Noise
Reduction 2.0 now consists of a suite of four plugins
for audio restoration. "The Noise Reduction"
systems, etc. Similar to the "Learn Noise" feature
in Sound Soap, NR2 analyzes a looped section
of your audio that you specify as the "noiseprint"
then uses that to create a filter that reduces that noiseprint
throughout the file. "Vinyl Restoration" is
a pretty self explanatory little plugin -- straight forward,
simple reduction of the noises records make. "Click
and Crackle Remover" is again simple, easy and effective
at doing one thing. "Clipped Peak Restoration"
allows users to rebuild, to some extent, audio that has
been "clipped off" due to having the input too
loud during recording. This can very handy for the occasional
peak that occurs when an actor gets a little louder than
usual. However, it will not restore the terrible distortion
that results in overdriving the input too much, so unfortunately
we still have to think about audio during the shoot.
Ease
of Use
NR2's simple, straight forward GUI helps keep the
technology out of the way and lets the user focus on sound.
However, most video people will want to check out the
manual to see what some of the parameters do in the Noise
Reduction plugin as some of them may seem a bit technical.
After that, play with the settings a bit and you'll get
a handle on it. In most cases I only needed to adjust
the Mode, Attack, and Release parameters after getting
a good sample of the noise captured as the noiseprint.
Depth
of Options
As you've probably noticed by now, my take on this collection
is that Sony has pretty much designed each plugin to address
one problem with no more parameters than necessary for
each. As is often the case, simplicity comes with fewer
options. The Noise Reduction plugin has the lion's share
of tweak-ability and features and actually is fairly loaded.
It's just that most of the more in-depth features are
on the Noiseprint tab -- you don't have to play with them
if you don't want to because the default settings are
usually enough to get decent results. When the noiseprint
is analyzed, a graphical representation can bee seen on
the Noiseprint tab. The software automatically creates
an extensive series of drag points which you can use to
manually tweak the algorithm's response to certain frequencies.
It also lets you specify how many points/handles to create
for the noiseprint. Keep in mind what appears on the screen
here is not just a watered down representation of what
the algorithm is doing -- it actually affects the algorithm.
So if you lessen the number of points created in order
to make it easier to select individual ones, you are in
some ways reducing the "resolution" of the filter,
grouping more frequencies together to be controlled by
a single point. The software conveniently lets you zoom
the frequency range you have selected and has several
ways to view the noiseprint that may make it a bit more
comprehensible.
