, 02:42:51 PM »

Steve --

Have you experimented with Voxengo's Redunoise? I have rediscovered it. It's very deep, very complicated, and VERY CPU intensive. But it can sound very nice. It offers frequency-selective reduction, which I find powerful -- almost like EQ-ing out the noise, if you will, rather than applying a broadband filter or noise profile. Since I often do noise reduction as an offline process before loading the files into my editor for processing, the CPU issue isn't much of one for me.

Worth checking out. The price is quite nice, too. I like it better than Acon's NR (though I love that Acon Declipper).

Carl

jfrigo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1029
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #3 on: July 17, 2007, 12:45:34 AM »

Peter Beckmann wrote on Mon, 16 July 2007 13:24


Has anyone got Soundblade and NoNoise working?


I have NoNoise II and Algorithmix reNOVAtor for soundBlade. I've only done a few gigs with the tools so far, but initial indications are very good. It's been easy to use, flexible, sounds great, and I don't really have a complaint so far. Haven't done any 96k work on it yet, so I can't comment on that.
Logged

Peter Beckmann

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 434
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #4 on: July 17, 2007, 08:38:25 AM »

I wonder, is there a difference between the NoNoise available for Protools and the one available for Soundblade?

The version for Prottools would suit my workflow better.

Jay?



PB
Logged
Peter Beckmann
Technologyworks
http://www.technologyworks.co.uk

Matt_G

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 648
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #5 on: July 17, 2007, 08:46:55 AM »

Peter Beckmann wrote on Tue, 17 July 2007 03:24



Is it time to step up to the Sonic package for Protools, what else do people here use?
Has anyone got Soundblade and NoNoise working?

PB





Hi Peter, I bought the Sonic No-Noise bundle for Pro Tools & I think it is excellent. I use the de-click the most, occasionally the de-crackle & rarely the de-noise (mainly because it's only real-time processing for the de-noise & not audiosuite like the others).

Out of the Waves X-Noise bundle I tend to use the de-noise audiosuite & it does a pretty good job if used carefully in moderation.

Hope this helps,

Matt
Logged
Matthew Gray Mastering

Brisbane Australia

Jerry Tubb

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2761
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #6 on: July 17, 2007, 09:18:53 AM »

Peter Beckmann wrote on Tue, 17 July 2007 07:38

The version for Prottools would suit my workflow better.


Hey Peter

Recently  I used Sonic NoNoise TDM for PT HD extensively on a 30 song project.

Very good results with AudioSuite DeClick, DeCrackle, & TDM Noise Reduction processes.

(I bought it on eBay for less than half of retail.)

Much better than the Waves X-Noise stuff, with less artifacts.

The AudioSuite processing time was very slow, for  DeClick/Crackle... about 20 min for a 4 minute song, on a Mac G5.

I tried to demo Waves Z-Noise, which iirc is designed by Algorithmix(?), but their demo process has gotten so laborious I blew it off and just used NoNoise which works fine.

Dunno if NoNoise II for SoundBlade has been streamlined or not.

JT
Logged
Terra Nova Mastering
Celebrating 20 years of Mastering!

Peter Beckmann

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 434
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #7 on: July 17, 2007, 09:55:54 AM »

Thanks Matt and Jerry.

20 minutes is quite a time for a 4 minute song, though I guess potentially you could set up the AS process on a few tracks and leave the computer alone to do its thinking.

I will keep looking out for NoNoise on Ebad then....


Peter
Logged
Peter Beckmann
Technologyworks
http://www.technologyworks.co.uk

OTR-jkl

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 869
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #8 on: July 17, 2007, 12:35:08 PM »

I've used the N/R pgm in Samplitude with good results for cleaning up noisy dialogue recordings...
Logged
J Lowes ยท OTR Mastering
Professional Audio Production for Life
www.ShoutLife.com/OTRMastering

TotalSonic

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3728
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #9 on: July 17, 2007, 04:40:16 PM »

carlsaff wrote on Mon, 16 July 2007 14:42

Steve --

Have you experimented with Voxengo's Redunoise? I have rediscovered it. It's very deep, very complicated, and VERY CPU intensive. But it can sound very nice. It offers frequency-selective reduction, which I find powerful -- almost like EQ-ing out the noise, if you will, rather than applying a broadband filter or noise profile. Since I often do noise reduction as an offline process before loading the files into my editor for processing, the CPU issue isn't much of one for me.

Worth checking out. The price is quite nice, too. I like it better than Acon's NR (though I love that Acon Declipper).

Carl


Hey Carl -
I demoed Redunoise about a year ago and could never really get around it's gui and fairly (to me) unintuitive parameter controls to get any results that were even remotely satisfying dialed in on the material I was working with.  

