Sonic Solutions NoNoise?

I was just listening to the absoutely brilliant Donovan 'Storyteller' Audio Fidelity disc remastered by Steve, and for some reason I thought I'd compare 'Sunshine Superman' from it with the same song on the EMI compilation 'Psychedelia At Abbey Road'.

Now, the version on the EMI CD is clearly stated in the booklet as a "new stereo mix" from 1998, but what intrigued me the most was the fact that the following can be read on the CD:

"These original analogue masters have been digitally transfered at 24 bits resolution, processed using Sonic Solutions NoNoise technology and mastered to 16 bit for CD using Prism SNS Noise Shaping".

All famous words, I guess, since NoNoise is frowned upon around here (and for a good reason, too!), but what exactly IS this NoNoise technology? Could anyone give me some background information or have any good links? Is this still commonly used over at Abbey Road? What's the worst examples of the NoNoise processing used on commerical CD's?

As a bonus, here's a 7 second sample of the intro to the above mentioned track. First half is from the EMI CD, second half from the Audio Fidelity disc:

http://hem.passagen.se/lito4549/sunshinesuperman.mp3

 

For the true no-noise experience I highly recommend Let It Be Naked.

 

And the rest of the digitally re-mastered Beatles albums.......

 

I don't know. I think older recordings (Columbia's Essential Count Basie series comes to mind) have more to lose.

Not that your contempt for its use on LIBN is misplaced.

To the OP: I don't know what it is either. Can anyone actually answer the question?

 

I prefer to hear the tape hiss on vintage analog recordings comapred to the unsubtle effects of Sonic Solutions There surely is nothing wrong in explaining the presence of tape hiss in a paragraph somewhere on the CD sleeve notes.

Regards,

 

I only know a very basic version, but digital no-noising takes a "snapshot" of a part of the track that has no music, only noise, then "subtracts" it from the rest of the track.

Math wise, I imagine it is something along the lines of taking an array and subtracting it from a much larger array of numbers, repeating until the entire big array has been modified.

 

I read in one of the many, many Beatles threads (I think it was this one) that they were not NoNoised.

Sorry, didn't mean to turn this into another Beatles thread...

 

NoNoise is a whole suite of DAW plugins, each designed for one specific type of NR. There's one for hiss, one for clicks, one for crackle, etc. The plugins are extremely powerful, and produce rather stunning results when NR is actually needed. I work in film sound, a field where NoNoise has saved many peoples' asses to varying degrees.

The reason why NoNoise has such a bad connotation here isn't that it's bad software. It's excellent software. The problem is operator error. When you go to transfer your location sound DAT tapes and find that one of the tapes is completely covered with digital clicking errors, you need NoNoise. When you're restoring a one-of-a-kind vintage cylinder recording that sounds like almost pure noise when played without NR, you might need NoNoise. When remastering an album from high quality magnetic tapes, you most certainly do not need it.

 

Great post. It's easy to demonize the equipment when it's so misused in the industry. I never really thought of it's use in film and location sound.

I also don't mind a bit of expert use of NR on pre-tape recordings that haven't aged well (or have been damaged or whatever). The problem really is the operators, and the 'we paid for it let's use it all the time!' school of thought.

dan c

 

here you go
http://www.abbeyroad.co.uk/remastering/
see the bit "Sonic Solutions & Sadie 8 channel workstations /
Cedar 8 channel denoise – declick, decrackle, dehiss"

Senior Remastering Engineer
Mr. Peter Mew http://www.abbeyroad.co.uk/remastering/engineers.php
Quote from the page: "As a Senior Engineer, ... he is involved in remastering audio for DVD and SACD releases, ...specialising in Sonic Solution de-noise and remastering digital audio, Peter has worked with just about every sort of music imaginable"

+ here
http://www.cedar-audio.com/news/denoise96.html

 

Never trust an analog recording that has no tape noise. Unless it is a recording made live direct to one-inch two-track tape at 30 ips, in which case there will be a natural absense of noise.

 

The recent Jethro Tull Aqualung remaster also mentioned something about the Prism SNS noise shaping. I did not like the sound of that CD at all... and it wasn't until later stumbling onto this forum as to learning why I didn't like that sound.

 

Noise shaping is not the same as hiss removal.

Don't hate Pepsi because you don't like the color of the glass it's in.

 

That's a very dramatic comparison.

 

I think the remix used a lot more than mere nonoise to get that unique sound that makes you want to throw the disk across the room.

Richard.

 

I use Cedar when remixing all my old stuff from the past 30-40 years. I am not a fan of tape hiss. My original mixes are pretty good in that many listeners wouldn't notice the noise anyway...but I do. Because I was there making this stuff. So the use of Cedar usually gives me great joy in how it cleans up the sound. It might be a different story if I were simply the listener who only knew these recordings with the hiss intact....and didn't have a perception on how things sounded going IN to the tape during tracking.

 

That's not true. Some analog tapes are very quiet and have had no NR applied to them.

 

But, once you record the stuff to tape, and it has hiss, the hiss becomes opart of that recording. When you attempt to remove hiss, you wind up removing something in the music and/or ambience. Even if you don't disturb the music, it changes the timbre or "tonality". Why not just leave things as they are?

 

Calling Peter Mew, "Mr. NoNoise in chief" is a personal attack. Please try to refrain from such tactics.

Thanks...

 

Let's talk about decaf coffee for a moment. In order to remove the caffeine you must basically destroy the bean and wash away much of the coffee leaving you with little of the original bean.

I'm not suggesting this has anything to do with the no-noise process.

 

Slightly O/T: I recently worked on a project using a Sonic DAW, and it sounded great! So it's not even a Sonic Solutions issue(yes, NoNoise was on the taskbar, and it made me shudder, but it was not used).

The blame falls 100% on the person electing to take a 9th generation, 7-1/2 ips dub and give it the signal-to-noise of a Telarc recording.



Dan

 

Also not true because some masters were recorded with encoded with noise reduction back in the day (Dolby, dBx, etc.) which are supposed to be decoded on playback. Otherwise they sound needlessly hissy (or downright unlistenable in dBx). If it's decoded properly, you won't hear any tape hiss. Not the same as a NoNoise processing.

 

It was not meant as a personal attack. I think I've read this somewhere in the threads... but... Anyway, I updated the link to be more specific. Thanks.

 

Bowie 99 remasters , another good example of it.