Sound Devices Releases NoiseAssist, Real-Time Noise Suppression Plugin for 8-Series Mixer-Recorders

REEDSBURG, WIS., MAY 18, 2020 – Sound Devices is proud to announce the NoiseAssist Noise Suppression Plugin for their 8-Series mixer-recorders. NoiseAssist is an advanced signal processing algorithm that reduces background noises such as traffic, generators, HVAC noise, and more. It features a simple user interface with only one adjustment, the amount of background noise to suppress. The plugin is available now at store.sounddevices.com for an introductory price of $600. 

NoiseAssist automatically and continuously monitors the background noise independently from the desired speech in the signal. There is no need to ‘learn’ the signal, as this is done automatically. NoiseAssist very accurately discriminates between the desired speech signal and background noise through proprietary advanced multi-band frequency, level, and statistical calculations. The background noise and reverberation can then be seamlessly suppressed by a user-selectable dB level without affecting the desired speech signal. This is all done in real time with just 1 ms of latency, thanks to the 8-Series’ high-horsepower FPGA processing. 

Up to two instances of NoiseAssist can run on any combination of isolated channels (excluding 17-32 on Scorpio), bus L, or bus R. NoiseAssist maintains the two independent audio channels’ excellent frequency bandwidth, while effectively suppressing the background noise and reverberation.

This algorithm is the result of two years of in-house research and development by Staff Engineer Steve Popovich and CEO/President Matt Anderson. Steve holds a BSEE, MSEE, and PhD in EE from UW-Madison and Matt holds a BSEE from University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Between the two of them, Steve and Matt collectively hold over 20 patents, and have several decades of experience designing audio algorithms and systems.

The optional NoiseAssist plugin is compatible with all 8-Series mixer-recorders running firmware version 5.00 or higher, which may be downloaded from sounddevices.com/download. Firmware version 5.00 also includes support for the Sonosax SX-LC8+ Control Surface.

8-Series users may visit store.sounddevices.com/product/noiseassist to hear a demo of the plugin and purchase NoiseAssist for their mixer-recorder.