-- Sonnox Restore Bundle Plug-Ins----  Mouse Over To Pause--iPad and Smart Phone Refresh--

Sonnox has updated their Restore suite of restoration plug-ins to support 64-bit DAWS (AAX Native, RTAS, Audio Units and VST) and have lowered the price.

I had a chance to review the trio of plug-ins in the Sonnox Restore bundle back in 2010 for Mix Magazine at www.barryrudolph.com/mix/sonnoxrestore.html and was eager to try out the new AAX versions in Pro Tools 12.2.

The Sonnox Restore bundle has three plug-ins. DeClicker is for removing pops, clicks and scratches displaying them as 'bubbles' on its GUI. It has an intelligent dialog mode for cleaning up voice-over recordings with an 'exclude' box where certain audio moments (bubbles) that sound like clicks can be 'lassoed' and excluded or not removed. DeBuzzer has three frequency ranges for real-time tracking of buzzes and hums and their harmonics even if they vary in frequency constantly. Lastly, DeNoiser, along with its de-hisser section removes wideband noise and hiss anywhere in the audio spectrum.

The process of audio restoration is as much science as it is art because of the many subjectively aesthetic decisions and audio compromises routinely made by the expert restoration engineer. The most crucial decisions being: in what order should these processes be done and at what point does the audio's original fidelity start to be diminished.

There are great starting or stored default settings that'll get you very close to a finished job quickly. All three plug-ins provide intuitive, graphical information using their improved, larger GUI screens and there are various controls to sweeten restored audio and to do A/B comparisons quickly.