Just a newbie preparing to pull in audio from reel-to-reel taped audio (dialog) from my wife's father's recordings from his service in Vietnam.
I am wondering if there is a good way to apply noise reduction to the anticipated noisy recordings.  There was a product included with SONAR X2 called "R-Mix" and I could dig that up.  But I would think the newer SONAR Platinum portfolio would include some means for applying noise reduction.
Any ideas welcome.
 

You can use EQs, DeEssers, multiband compressor and NR plugins that come with Sonar to reduce hiss and noise. However f you need a dedicated powerful tool for restoration check also Magix Audio & Music Lab, iZotope RX5 or Sony SpectraLayers.

Adobe Audition also has a very capable noise reduction algorithm. If this is a one-time thing you can transfer all the tapes first then run the trial of either RX5 or Audition on them. I believe both are fully functional for the trial period (Audition used to be for 30 days). Best use is to noise capture just the tape lead and then remove that noise print from the remainder of the track.

Do yourself a favour and buy IzoTope RX5 for your precious memories. I did the same two years ago with RX3 and am still so happy I did. And I already had the Waves noise reduction suite. I used it to restore some nearly unusable cassette tapes of my parents talking to me and my brother when we were toddlers.

RX is amazing and works well for beginners with basic settings. Even so, it is deep and powerful with the spectral editor, when you dive in. A worthy tool for your more regular Sonar work.

RX trials and demos can't save/export.
 
https://www.izotope.com/support/kb/index.php/kb/article/178-Demo_Trial_versions_and_serial_numbers
 
 

The only way is ZNoise (Waves) and iZotope RX.
Everything else makes it worse instead of better - because you need a software who is "learning" the noiseprint.
An EQ does not make the job.
We digitaze thousands of tapes for customer. There is no chance to reduce noise without ZNoise or iZotope - if you want to keep high frequencies without noise.
 
 

I've had good results with Soundsoap 4.http://www.soundness-llc....ucts/soundsoap4/ 

I used to use this for old records and tapes:
http://www.diamondcut.com/store/
 

If it were me, I'd make a clone of the track and invert the polarity of one. That gets you silence. Now, solo one of the tracks and try to get it to only have the noise you want removed using EQ and dynamics processing. Now, listen to both together. The noise should cancel from the original.

You can repeat this technique to make a reverse noise gate on the noise only track. A reverse noise gate will give you only the soft moments and remove all the dialog.

Audacity (free) comes with an effective sampling noise reduction function.