Cedar DNS vs Izotope RX Hi, I am considering an upgrade from RX4 Advanced and am hesitating as whether I should invest in a CEDAR DNS plug-in or upgrade to the RX 6 Advanced or Production Suite. The first category of fader-based noise-reducers, such as the Cedar Audio DNS One or the Waves WNS and W43, pay homage to the old-school processors like the Cat43. They rely on the ear more than the eye, inviting the user to manually set a threshold for each band individually, until maximum noise reduction is achieved without compromising the. IZotope RX has been a highly regarded noise-reduction tool for both home and professional studios since it appeared over a decade ago. With the release of version 8, iZotope has added some new features for guitarists to their already deep and comprehensive tool set.
- CEDAR products are used for numerous other applications such as air and marine accident investigation, high-tech sporting events, casinos, and even in hospital operating theatres where it's vital that communications are clean with maximum intelligibility. When noise is the problem, CEDAR.
- For many, the most exciting new feature is the Wow & Flutter module. Removing wow and flutter is an extreme technical challenge and professional restoration solutions, such as the Plangent Process, Cedar Audio’s Respeed, and Celemony’s Capstan, are expensive. Compared with these, iZotope’s Wow & Flutter module is simpler and less versatile.
iZotope is well and truly established as a noise reduction force. Now it’s trying to entice RX users further into its standalone app by laying out some new treats.
Review: Brent Heber
If you go back a few years, the major names in noise reduction were Sonic Solutions and Cedar. But the price of admission was up there, often north of $5000 and stayed there for years. There were always a few cheaper options from Waves and the like, but none seemed to ‘cut through the noise’ until iZotope debuted its RX suite. When RX came onto the scene with a price tag around $500, the first impression when comparing it to the big names was it didn’t seem to be 90% worse. Far from it, RX produced solid results and soon gathered a massive following. The latest incarnation, RX4 is a suite of diverse plug-ins and a standalone app, but the relationship between the two has changed with this update.
CONNECTING THE DOTS
Key to the version four release is a fairly dramatic change in workflow. Although a standalone app has been available for several versions now, many ProTools operators preferred to use Audiosuite inside their DAW for rendering fixes, storing presets with sessions and templates, and preventing yet another application from chewing up processing on an older ‘tired’ computer.
RX4 changes all that with its new Connect system that encourages users to migrate to the standalone app, while still linking into their DAW of choice. I assume this means iZotope will, over time, minimise its host based plug-ins, making RX’s ongoing development simpler. The first big sign of this is the removal of the flagship Spectral Repair Audiosuite plug-in for ProTools from V4. It’s now only available inside the standalone app (although if you are upgrading from an earlier version you can choose to keep that installed alongside RX4 and still access the older Audiosuite plug-ins).
In ProTools, two new plug-ins make this link with the standalone app possible: an Audiosuite Connect plug-in to send files between the DAW and the standalone app, and a real-time AAX Connect plug-in which provides Rewire-style monitoring of the standalone app inside your mixer, typically on an aux going straight to your speakers. There are similar Connect plug-ins for linking the standalone app with most other major DAWs too.
As a long term RX user and ProTools boffin I really wasn’t interested in changing the way I work but a few other aspects of the V4 release enticed me in and I must say I now totally dig the new workflow. If I need to clean something up I hate mousing around for plug-ins so I tend to have a windows configuration for repair, which opens about six plug-ins with settings for common problems in that session.
The problem with this workflow is every time I recall that configuration each plug-in polls the iLok for authentication, taking a little bit of time to open, multiplied by six and it really slows me down. Using the Connect system, I simply click the Send button and switch to the RX standalone app. It can have a stack of RX plug-ins and Audio Unit plug-ins open on screen without needing to re-authenticate each time, making it much faster to switch between. Also it can go full screen so I can use Spaces in Mac OS X to move from ProTools to RX and back very easily, maximising screen real estate. The only trick on sending files back and forth is that your selection must be the same length on returning to ProTools and you don’t have the advantage of Audiosuite handles introduced in PT10, so be sure to grab a bit of surrounding audio before processing if needed.
iZotope RX4 showing automated leveler and clip gain.
