Sonnox restoration plugs - are they included in Nuendo?

I have these three - Sonnox De-Clicker, De-noise and De-Buzzer - which I can’t remember buying as third party plugs. I’m certain I’ve used them occasionally.

Were they/are they included with Nuendo?

I tried to load the de-buzzer today and got a an E-Licenser error (which crashed Nuendo). Which makes me think that they must have been included at some point (I’ve been with Nuendo since v1) The official Sonnox plugins use I-lok, not E-Licenser

Anyone?

Hi,

No, these plug-ins are not included in Nuendo. In the past, they were included in WaveLab.

They are not (and were not) protected by e-Licenser. As far as I know, they are using iLok. How exactly is the error message, please?

Ah yes, thanks Martin, that makes sense, I have Wavelab Elements.

I’m attaching a screenshot of the error message
Sonnox ELc error.jpeg

Sonnox licences don’t appear in either my eLc or iLok lists.

Just worked it out- I didn’t have the Wavelab Elements license on my eLc, it appears Sonnox needs this when opening in Nuendo.

Thanks for your help Martin.

Unfortunately the new stuff that replaces the Sonnox light versions of the restoration plugins sound terrible to my ears.
The Sonnox stuff sounded much better. DeBuzz is really good, better than RX.

It is only a matter of time until some OS update will kill the WaveLab Sonnox plugs (at least for macOS users… :unamused: )

Nothing lasts forever…

As an alternative, try Acon Digital’s restoration plugins.

Yes, agreed.

Here’s a question I’m trying to find an answer to, maybe the combined expertise of the Nuendo forum can help…

I’m chasing down a low level buzz in the studio, which appears to a greater or lesser extent on any and all electric guitars, single coil or humbucker, from cheapo to exotic. The more compressed and the higher the gain, obviously the worse it is.

I THINK I’ve done all the usual checks to track the source and find a fix, tell me what you think:

It’s a buzz, not a hum, sounds like thyristor buzz. It’s the same on amps, and DI.

It’s louder when the guitar is attached to a human, but can be largely silenced by touching the guitar metalwork or strings. It’s as if the human is acting like an antenna.

The studio is a detached building, and the noise is there even if the mains to the building is isolated, and power is brought with an extension cable from an adjacent building.

This leads me to suspect that the mains supply itself is inherently noisy. Earth (ground) for the mains comes with the supply. Supply for both buildings comes from a nearby overhead cable and step down transformer.

This is UK by the way.

Anyone got any ideas?

To make sure it is a ground problem, measure with multi-meter between the grounds of the AC plugs. It should be zero Volts.
If you see any voltage, try to plug the computer and equipment in the same plug, with a power bar. Hopefully it will drain less than 15 Amps,
and it should be the quietest you can get, in terms of ground loops, because this way there won’t be any.

When you say it gets quieter when a human touches the guitar metalwork or strings, it’s definitely a ground problem.

EDIT: Also, ask the guitar player to rotate slowly 360 degrees; at a certain angle it will be quieter.

Many thanks for the suggestions.

I actually don’t think it’s a ground LOOP as such, because the noise is there even when the studio (in fact the whole studio building) is turned off, and I run the amp off an extension cable from a neighbouring building.

I wonder if there’s a way to check the actual mains supply for noise? This isn’t an area I have much knowledge about…

What you need for seeing Mains noise is an oscilloscope. There you spot any dirt in the mains visually.
Alternatively, you can try a mains filter device. Then you hear right away if it is a mains pollution from outside.
Those come in various builds depending on the Power you need. For testing just lend a small one…
It is just a relatively simple circuitry, mainly of coils and capacitors.
If it is not coming through mains it could be radiated from nasty machinery or transformers, in the vicinity.
Then that would be a real problem… Not likely, though.

Servus, Big

Thanks for this Big K, I was thinking about getting the mains waveform checked.

There are some ‘mains conditioning’ devices on the market. I already tried one from Studiospares
https://www.studiospares.com/ProductDetail.aspx?p=517330

which has no noticeable benefit.

