Izotope Rx 5 Dialog Denoise Vs Spectral Denoise

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iZotope RX5 is out. So how does the fifth iteration of the incredibly useful post-production, audio-clean up tool measure up to past versions? Joe Albano finds out in this in-depth review.

iZotope has released RX 5 Audio Editor, a significant upgrade to their well-stocked toolbox of audio repair software modules (previously at v4). RX 5 adds a number of new repair modules, and brings considerable enhancements to many of its tools, along with additional features that offer greater efficiency and better integration with DAWs.

Review: iZotope's RX 3 Advanced. PRODUCT: iZotope RX 3 Advanced PRICE: $1,199. With iZotope RX 3 and RX 3 Advanced, audio perfection is no longer the realm of highly specialized sound engineers. Which literally muffles noise. Spectral Denoiser is designed to denoise anything. This means you don’t need to make a full-bandwidth, time. Dec 06, 2017  Do you have hiss noise in your audio? I show you how to easily remove any hissing noise by using iZotope's RX6 Spectral De-Noise plugin. First I demonstrate how to use the Learn function to grab a.

As before, RX 5 comes in two versions—RX 5 Audio Editor, the standard version (for budget-conscious users) and the more full-featured RX 5 Advanced Audio Editor, which includes additional high-end processing tools (for a full comparison, check the iZotope website and downloadable manual). RX 5 comes as both a standalone application, chock full of processing “modules”, and as a suite of plug-ins in all the standard formats. Both the standard and Advanced versions offer new goodies—some modules (DeReverb) that were previously available only in the Advanced version are now included in the standard version, and certain functions that were standalone-only (Ambience Match) are now available as (AudioSuite) plug-ins as well. For the full list of processing modules in RX 5 Advanced, see Fig 1.

Besides being available as an individual purchase, RX5 Advanced is available as part of iZotope’s new RX Post Production Suite, along with several other tools for handling tasks specific to post-production workflows. The Suite also includes RX Final Mix—a dedicated EQ/Dynamics plug-in intended for use on audio stems in video production (dialog/FX/music). And there’s Insight, iZotope’s comprehensive metering suite, and RX Loudness Control, which automates the task of conforming to broadcast industry standards for loudness. RX 5 Advanced adds its many audio repair tools to these dedicated post-production processors—while they do wonders for music tracks, they’re especially valuable for cleaning up audio in post situations, like problematic location recordings (leakage) or classic dialog issues (ambience, plosives, breaths, etc.).

One of the main areas of improvement has been in workflow efficiency—this takes two forms. Options for automatic processing have been enhanced, resulting in less need for experimenting with settings—many modules that I remember had required a bit more fiddling in the past now seem to get the job done more quickly, with default settings. And workflow can be more streamlined, thanks to features like Instant Processing (of selections) and RX Connect, which makes it easier to bring audio in from the DAW for processing, and send the repaired audio back to the DAW.

Naturally, all of the modules from previous versions of RX are there, and I won’t spend time describing those in any detail—I’ll just focus in on a few of the latest & greatest features.

No Waiting

Of course, RX 5 includes the Spectral Processing (and Deconstruct) modules, which let you graphically select and extract unwanted sound from audio waves, like a pedal squeak in a music track, or a passing siren on a dialogue recording. Now there’s a new mode—Instant Process. Normally, you’d select the unwanted sound in RX’s spectrogram display, select the appropriate module, and process. But if you have a longer recording that has a number of instances of the same problem, you can enable Instant Process, choose the desired processing (from the adjacent popup menu), and now the audio will be processed immediately as you complete each selection, using the current settings for the chosen module (Fig 2).

Fig 2 RX 5’s Instant Process feature (applied to Spectral Repair).

Audio Example 1—RX 5 removes unwanted sound/leakage from two recordings with Spectral Repair via Instant Process mode:

I found that this could really speed things up, especially with repetitive problems, once you’ve determined appropriate settings that work consistently for particular issues.

Chain of tools

RX 5’s new Module Chain feature lets you set up a processing chain of several modules, with specific settings for each module in the chain, save this particular configuration as a preset, and then call it up for quick and efficient application of multiple processing.

The modules in a chain have their own unique settings for that chain, independent of the last (default) settings used for them when they were opened up from the main list on the right. Like with Instant Processing, this can be a great time saver for recurring edits, especially useful for dialog editing, where a number of typical dialog issues (pops, breaths, “s”s, clips, room tone, etc.) can be dealt with in a single pass. Again, the key is to save and use a preset with the most appropriate settings for the particular recording(s) you’re dealing with, but as I noted before, the default settings for many of these modules seem to do the trick even without further tweaking.

Muzzle that vocal

Two of the most persistent issues, when it comes to vocal and dialog recordings, are sibilance (harsh “s”s) and breath noises. RX 5’s Leveler module now lets you enable automatic handling for both of these, with depth settings for each (again, I found the defaults often worked best). The algorithms identify any problem sibilance and breaths, and make quick work of those flaws, eliminating the need for separate EQ & gating, and cleaning up even a lengthy recording with a single click—a highly useful tool, for both music and post.

Fig 4 The Dialog Leveler, set to fix excessive sibilance (Ess Reduction) and breath sounds (Breath Control).

