Sonnox Plugs - Do these work at all?

Folks,

I am at the point where I would pay money to have someone show me how to use these things for anything in WL 7. I am currently working on a vinyl transcription of a way out of print album that I have. I have captured the audio at 24/96 and I have the file in WL.

I add the Sonnox Declicker to the Effect Rack and start playback…but even with all sliders set to “in”…while the file is playing (I have a loop of a specific section to see if I could improve it) no amount of moving sliders does anything. And if it is doing anything - these are the worst declicking plugs I have ever used. To my ears - nothing is happening when these plugs are “in line” via the master section.

Am I doing something wrong or what’s the deal - do these just not work on a 24/96 file?

Hoping some one can chime in on this.

Cheers,

VP

I cleaned up a recording from an old vinyl disc just last night,Benjmin Britten’s " variations on a theme of Frank bridge", ( I recorded at 44/24 ),I bought this disk 45 years ago and it is not available on CD, I’m listening to it as I type, these plugins did a very good job, I used the De-clicker and De-noiser, no clicks or crackles all that remains is a slight rumble only evident in the very quietest moments and between sections, I’m very pleased with the result, this is one of my favourite pieces of music.

Interesting…I record all my transfers at 96/24 and it seems to have no effect whatsoever. Either it’s a huge bug or there is something else going on here…

VP

You could downsample the files and try again if only to see if this is the problem.

No problem at all with 96k file here. Did you try the new Bypass mode (to only listen to clicks)?
Maybe you test on a file that has “special” clicks. Then maybe you could provide me such a test file.

I will try it again here shortly. If I cannot see/feel/hear any difference - I would be happy to provide a test file.

Cheers,

VP

Again, try the new “Bypass mode”, to hear only the clicks.

I bet that the reason you did not hear any effect of the plugin was, that for some reason the bypass master section button at the very right bottom of the wave file was activated.

I have no idea where to activate this? Is it on the plugin window or the master section somewhere?

VP

No. Seems that the signal is going right thru to the plugin and master section. But right now I have just Declicker in the Effects rack as a single plugin…I start my looped portion of surface noise going - I see the meters moving in the plugin window…but even with all three options (De-Pop, De-Click and Decrackle) all set to “In”… I hear pretty much no reduction or change in the actual output of the noisy section.

Only if I crank them all to 100% do I hear anything - but it’s not any massive reduction in noise - more like a strange EQ filter being applied. Considering these are supposed to be designed to denoise a typical vinyl record transfer…I would expect a 100% setting to produce a super overblown reduction that would be so drastic that I would have to pull back on the faders. But if this is all this plugin does - this is by far the worst de-crackling plugin I have ever tried…

Look forward to some more insight.

VP

This is a new feature of WL 7.01 and it basically allows you to listen to the change of the sound compared to the unprocessed file. In the case of the declicker it allows you to listen to what has been taken away. So: one big ciriticism of the Sonnox plugins is now obsolete, i.e. that there was no way to listen to the removed sound.

You find this option in the menu line of the plugin window. There is a dropdown menu where you can either select to bypass the whole plugin or to listen to the residual of the processing. I don’t know the exact wordings because I am not in the studio right now, but you will find it if you look a bit…

I looked around at the menus etc but didn’t really spend any more time on it.

To be honest - these last two weeks have been heavily focused on developing a professional grade workflow for my vinyl restoration work - and in the end - since Wavelab does not allow effects to be used in a “spot repair” mode kinda way (Highlight a section of a file and apply a specific plugin/process to that section) - it doesn’t cut it for what I am doing.

After demoing everything I could - the standalone iZotope RX2 environment is exactly what I need. It does it all and then some when it comes to repairing any vinyl transfer. I have regulated Wavelab to a “post processing” role as I find it works great for “tops n tails”, level and pan normalizing and of course Auto Split to chop my 20 minute LP sides into their individual files. But it scores no points in the repair department as far as I was willing to go with it…

I also must say - how disappointed I am with all the hype behind the Sonnox suite when Steinberg was doing promo for WL7…I had a legitimate noise scenario here that I thought should have been easy prey for these plugins - but after struggling to try to get them working at all after a good 30-45 minutes of trying - it was a huge buzz kill…

I finally got this specific issue sorted very well with the RX Denoiser after spending a lot of time understanding and studying it’s settings…but at least I could hear what it was doing :slight_smile:

Cheers,

VP

since Wavelab does not allow effects to be used in a “spot repair” mode kinda way (Highlight a section of a file and apply a specific plugin/process to that section)

Not sure what you mean, as WaveLab can of course do that, even by only using the keyboard (eg. using “Render using last settings”).

Philippe

Unfortunately PG - with the way I (and presumably many other) do restoration work - when I say “spot” repair - it needs to be fast, preview-able, reversible and ergonomic.

But - Wavelab does not allow me to highlight a section of the audio file, load the RX Declicker by key command or by right click, keep the plugin dialog open, “preview” a few different settings options and then “apply” the one I want.