Furman make a couple of different units, there isn’t much detail of what they do, but it seems more focused on spikes than on ac ripple.

We do have stepdown transformer close by (about 15 metres from the end of the building) so I’m going to contact the grid distributor for information.

Yes understood, but you said it got quieter when you touched the strings, so
even if not a looped ground, still a ground issue.

That power bar you posted only reduces Radio Frequency interference (RF),
so not applicable.
Have you tried a mic, or any other equipment besides the guitar? And also, is the same guitar
system quiet everywhere else? That will help locate the problem.

Thanks, there’s no issue with audio equipment generally in the studio, but then that all employs balanced interconnection.

I did some research into Furman devices, and spoke to the UK distributor - they are certainly claiming effective mains-borne noise control, I’ve ordered a Furman M-10x E, we’ll see if that helps…

Thinking about it…
When planning the studio construction the first thing we did was making mains ground wire conns all in a star shaped manner. Quite usually those are often laid out in serial from one socket to the next. This introduces a difference in electrical potential causing hum. Some devices with asymmetrical layout don’t like this a bit.
Also, have mains ground of the house checked. If it is not zero Ohms towards the mains entry box to the house… problem…
We also build several mains circuits with fuses and residual current operated circuit breakers. Meaning, the control room with console, computer, rack devices, pre-amps, a.s.f., are on independent mains circuits and so is the recording room. The rest, like lights, gadgets outside the studio environment, aircon., vents, office stuff are on separate lines, too. In total we have 8 circuits with special star shaped grounding of all audio relevant rooms. On the backside of the racks we have a separate earthing cable, 16 Sqmm , connected to a Rackpotenzialausgleichschiene ??, where all cases and housings are connected to, as well.
Problems with noise and hum on stage or elsewhere is occasionally fixed with simply turning the mains plug. I am sooo grateful for those new light dimmers and LED lamps… :wink: Was a pain da bum in earlier years…
Ground Lines.jpg

Afaik guitar pick op noise is usually electromagnetic radiation. So it is coming through space (not from space of course :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:) not wires.
Any power transformer sends out this radiation. Crt monitors even more.

Our control room uses a star ground system. We don’t have any ground loop problems in the studio, but there is always a low level buzz from guitar pickups - even when the studio is switched off - unfortunately with high gain preamp/amp setups and compression this buzz gets to be a problem.

If it was EM radiation, I would expect it to be particular to certain locations in the building and directional, but it isn’t, it’s everywhere, including outside the building. For years I’ve lived with it by careful gating/filtering, but I really want to see if it can be eradicated.

The ground for the mains supply in UK (AIUI) takes place at the base of the supply pole - a fat copper wire buried at least 1 metre in the earth. I will be checking if there is any electrical resistance between the mains ground in the building

Thanks for the suggestions

Hi
is an electrical railway line or large electrical lines nearby? We have 2 railway lines 30 meters away.
This creates massive interference in guitars / basses and can only be reduced with an electromagnetic field compensation system.
I think we are the only recording studio in the world that has one. The technique is used in electron microscopy and is very expensive. The principle is the phase cancellation in all axes (x, y and z axis). The components are: central unit, 3 sensors and cable rings in the walls, floors and ceilings of the room for the recordings. The cable rings are switched as a coil and the central device generates an opposing field in real time.
A space without a magnetic field is created within the cable rings.

Please excuse the English … I only speak German
Maybe it helps
Greetings Michael

That’s interesting, thanks for posting. Our mains electricity comes from an overhead pole located about 15m from the studio building, I believe it’s at 7200v and there’s a distribution transformer on the pole supplying our house and studio (2 separate buildings).

There is a railway line about 100m away but it’s not an electrified line.

I do suspect the interference on pickups may be related to the proximity of the transformer, but it’s HF buzz, not a 50hz hum, and moving the guitar around doesn’t affect the interference.

I now have the Furman power conditioner, we’ll see if that helps.