This is similar experience of mine to many Voxengo plugins - where while I find the DSP coding and algorithms generally excellent, often the gui and to me an unnecessary complexity of the interface(i.e. where one esoteric parameter control effects the results of another in unpredictable and generally not straightforward ways) makes them not as appealing to me, especially in terms of a work flow aspect.  I really like the Elephant though!

fwiw - For dealing with about a year ago on a very demanding job where I had to unbury an interview out of a huge amount of background noise (which is when I demoed out Redunoise) DiamondCut's Live6/Forensics was the only thing I tried that was really up to the task.

As far as other cheap broadband NR solutions - I've gotten surprising mileage out of the Virtos Audio DeNoiser also - http://www.virtos-audio.com

As far as DeClicker's, besides the Acon Digital one, the one in Sony NR 2.0 has worked very well for me - but when declicking I nearly always isolate the problem areas and only process these areas instead of processing the entire file.

As note before I've been fairly unimpressed with Waves X-Noise in all my demos of it - the current solutions I own that are all less expensive operate just as well or better in all my tests.

I'm in the same boat as Jerry in that while I really would like to demo the Waves Z-Noise out I find the hoops you need to jump through in order to demo it is just not worth the hassle (also considering I really don't want to give them any more dollars due to what I think is there ridiculous "WUP" policy).

Maybe if I get more restoration work sent to me I'll look into the Algorythmix stuff - just at this point I can't justify a large investment into it.  Perhaps it's worth looking at Redunoise again at some point in the future also - but I definitely didn't find it to be "user friendly" in my initial trial at all.  I do know that Pieter Stenekes at Sonoris was looking into development of a SAWStudio native NR plugin - and based on the excellence of all of his plugins I'd say it most likely will be well worth waiting for.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

garret

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1012
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #10 on: July 18, 2007, 01:21:41 AM »

Has anyone tried the Wavearts restoration suite?

http://www.wavearts.com/MasterRestoration.html

I think it's a new release this year.
Logged
tomorrow is already here - http://www.worksongs.net/

TotalSonic

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3728
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #11 on: July 18, 2007, 01:45:44 PM »

garret wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 01:21

Has anyone tried the Wavearts restoration suite?

http://www.wavearts.com/MasterRestoration.html

I think it's a new release this year.


I never had heard of this - thanks for the heads up!
Downloading the demo now - at $500 for the suite this is reasonably priced to me if it actually works better than the other solutions I already have.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

garret

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1012
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #12 on: July 18, 2007, 02:29:45 PM »

TotalSonic wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 13:45


I never had heard of this - thanks for the heads up!
Downloading the demo now - at $500 for the suite this is reasonably priced to me if it actually works better than the other solutions I already have.



Yah, I get their press release emails because I'm a Trackplug user (that's their control strip, nice clean eq/comp/gate.)  I don't need noise or hum reduction stuff very often, so I haven't tried it out yet.

One other heads up with Wavearts, if you have an active educational affiliation (faculty, student, staff, etc.) you can get a 50% discount.  You just email them a scan of your id, and they'll send you a coupon code.

Logged
tomorrow is already here - http://www.worksongs.net/

minister

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1761
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #13 on: July 18, 2007, 03:36:14 PM »

garret wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 00:21

Has anyone tried the Wavearts restoration suite?

http://www.wavearts.com/MasterRestoration.html

I think it's a new release this year.

YES!

i worked on a security recording from s city bus and was able to get good results with it.  download the demo.

i have LOTS of NR tools, the SONY was OK -- the best thing was the DEBUZZ.  everything else i could beat with SONIC NO-NOISE, or EQ and CAT 43-style MULTIDYNAMICS.

you are not missing THAT much by this move.

Logged
tom hambleton C.A.S.
minister of fancy noises
ministry of fancy noises

IMDb

Silvertone

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1105
Re: Goodbye Sony restoration tools
« Reply #14 on: July 19, 2007, 10:01:06 AM »

I've had Daniel Weiss' DNA1 unit in here for the last year for review. This thing is a power house. If I was doing restoration work this would be the box I'd get. Real time declick/decrackle, denoise (Pure Notes technologies) noise removal, K-Stereo ambience recovery (Bob Katz design) and M/S processing.

Being able to grab a knob and listen to the clicks go away is an amazing thing. Same with the noise reduction, dial up the threshold and listen to the noise go away. Feel like you lost to much reverb or room ambience, just dial it back in. Have a mono record, grab the side crackle and just dial it out via the M/S section.

I've been pretty impressed. A review will be coming out in Tape-Op shortly.

It's fairly expensive (10K) but not really for this kind of work I guess. Wish I had more restoration work as I'd keep the unit.
Logged
Larry DeVivo
Silvertone Mastering, Inc.
PO Box 4582
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
www.silvertonemastering.com
To see some of our work please click on any of the visual trailer montages located at... http://robertetoll.com/  (all music and sound effects were mastered by Silvertone Mastering).
Pages: [1]   Go Up
 

Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.044 seconds with 21 queries.