Quadrennial sporting events don’t come much more exciting than the Football World Cup, though for many spectators (and even some players, including Dutch striker Robin Van Persie, who have complained of not being able to hear the referee’s whistle), the event has been marred by the constant buzz of vuvuzelas, a single-pitch horn that has found its way into the hands of tens of thousands of game attendees in South Africa. Such is the nuisance that the BBC has received hundreds of complaints about the noise being broadcast along with the games, and FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) even considered banning them from the matches — but plug-in experts Prosoniq believe they have a solution, at least for people watching the games on their Mac computers at home.
VuvuX is based on Prosoniq’s SonicWorx software, which uses spectral analysis to eliminate sounds without causing the phase-shifting and ringing associated with high-Q notch filters. What’s more, the algorithm in VuvuX has apparently been tuned to distinguish between speech (such as commentary), noise (in this instance, stadium ambience) and the offending vuvuzela sound, thus suppressing the buzz while minimising unpleasant artefacts. The AU plug-in requires OS X 10.5 or higher, and is available to download for free from www.vuvux.com. Beige-box botherers are out of luck, however, as VuvuX is only compatible with Macs.
