There must be some die-hard soccer fans working for Waves Audio, or at least some engineers dedicated enough to el futbol make it their personal quest to reduce Vuvuzela trumpet noise from the World Cup telecasts. Thanks to Waves, this year's FIFA World Cup won't be marred by the continuous Vuvuzela blasts, now that the company has crafted the Vuvuzela Noise Reduction tool -- a real-time processing chain consisting of two plugins, the WNS Waves Noise Suppressor and the Q10 Paragraphic Equalizer.

Also popular at school graduation ceremonies, the Vuvuzela trumpet, a long plastic fartsy-sounding instrument, is the noise-maker of choice for South African soccer fans, one that spurs complaints from television viewers and broadcasters alike (not the people attending the actual live game, we might add -- just the people who want to hear the play-by-play of the game on TV or the radio). Alone, the instrument sounds like a honk or toot; but when many are played together, it sounds like a swarm of bees.

Working in conjunction with a major television broadcaster, Waves took two of its most-applicable plugins, WNS Waves Noise Suppressor and the Q10 Paragraphic Equalizer, and created a real-time processing chain to deal with the trumpet blasts. Together, the two audio plugins not only reduce the Vuvuzela noise, they increase the intelligibility of the game announcers’ action and color commentary. According to Waves, the processing chain is already being used by several major broadcast outlets.

Want to know more about the plugins? WNS Waves Noise Suppressor is a real-time noise reduction plugin that reduces both constant and modulating noise in indoor and outdoor environments. Though it was originally engineered for reducing noise from dialogue in film and video, WNS Waves Noise Suppressor is a useful tool for broadcasting applications as well. Likewise, the Q10 Paragraphic Equalizer is a plugin that delivers precision equalization in any audio situation, be it for broadcasting, recording, mixing, mastering, and more.

The processing chain for Vuvuzela noise reduction is now available as load-and-use sessions for Avid Pro Tools, Waves MultiRack, and Steinberg Cubase. You can download these sessions at the Waves Audio Web site.