Cathar vs Zynaptiq UNVEIL

Cathar is a free audio restoration toolkit for Linux and macOS, with tools to clean, enhance, and level recordings. It accepts WAV, MP3, FLAC, OGG, and M4A files, along with audio tracks inside MP4 and MKV video, and writes WAV, FLAC, or AIFF according to the output filename extension. Restoration options include denoising, de-humming, de-winding, de-clicking, de-clipping, de-reverberation, spectral repair, de-plosive processing, and rustle removal. Enhancement tools handle de-essing, breath removal, voice isolation, and bandwidth extension; loudness and peak normalization prepare delivery levels. The Rust toolkit uses inspectable and tunable DSP stages. Effects can run through the Rust crate or as command-line steps in a media pipeline. An optional machine-learning feature adds a deterministic GRU denoiser with safetensors weights. Optional terminal tools provide an audio player and spectrogram viewer. Cathar is licensed under Apache 2.0 or MIT, and its latest listed release is v0.8.0; the project describes itself as pre-1.0.

Zynaptiq UNVEIL is a real-time de-mixing plug-in for adjusting reverb and other less perceptually important components in mixed audio. It can reduce or increase reverb, change its characteristics, and turn down components described as mud to bring recording details forward; those components can also be added back. The plug-in works with mono sources and channel counts up to the surround formats supported by the user's DAW. Zynaptiq says its processing uses proprietary, artificial-intelligence-based MAP technology. The 64-bit plug-in runs on macOS 10.15 or newer and Windows 10 or newer, with a two-core CPU minimum. A compatible 64-bit AU, VST, or AAX host processing audio as 32-bit float is also required. Formats differ by platform: macOS supports AU, AAX Native, VST 2.4, and VST 3; Windows supports AAX Native, VST 2.4, and VST 3. The license costs 269.00 USD once, and the latest version has a fully functional 30-day trial. Activation requires an iLok account and internet-connected computer, or a supported optional USB device.