Product: BIAS SoundSoap Pro VST PC
Price Paid: US $450
Submitted
04/13/2006
at
05:59am
by
Brett Sherman
Reviewer Background
:
Primarily mix audio for video with some music recording. I use Nuendo 3.2 on PC. Pentium 4, 2.66 Ghz, 2 Gig RAM.
Ease of Use
:
3
They erred on the side of making the interface simple rather than useful. They have cut little sliders. The problem is that the sliders are too short to allow any sort of precision. Additionally there is no numerical box to allow you to type in values. So basically you can't fine tune the sliders. The interface is attractive, but I don't care about that kind of thing. Give me functionality over aesthetics any day.
Sounds/Sound Quality
:
5
It does a reasonable job of removing broadband noise. It's no better than say Waves X-Noise, maybe not as transparent as Voxengo's Redunoise. However it is better than Sonic Foundry's Noise Reduction. Interface problems prevent you from really getting the settings tweaked properly. But when you get it close it works pretty well. That being said, the plug-in does not operate properly in Nuendo. It delays the processed audio and adds pops and clicks. This bug makes it completely unusable since it throws your audio out of sync. Worse yet, Bias doesn't even admit they have a problem. They tried to blame Nuendo software. They haven't updated the plug-in in about a year, so I don't think they have any intention of fixing the problem. They are a Mac company and IMHO don't put much effort on the PC side.
Overall Rating
:
1
Do not buy this! It doesn't work for the PC on Nuendo. Unfortunately they don't have a trial version so you can't even test it. Had they had a trial version I would not have bought it. Unfortunately I'm stuck with it now. Instead get Voxengo's Redunoise, it's $100 and actually sounds better than SoundSoap Pro or X-Noise. Plus it has a lot more control for more precise noise reduction.
