OR-0027
Salo Oy
Salo, Finland · 1991 – c. 2004
Ser. CN-9709-0512
1997 · effect
Issued as VST3 · AU
Restored 2025 from 1997 hardware.
Salo 8110 — Comfort Noise (DTX)
Salo 8110 · discontinuous-transmission reference · restored from unit no. CN-9709-0512 · Salo Oy, Salo, Finland, 1997
The restorer's note
The eeriest thing Salo made. When you stop speaking, your room does not remain — it is quietly swapped for a synthetic hiss that refreshes only now and then, so the silence itself seems to breathe and freeze. Unsettling by accident, and left exactly so.
Acquisition
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The plate
The controls
The controls.
- Threshold -60.0–0.0 dB · -45.0 dB as issued
- Sets the level below which speech is treated as silence and comfort noise takes over, in decibels.
- Noise Level 0–100 % · 40 % as issued
- Sets the loudness of the comfort noise that fills the silence.
- Update 50–2000 ms · 480 ms as issued
- Sets how often the comfort noise is refreshed — the interval behind its stepping, freezing character.
- Match 0–100 % · 60 % as issued
- Sets how closely the comfort noise matches the room's own spectrum, from generic hiss at 0 % to a close match at 100 %.
- Hangover 0–500 ms · 120 ms as issued
- Sets how long speech must be absent before comfort noise takes over.
- Input -24.00–24.00 dB · 0.00 dB as issued
- Sets the level going in, in decibels, before the signal reaches the restored circuit.
- Output -24.00–24.00 dB · 0.00 dB as issued
- Sets the level coming out, in decibels, after the restored circuit and the Mix blend.
- Mix 0–100 % · 100 % as issued
- Blends the restored circuit against the untouched signal at equal power, from the untouched signal alone at 0 % to the circuit alone at 100 %.
- Bypass Off as issued
- Takes the restored circuit out of the path and passes the untouched signal, delayed to match the circuit so nothing shifts in time.
A stored setup is a memory. MENU opens the list: the display reads MEMORY 03/12, with the memory's name below. ◂ ▸ step through it without changing the sound, and OK loads the one shown. Holding OK asks STORE? OK; OK again opens the name, which starts as USER NN. ◂ ▸ change the letter, OK moves on, and holding OK stores it; the computer keyboard may type the name instead, Return storing and Escape cancelling. Holding MENU on a user memory asks CLEAR? OK.
Listening
Listening
Demonstration recordings, prepared at the bench.
A near-perfect silence
Dry for six seconds; then the unit takes the line. Where the voice stops, the detector declares silence and substitutes its own estimate of the room — and this room is next to nothing, so the substitution is next to perfect. Update refreshes the estimate every 480 ms.
0:00 / 0:30
The detector, advancing
Threshold is walked from −60 up to −20 dB: at first the detector cedes nothing; then the pauses go over to it; by the end it is taking the ends of words — handing back a frozen breath of each one in place of its decay. Noise Level stands at 80 %.
0:00 / 0:30
Words, cut short
Threshold raised to −20 dB with no Hangover: the detector calls the end of every phrase early and hands it to the noise generator — the last breath of each word frozen and held rather than allowed to die away. The machine decides, a little too early, that no one is speaking.
0:00 / 0:30