Newcomer to the software digital signal processing scene Audio-Oz Audio makes its debut with De-Effer ($129.95), a standalone program for Mac and Windows computers. The program derives its processing power from voice-recognition algorithms, letting you remove offensive language from stereo tracks in real time.
The software provides a library of target words, and you can store your own words and phrases by recording them and saving them as digital-audio files. De-Effer can read and write AIFF, AU, and WAV files at all of the commonly used sampling rates and bit depths. A software utility is provided for reading Ensoniq Mirage, E-mu SP-12, and Akai MPC-60 floppies.
As with all voice-recognition software, intelligibility of the audio material always determines the effectiveness of the process. To that end, De-Effer provides sliders for adjusting the threshold that activates the process. The manufacturer claims that a test on a recent Snoop Dogg release revealed the software’s effectiveness as a vocal eliminator. You can enable look-ahead features for key audio events, including violent plosives or specific phrases. The software offers batch-file processing, permitting you to clean up as many files as your computer’s RAM will allow.
De-Effer requires at least a Pentium II/200 MHz with 64 MB of RAM and Windows 95. The Macintosh version requires a PowerPC 604e/200 MHz with 64 MB of RAM and OS 8.6.1 or later. Audio-Oz Audio; tel. (800) 446-8242 or (800) IGOTCHA; Web www.audio-oz_audio.com/audio.html/~audio/de_effer.htm.
