Zynaptiq Unchirp

CODEC ARTIFACT REMOVAL & TRANSIENT RETRIEVAL
UNCHIRP is a plug-in for removing the most obnoxious artifacts associated with lossy audio encoding and other FFT based processes, such as spectral de-noising. Reduce musical noise, suppress high frequency chirping (also known as underwater sound, warbling or the tweeties), fix transient smearing, and restore lost high frequencies – UNCHIRP does it all in one go. If you need to salvage poorly encoded music, speech that has gone through a low bit rate uplink, material that has been de-noised too strongly, or footage recorded with consumer mobile devices – or if you simply want to add contour and vibrance to already great sounding recordings – UNCHIRP is your (only) friend.

The UNCHIRP features at a glance:
• Suppression of high frequency “chirping” artifacts.
• Reduction of “musical noise” artifacts.
• Transient Synthesis to augment or replace smeared, over-limited or otherwise compromised transients.
• Psycho-Acoustically optimized Treble Boost circuit with Enhance and Excite modes.
• Break-Point Curve Editor based frequency-dependent processing.
• Side-only algorithm mode for working with joint-stereo encoded material.
• HD algorithm mode for increased quality processing with higher CPU load (off-line processing recommended).
• SYNC parameter allows processing to be synchronized to signal transients for increasing clarity.
• Output limiter for unsupervised use in batch processing applications.
• Highly time-efficient workflow and UI.

The Problem
Both lossy codecs as well as many of today’s DSP processes (like de-noisers) make heavy use of a process called the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). This method has some major advantages. It also has some major drawbacks, which are the root cause for a variety of artifacts, such as Musical Noise, High Frequency Modulation (a.k.a. Chirping), Transient Smearing, and overall “blurring” due to low localization in the time domain. Because of the way human hearing works, these artifacts are very obvious and sound distinctly unnatural. Additionally, lossy codecs and de-noisers often cause a loss of high frequencies, further degrading your audio. UNCHIRP is the medicine for all of these artifact types.

Two Is More Than One
UNCHIRP identifies the birdies, and applies proprietary processing to make them disappear. It offers two different, simultaneously available algorithms to achieve this, Musical Noise Reduction and Dechirping, each featuring its own technological approach, unique sonic properties and its own breakpoint curve editor for frequency dependent processing. At Zynaptiq, we like over-delivering.

Snap!
Like our award-winning de-reverberator UNVEIL, UNCHIRP allows bypassing transients for natural sounding results even with extreme settings. But we didn’t stop there – we’ve added frequency dependency to the bypass threshold, and frequency dependent transient attenuation/boost. The new Transient Synthesis can replace transients compromised by FFT processing such as lossy encoding, or by excessive dynamics processing. Finally, the Sync function synchronizes processing to the signal’s transients, adding overal clarity and coherence. These algorithms work equally well for fixing problem material as well as for augmenting already great sounding recordings, adding impact, detail and contour. It’s like pulling a curtain aside. Try it, you’ll love it.

The Shining
And then, there’s Treble Boost, which deals with the fact that low bit rate encoded audio may show a “dead band” in the treble range – there’s simply a hard-limit to what any given bit rate can capture in terms of frequency. Regular EQ won’t help because there’s nothing to boost. The Treble Boost circuit offers two ways to recover some of that treble: a psycho-acoustically optimized Enhancer – equalization that is tailored in such a way that it implies frequency content in the dead band to the listener – and an Exciter, which synthesizes new harmonics to “fill the gap”. These sound so good that you may end up turning to these for your treble processing in general – even with already great sounding signals – to add shine and vibrance to your audio.

Supraluminal
As time is the most scarce of resources, at Zynaptiq we’re obsessed with saving it for you. UNCHIRP sports a variety of workflow features to help you get results faster than light. There’s an output limiter to allow for unsupervised batch-processing without overs, an I/O difference function to quickly hear what exactly you’re removing, frequency dependent processing for all key parameters using breakpoint curves with snap-to-zero and copy/paste functionality, and our preset manager that writes presets that you can then use across all platforms and formats. Start using UNCHIRP and go ahead and book another week of holidays.

Formats
UNFILTER is available for a variety of formats.

On MacOS X:
• Apple AudioUnits (32/64bit)
• Avid RTAS
• Avid AAX Native including AudioSuite (32/64bit)
• Steinberg VST 2.4 (32/64bit)

On Windows:
• Avid RTAS
• Avid AAX Native including AudioSuite (32/64bit)
• Steinberg VST 2.4 (32/64bit)

System Requirements Mac
• Apple Mac computer
• OSX 10.6.x or newer
• Intel CPU with at least 2 Cores
• Apple AU (AudioUnits), Steinberg VST 2.4 or Avid RTAS/AAX compatible Host software
• For AAX Native 32-bit, the minimum required Pro Tools version is 10.3.5
• Internet Connection for Software Activation (though not necessarily on the computer used for audio)

System Requirements Windows
• Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista or Windows 7
• CPU with at least 2 Cores
• Steinberg VST 2.4 or Avid RTAS/AAX compatible Host software
• For AAX Native 32-bit, the minimum required Pro Tools version is 10.3.5
• Internet Connection for Software Activation (though not necessarily on the computer used for audio)