NEW TOOLS
The standard version of RX4 also received a new plug-in called the Dialogue Denoiser which was originally introduced to the Advanced version of RX3 only. This is a great plug-in I use in most of my TV work for just a bit of noise reduction, as it runs real-time with minimal system delay and automatically adjusts to shifting noise floors without needing to learn via a selection. I’m a big fan of real-time noise reduction to speed up my mix and between automating this and Waves’ W43/WNS noise reduction plug-ins, I rarely have to render passes in Audiosuite and break the flow of my edit or mix. Both versions of RX4 also incorporate a ‘clip gain’ workflow very similar to host DAWs. It allows easy gain balancing between breakpoints within a clip, and is rendered on export back to your host.
For RX4 Advanced users, some very attractive tools were introduced in this version. The Leveler uses RMS and peak detection to generate clip gain that smoothes out longer selections of dialogue, and further tweaking for best results specific to the program in front of you is easy. It’s fast and quite workable for smoothing out some of the worst gain structure problems on quick turnaround material, saving quite a bit of time and without any noticeable pumping/compression issues.
iZotope Insight arrived with Advanced V3, and it’s my go-to loudness meter. RX4 Advanced now includes a loudness plug-in that measures within the standalone app and then facilitates quick gain adjustment to meet delivery requirements. It’s very useful when combined with the Leveler tool.
Another handy tool helps minimise the time spent searching for matching room tone to connect and cover picture edits when you’re trying to clean up dialogue for film and TV. Advanced now provides a plug-in specifically for this, which seems to be very similar to using the older Denoising plug-in to identify consistent noise in a clip, isolate it and generate a file without the offending dialogue in it. It’s much faster than trying to find gaps in people talking that match the lengths you need.
Lastly, iZotope Ozone has had EQ matching tools for some time, but the process of learning an EQ curve and then applying it to a clip has been simplified in both flavours of RX4.
A GAMBLE WORTH TAKING
Overall, I was very cautious about altering my workflow to accommodate to the new RX Connect paradigm, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised and really started to enjoy it within a few hours of work. Being able to select much larger and longer pieces of audio for treatment in the standalone app compared to Audiosuite has sped up my work and the new plug-ins in Advanced are intuitive and produce very useful results, particularly in the world of reality TV where production audio is often lacklustre and turnaround times on audio post are shrinking every project.
Of course, using OS X spaces to flick your screen back and forth between double screens of your host DAW and double screens of RX is quite impressive and leaves your client thinking you clearly know what you’re doing, which is a bonus that can’t be quantified!
Electric Factory is matching the US retail prices in Aussie dollars, making RX4 cheaper in Oz at the moment.
This article was originally printed in Audio Technology Magazine and reproduced here, with kind permission.
Disclosure: When you buy through our links, we may get a commission at zero cost to you.
I have no idea why it took me so long to write a review on Rx7, Izotope Rx7 solved my worst nightmare: Isolating different elements without accessing multi-tracks or stems, I’ll discuss more on that in a moment.
Izotope Rx7 is a quick and easy tool for fixing audio issues, it also serves as an audio repair tool for movies and Tv shows, which restore damaged noise, clicks, crackers, e.t.c to pristine condition.
This review guide is all about the essential features of Izotope Rx7, the usefulness, and if it really does repair damaged audio issues.
What Does Izotope Rx7 Do Differently?
The reason Rx7 stoodout from the sheer loads of audio tools is the way it uses assistive audio technology, for example, the Repair Assistant can detect noise, clipping, crackle, and it also offers different processing suggestions to choose from.
The Music Rebalance tool that comes with Rx7 identifies bass, vocals, percussion, and other instruments in a mix, and allows for independent gain adjustment of each element.
Izotope Rx7 Feature Breakdown
Cedar Vs Izotope Rx Pro
Rx7 isn’t only a tool but a suite of modules interconnected to work and communicate across your audio session.
Note: Some features are only for advanced edition, make sure you check out the edition you want at the end of this review guide.
Let’s start with…
Oh-Lord! – Repair Assistant
If you have been using Izotope products lately, then you should be aware that Izotope has advanced its machine learning technology. Repair assistant represents the latest advances in Izotope’s assistive audio technology.
Rx7 Repair Assistant intelligently detects common audio problems in selection, for example, it can detect clicks, hum, noise clicking, and much more.
Having done that, it then provides three processing chains tailored to solving the problems detected during analysis. You also have an option to bypass suggestion such as clipping and other issues using the repair assistant preferences.