Pop goes the module

One of the most annoying flaws in a vocal track can be microphone plosives—those loud thumps that often occur on the letters “p” and “b”—a.k.a. “p-pops”. The new De-Plosive module may not be the flashiest new toy in RX 5’s arsenal, but it can be one of the most welcome. P-pops often require a tedious series of edits or a sometimes dubious application of filtering to get rid of them, but De-Plosive handles all the heavy lifting seamlessly. I’ve often had to address fairly lengthy dialog or vocal recordings with multiple p-pops—especially live vocal tracks made with a hand-held mic—and De-Plosive would have been a godsend. As with many of the new tools, it required little or no fussing with settings—it succeeded on everything I tried it on pretty much out of the box.

Fig 5 The De-Plosive module makes short work of those pesky p-pops (before (top) & after (bottom) processing).

Audio Example 2—A recording with plosives (p-pops) repaired by RX 5’s De-Plosive module:

Wrap-up

There are plenty of other enhancements in RX 5 and RX 5 Advanced, but that’s all I have room for here. Whether your area is music or post-production, this swiss army knife collection of tools should be able to handle any problems you throw at it, and this latest version does so with even greater ease and efficiency than ever—definitely a must-have for any serious audio engineer’s toolbox.

Price: RX 5: $349; RX 5 Advanced: $1,199; RX Post Production Suite (incl RX 5 Adv): $1,499

Pros: An incredibly comprehensive and effective suite of audio repair processors that can address almost any task.

Cons: Advanced version is a bit pricey, though it does include a number of very useful extras.

Web:https://www.izotope.com/en/products/post-production/rx-5-audio-editor/

Video Course:RX Audio Repair for Musicians

Izotope Rx 5 Dialog Denoise Vs Spectral Denoise 4

Here's a video from the course, RX Repair for Musicians, showing how to remove AC hum and buzz from an audio recording:

Related Videos

De-noise: Dialogue

Dialogue De-noise is a simple, no-latency denoiser ideal for achieving basic high-quality denoising on a variety of material with the minimum amount of time spent tweaking controls.

The amount of denoising is determined by the noise threshold curve. A higher threshold generally means more noise reduction. The noise threshold curve is determined by the positions of the six threshold nodes.

Dialogue De-noise can intelligently analyze the signal and determine the best noise threshold for your signal. In a DAW, this feature can be used to write automation in case you need to override the automatic settings and correct the noise threshold by hand.

Under the hood is a series of 64 psychoacoustically spaced bandpass filters which act as a multiband gate to pass or stop a signal based on user-defined threshold values. If a signal component is above the threshold for the filter, it will be passed. If a signal component is below the threshold for the filter, it will be attenuated.

Auto

While in Auto mode, Dialogue De-noise will analyze the incoming signal and adjust the noise threshold automatically to compensate for changes in the noise floor. This can be useful for removing noise from recordings with variable noise floor and continual noisy sections, and works well for almost any recording of dialogue and spoken word. If you would like to use Dialogue De-noise on musical material, the Manual mode is recommended.

Please note that the noise threshold settings in Auto mode may be different from the settings set using only the Learn function in Manual mode. Because the adaptive noise threshold is continually being adjusted, it is set lower to prevent artifacts from occurring during

Manual

In Manual mode, the Threshold Nodes are set by hand or with the Learn feature.

Once set, Threshold Nodes don’t change position in Manual mode unless automated by a host. Use Manual mode if you feel that Auto does not yield the results you would like or if you would like to write and read automation from a DAW.

Learn

When Dialogue De-noise is set to Manual, you can use the Learn button to set the noise threshold to a noise reference.

Find a passage of pure noise in your audio and use Learn to analyze it. Longer selections of noise will set the Threshold Nodes to more ideal locations. We recommend finding at least one second of pure noise.

The Learn function analyzes the audio passing through the plug-in and adjusts the Threshold Node controls automatically. This is useful when used on a section of audio that is only like the noise you want to remove so you can get a more accurate result when removing noise from the rest of your audio.

Threshold Nodes

The Threshold Node controls on the frequency spectrum display allow you to change the noise threshold curve, which can be thought of as the 'noise profile.' These six points can be adjusted manually to suit the noise currently in your signal. These controls can be automated to compensate for shifts in the audio’s noise floor.

In Auto mode, the Threshold Nodes are adjusted automatically in realtime.

In Manual mode, more than one Threshold Node can be selected at a time for manual adjustment by clicking and dragging anywhere on the interface.

Threshold

The master Threshold control allows you to offset the noise thresholds plotted by the Threshold Nodes.

If you find that audio you would like to remain unprocessed is being processed, try adjusting this control.

Reduction

Izotope Rx 5 Dialog Denoise Vs Spectral Denoise 2

Provides control over the maximal depth of noise reduction (in dB) that will occur per frequency band while a signal component is below its threshold. If you have your thresholds set properly and don’t like the results you’re getting, try adjusting this control.

Metering Djay for iphone mix.

The Input Spectrum meter shows the level of the signal at the input of the denoiser filters.

The Output Spectrum meter shows the level of the signal at the output of the denoiser filters.

The Gain Reduction Region is the area between the Input and Output Spectra and shows the amount of processing currently happening to your signal.

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Using Dialogue De-noise as a real-time plug-in

There are two De-noise modules available as a VST/AU/RTAS/AAX real-time plug-in inside your DAW or NLE. Dialogue De-noise has been specifically designed to provide high efficiency, low-latency adaptive noise removal when inserted in a channel strip in your DAW or NLE, while the regular De-noise module may be more resource intensive.