ProAudio Review - October 2008 - (Page 42) POST | REVIEW by Dr. Fred Bashour spectral change is shown in red whenever gain reduction occurs. If one clicks on another button labeled “Access,” the FFT window shrinks somewhat and additional controls appear, which provide a complete set of compressor/limiter adjustments. Oxford SuprEsser is supplied with a comprehensive set of twenty-eight presets in seven categories: Vocals, Winds, Strings, Bass, Standard Compressor Modes, Analysis, and Effects. Although designed as starting points, most are remarkably effective as is. The vocal presets are called “Gentle and Natural,” “Harder but Natural,” “Harder and Lithping,” “Vocal Soften,” and “Whistle Control.” One can “derasp” a sax, “deharsh” a trumpet or a cello, and reduce breath noises and key hits on wind instruments. Acoustic guitars can be “detwanged,” electric guitars can be “debitten,” and basses can be “deboomed.” One can also set SuprEsser up to act as a brickwall limiter or a traditional compressor with or without side-chain EQ. IN USE I started my tests by purposely making a sibilant recording of a female vocalist. It took less time than it takes to type this sentence to remove the sibilance completely and absolutely transparently. Once I selected the Gentle and Natural preset (using Bias Peak Pro XT 6 as host), I tweaked the center frequency, width and slope, and then adjusted the threshold downward. When I liked what I heard, I watched as the plug-in tracked the rest of the vocal automatically! I was previously accustomed to the limited adjustments possible with the standard analog hardware de-esser in my Manley VoxBox, so using this “automatic digital parametric de-esser” was quite a revelation. One of SuprEsser’s coolest features is its ability to monitor “inside” or “outside” the mix. One can hear the output of the bandpass filter, as processed by the compressor—i.e., “inside,” or the output of the band-reject filter—i.e., everything “outside” the bandpass window, and also simultaneously adjust the wet/dry mix, since SuprEsser’s architecture permits mixing the original untreated signal with its processed outputs—analogous to parallel compression techniques. These three controls, plus the three mentioned above, allowed me to produce perfect results quickly. All this power is not without a price. The maths, much of which involve convolution, introduce processor delay. Since SuprEsser has two filters, their “kernel size” is directly proportional to both latency and accuracy at the low end. Accordingly, Sonnox supplies Sonnox SuprEsser De-Esser/Dynamic EQ Plug-In The SuprEsser is a new standard for de-esser/dynamic equalizer plug-ins. Plug-ins have certainly come a long way from being regarded as “one-cell brains” and the poor stepchildren of hardware processors. The development of sufficiently powerful DSP chips and, eventually, even more powerful native computer CPUs has hastened their evolution, permitting the incorporation of increasingly complex mathematics. While earlier Sonnox (formerly Sony Oxford) plug-ins such as their Oxford EQ and Dynamics are still regarded as among the best, until recently they still required outboard DSP engines such as TC’s PowerCore or Pro Tools|HD’s TDM engine to run them. Today’s multi-core CPUs APPLICATIONS Studio, project studio, audio post, audio for broadcast, live; treatment of aggressive frequencies in vocal and instrumental pick-ups. KEY FEATURES 28 presents in seven categories — Vocals, Winds, Strings, Bass, Standard Compressor Modes, Analysis, and Effects; automatic level-tracking follows energy level; intuitive graphic display. PRICE $330 CONTACT Sonnox | ¤ XXX · www.sonnoxplugins.com have changed that; those two plug-ins are now available in native versions. Native CPUs also support the kind of complex maths and code writing that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to program for standard audio DSP chips. The latest example is Sonnox’s new SuprEsser, an amazing application that combines a simple and intuitive de-esser with an extremely sophisticated frequency-specific compressor. It’s available for Macs and PCs, with RTAS, VST, and AU compatibility. Its heritage derives from the compressor section of Oxford Dynamics, with linear phase crossover filters based on code from Oxford EQ. FEATURES As a de-esser, SuprEsser can treat vocal sibilance and fricatives as well as whistles and various artifacts associated with wind and string instruments; it can also remove low-end plosives and thuds without affecting neighboring frequencies. Its graphic display features a real-time FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) of the input signal, showing exactly what the plug-in is doing at any given instant — but the incredible thing is that its action is auto-tracking. In other words, the threshold and central FFT peak are constantly adjusting to the audio input; the FFT shows only the frequency band being treated, so it changes with adjustment of the octave and frequency controls. The 42 | ProAudio Review | October 2008 www.proaudioreview.com http://www.sonnoxplugins.com http://www.proaudioreview.com
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