If no problems are detected, you will see “No Problems Detected” in the dialog, which is fine, if you feel you need a basic cleanup processing, you can use the one’s generated by Repair Assitant during the analysis pass.
Up Next…
Balance the Elements – Music Rebalance
Music Rebalance is my favorite tool in Rx7, it looks skeptical at first. I was amazed of how a tool could be so fantastic when I tried it out, just the perfect tool I have been looking for so many years.
The function of music rebalance is to identify and separate elements in a mix- Bass, Voice, and Percussion using a machine learning algorithm.
Izotope Rx 7 Vs Cedar Studio 8
That is not all, any element that is not identified as Vocal, Bass, and Percussion would be categorized as other.
Cases Where Music Rebalance Can be Used
Izotope Rx Reviews
- Music Rebalance can be useful for rebalancing the gain of a particular mix element when the stems aren’t available.
- It can be used to isolate a single mix element by reducing the level of other elements, e.g in cases where you want to create a remix of a song, and you aren’t provided the stems, in the context of an acapella, you can use music rebalance to reduce the levels of other three elements (Bass, Percussing and others). If all you want is only the instrumental, then you reduce the gain of only the vocal element.
Does it Work In all Case
No!
Some audio files won’t work accordingly, audio tracks are made differently. I would say it works in 90% of the cases.
What Is Izotope Rx
What else do we have in music rebalance…
Sensitivity Control
Sensitivity can be useful in cases where you want a specific or more element to be narrowly defined. Each element has its own sensitivity knob, let say you want the vocal element to be barely heard, all you need to do is lower the value of the vocal sensitivity and vice versa.
Note: Sensitivity control work in relation to one another, setting all sensitivity controls to something like 6.0 has the same effect as setting all sensitivity controls to a value of 8.0, you get the idea 😉
Coming up next…
Correcting The Contours [Dialogue Contour – Advanced Only]
Rx7 is specifically designed for post-production professionals, one of the ways it solves the demanding needs of post-production pro is remodeling the performance of a line with Dialogue Contour.
Dialogue Contour remodels/correct the intonation of performance, it can also be used for manipulating the pitch envelope of a dialogue selection.
Cases, where a dialogue contour can be useful, is when some words aren’t flowing or don’t fit with the rest of the dialogue in the clip.
This feature comes bundled with Rx7 repair suite only, if you are a music producer (Just like me), who only cares about audio issues in a mix, then you simply do not need this option.
Optimize the Reverb [Dialogue Reverb]
This is tailored to remove unwanted reverb from dialogue clips using advanced machine learning technology.
Dialogue reverb is pretty straight forward:
- You use the learn button to teach the de-reverb tool how much reverb is in your signal
- When the learn operation completes, the reverb profile and tail length control will be set to their suggested values. Feel free to tweak to your desired value.
This tool is designed specifically for post-production professionals and bundled with the Advanced edition.
Other Useful Tools in Izotope Rx7
Variable Time: Useful for correcting timing issues or to adjust the time stretch of a portion of an audio selection without altering its pitch.
Breath Control: Can be used to control the level of breath between words and phrases.
De-click: Clean up vinyl clicks, soften up clicky bass guitars, and more. The new low-latency algorithm enables you to use De-click right within your DAW or NLE without introducing sync issues.
De-clip: Repair digital and analog clipping artifacts to restore distorted audio.
De-hum: Remove ground loop hum and line noise.
De-ess: Tame overly aggressive sibilance. The new Spectral De-ess mode transparently attenuates sibilance with iZotope’s Spectral Shaping technology.
and more…
► System Requirements:
Operating Systems:
- Mac — OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion (Pro Tools 10 only), 10.9.5 Mavericks – macOS 10.15 (64-bit only)
- PC — Win 7 – Win 10
Plug-in Formats:
- Standalone Application, Modules: AAX, AU, RTAS, VST, VST3
Supported Hosts:
- Audition CC 2018, Ableton Live 9 – 10, Cubase 9.5, Digital Performer 9, Final Cut Pro X*, FL Studio 12, Logic Pro X, Nuendo 8, Premiere Pro CC 2018, Pro Tools 10 – 12, Reaper 5, Reason 10, Studio One 3 – 4