Waves Z-Noise

Waves has different plugins out there for noise reduction, but I find this one to be the king of them all. It's crazy versatile with tons of features thrown in to reduce almost any noise that you may be experiencing. Dealing with noise can be a huge pain, and it can ruin what would otherwise be a 100% perfect mix. Waves really knocked it out of the ball park with this plugin. It has adjustments for threshold, reduction, NR, attack, release, transients, knee, a 5 band EQ with on/off per band, shape adjustments, gain, frequency adjustment, Q control, noise profile capturing, extract/adaptive settings, optimize buttons, and tons more features that would take quite awhile to list. To use this, simply enable it on whatever buss you want to reduce your noise from and start from there. There are quite a few features packed into this, and it may help to read the manual. I personally never read it, although I can't imagine it not being helpful for those of you who are beginners.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Waves rules for audio plugins. For one, they're always rock solid and super stable. I've never had a single crash while using any Waves plugin, and the same goes for this. The plugin itself doesn't take up much RAM or processing power, which is a big plus for those who tend to have tons of plugins going on inside of their DAWs. The plugin is also cross platform compatible, so just about anybody can use this without any issues at all. There is one issue that I did experience, and that has to do with the actual coding of the plugin and today's recent OSes/DAWs. The plugin is a 32 bit plugin. However, my DAW and OS are 64 bit OSes. For Logic Pro, my go-to DAW, to utilize this, it needs to run a special bridge application. However, I'm not a huge fan of the way Logic implements that feature. I'm hoping that Waves updates these to 64 bit in the future. I've been using the Waves Mercury bundle for the past half a year or so, and it's been absolutely killer.

OVERALL OPINION

This is one of the best noise reduction plugins I've ever had the pleasure of using. It has removed lots of noise from different mixes I've had, and it helped revive some of my older mixes that I was just never pleased with. It's pretty much the flagship noise reduction plugin from Waves, and I can see why. I highly recommend everyone try this out as I'm sure nearly everybody will have some sort of use for this.

The Waves Ltd. Z-Noise is an in depth noise reduction plug-in that is part of Waves' Audio Restoration bundle of plug-ins. It's pretty similar to the X-Noise plug-in that is also part of the same package, but I like this one a bit more as I find it to be a little cleaner. I believe that you can get this plug-in individually without the bundle, although I got it in the Waves Complete bundle so I don't know this for sure. Installing the plug-in is easy as you do so while installing the entire bundle at once. The interface of the software isn't too difficult to follow and at the same time gives you total control over filtering unwanted noise. It has parameters for threshold, reduction (and a meter to show it), attack, release, transients, and knee. It also has a graph with a more traditional EQ for filtering as well. You can get more in depth with it as it has some more features to offer as well, but what I've mentioned is pretty much the jist of it. If you're going to be using this plug-in on a daily basis, the manual is definitely something worth checking out, although I haven't seen it for myself.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

The system that I'm running the Waves Ltd. Z-Noise plug-in on is running Pro Tools LE 8. I've got a Mac Book Pro lap top that has a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM where I'm running Pro Tools LE 8 with a Digi 002R audio interface. I have only been using this plug-in moderately here and there when I need to get rid of noise, and for these purposes the system I've got does a fine job of running it as I can't say I've had any issues with it at all.

OVERALL OPINION

The Waves Ltd. Z-Noise is definitely one of the most comprehensive noise reduction plug-ins on the market. It's limitless in what it can achieve if you know how to use it, and even if you don't know it well it's still pretty simple to use and to get it to do the basic job. Of course it can get tricky the more you want to get specific with it, but the more you use it the easier it gets to use. Of all the Waves Restoration plug-ins, this would have to be my favorite as I find it to be the most flexible while sharing that pristine filtering that the other plug-ins in the bundle have as well. If you're looking for the plug-in to help you cut out unwanted noise in music, sound design, and beyond, look no further than Waves' Z-Noise.