No - Wavelab forces me to use the crutch of a Master Section and makes me have to load a plugin there, run the selection thru it and then render that section. But if I do not want to stay with that plug for the entire file - then I have to unload. If I want to perform a manual declick (with RX Declicker) one minute and then switch gears to denoise a portion 20 seconds later into the file…I have to unload the Master Section and reload it…completely interrupting the workflow and adding countless minutes/hours to the process.

With respect to vinyl restoration work…having those RX plugins available in WL is awesome - right up until you realize you cannot use them without going thru the Master Section. That’s why the RX standalone environment is so far ahead of WL. I can have any plug I need open onscreen in RX, highlight an area and hit “process” on that area with any plugin at any time. WL is simply not capable of this type of usage.

VP

Wavelab forces me to use the crutch of a Master Section and makes me have to load a plugin there, run the selection thru it and then render that section. But if I do not want to stay with that plug for the entire file - then I have to unload. If I want to perform a manual declick (with RX Declicker) one minute and then switch gears to denoise a portion 20 seconds later into the file…I have to unload the Master Section and reload it.

My purpose is not to convince you to change your way of working, but I would like to take this chance to highlight some WaveLab possibilities:

  1. in WaveLab, you can load and replace a Master Section preset with another, with a key shortcut (eg. one shortcut for the Denoiser, another one with the Declicker, etc…).

  2. You can also have all these plugins open in the same time, one for each slot of the Master Section. But since you will like to have only one active at a time, you could use the slot On/Off setting (not bypass). This is just a button to click in the plugin title bar (here, you could argue that a “solo” mode would be useful). This would be very close to your way of working, as far as I understand.

Philippe

This is a possibility…but then again…I am forced to create who know how many presets and their matching key commands…anything past a half dozen and I am probably clicking too much to open presets…

I thought of this too…but I found that it was too much clicking…especially with say - three plugs loaded…one has to go back up the slot…activate one and deactivate the other two…and so on…just not a good workflow.

I do not think I am alone here on this…the master section certainly has a purpose (and I do love it for what it’s designed for) but it is not useful at all for performing detailed area by area repair work - especially with third party plugins involved.

I would seriously like to have someone who does use WL for this purpose actually demonstrate how they go about their workflow using the Master Section and not have their wrist fall off due to excessive clicking. Trust me - I tried to use it and then after purchasing RX and doing the same in there…it was no contest. The ability to highlight, preview and process on a per area, linear basis or even “non-linear” basis was a joy to use. I can complete an entire side in less that 20 minutes using a very simple but very accurate approach.

This cannot be done in WL even with the two suggestions within the same time range.

But right now - I am still trying to get the Sonnox plugs to work…which seems a bit hopelessly now…

Cheers!

VP

Note that most people I know that do custom restoration (clicks here and there), use the WaveLab “Error detection and correction tool”. This has all the shortcut you need, and the quality of the restoration is better than what plugins can achieve, because each click is treated case by case.
This being said, this tool is not for all cases (many vinyl clicks, denoising).

In a future version, I plan to add an option “Ignore bypassed plugins on Render”. That would allow to use eg. the Bypass Solo function, and quickly Render the same thing. That would mean less clicks to achieve your favorite workflow.

Bruce, I hear you loud & clear - I have the same issues as you do.
I even posted about this somewhere but gave up on it as I was using them in Nuendo as opposed to WaveLab.
I guess I assumed the problem was me using them in Nuendo.
Same issue - non operational to the point of doing nothing I could detect.
I know how the Sonnox plugs work, as I was fortunate enough to get them for review purposes - although sadly it was a time limited license. So I know how to work the full ones, and these versions just do not cut it for me at all.

The DeClicker does not declick, and the Denoiser does not remove noise on 96k files here either.
I have no need for noise removal at 48k or 44.1k, as all restoration here is done in High Resolution.


@PG.
I hear you too about the click repair & removal process in the tools - it is indeed far superior to any plugin.
It’s also highly time consuming, as if each repair is to be done by hand it has to be checked - by hand.
I use plugins for smaller budget jobs that need less intensive repairs, or where they are so badly damaged WaveLab’s custom tool cannot create enough markers to repair the entire file in one go.
Also, for me the Sonnox plugs just do not work, and I do not know why - the full set certainly does.

Since I have also good feedback about the Sonnox plugins, it would be interesting to get samples audio files where they have “no effect”, for me or Sonnox to check.

PG,

As mentioned by Neil - this tool is very useful - but for me - only on very, very small array of tasks. However - it is filled with many drawbacks - it has no preview function, the controls take up way too much space and are laid out in a bizarre manner that requires a lot of study before anyone can get up to speed.

But - the biggest issue is the constant check/recheck. It would take me days to declick a file using this tool since I cannot hear what’s about to happen before I click the Repair button.

The Ignore Bypassed Plugins sounds promising…but the sooner the better. I would rather focus on the "worK’ of restoration rather than spend any extra time having to turn off plugins that are mistakenly inline etc. Without the ability to load and apply a specific plugin on a specific section on the fly (with no Master Section) I ma afraid that WL is not the tool for me for this kind of work.

On the Sonnox front - I would be happy to send you a section of the most recent project I was working on to find out what’s wrong with the plugs…let me know where to send.

Cheers,

VP