BIAS Sound Soap (Windows/Macintosh)

Have you shot video and later discovered the hum of an air conditioner or other noise affecting your sound? As you probably know, audiences will forgive some mistakes in video, but they have a harder time forgiving bad sound. Enter SoundSoap from Bias, Inc. It's a $99.00 application that will remove hum, hiss, buzz and rumble from your soundtrack(s).

If you are using a camcorder, video editing software, audio CD burning software, a digital audio workstation, or other multimedia application, SoundSoap can really help you remove the bad ambient noises.

I tried it on a couple of videos. One was my 'talking head' that I did with my iSight Camera using iMovie. My voice was way too quiet and the sound had a lot of "static." (I used Peak - also from Bias - to boost my voice.) The other was some video of my son and his bride dancing their first dance at the wedding reception. There were lots of clinking dishes, extra voices, etc.

In both cases, the sound was greatly improved! SoundSoap simply and quickly did a VERY complex task - analyzing my sound and removing only the offending noise!

SoundSoap ships as both a standalone application, and a plug-in compatible with any DirectX or VST host program - including Adobe Premiere, BIAS Peak, Cakewalk's SONAR, Guitar Tracks Pro, Home Studio, Music Creator, MediaWorks and Pyro 2004, Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge and Vegas Video Steinberg's Nuendo, Cubase SX/SL and Wavelab. SoundSoap's workspace is simple and uncluttered.

It cleverly removes hiss, hum & buzzing, rumble & most other noise, without harming the audio you wish to preserve. SoundSoap has a one-step "Learn Noise" button to sample and automatically reduce noise. It also provides manual controls for trickier applications. Like Peak, the standalone version works with any QuickTime-compatible audio or video file (AVI, DV, .WAV, SDII, AIFF, MP3, MP4 & dozens more).

My favorite feature is a "Preserve Voice" button that protects the range of the human voice while removing noise (and other audio). The hum removal is optimized for 60 Hertz (North America, etc.) or 50 Hertz (Europe, Australia, etc.). You click on a button to choose which one to use. And the "Noise Only" mode lets you listen only to the noise being removed, making it easier to fine-tune SoundSoap's controls.

SoundSoap is a great, inexpensive solution to ambient noise problems, particularly those picked up by a camcorder. Get more info at http://www.bias-inc.com.

Bought this to use with an Ion turntable for digitizing vinyl. Produces amazing sound quality and extremely user-friendly.

This product works and works well. I purchased it for a job running sound for a film. The film was shot outside and there were MANY sound issues including cicadas, cars, air-conditioners, lawn mowers. Sound soup was able to erase all but the cicadas. The trick is that you need about 2 to 3 seconds of "silence" (with background noise) for each take so sound soap can analyze and fix the sound issues.