Noise reduction plugins

[Tom Morrow]

Someone else posted a link to this noise reduction product. I will say the demo video shows some pretty amazing things that I didn't think would be possible, like getting rid of road noise while a reporter is speaking right into the mic:

iZotope ANR-B - Adaptive Realtime Noise Reduction for Broadcast Audio

I almost wonder if the demo was faked, it seems to work so well.

I am looking to get some noise reduction plugins, and would like to do it on the cheap (e.g. spending ballpark $100 for a protools plugin that only does good film-video noise reduction). If anyone has things that work well for them please let me know.

[Rick Reineke]

Noise Reduction plug ins (in general) work good on 'din' type noise. HVAC, distant traffic, ect. providing a good 'noise print' is obtained.
The iZotope ANR-B works well, but.. you basically get what you pay for.
None are a 'fix' for poorly recorded audio though. . for instance, improper mic, mic placement and/or gain stage issues, as some folks think.

[Battle Vaughan]

I have had good results with this product: Pinnacle Systems - Product summary - Bias SoundSoap 2 PE

and it's in your price range. There are noise reduction features in many audio editing programs, including Audacity, which is freeware, and they seem to work (to some degree), by subtracting a noise-only sample from the audio track. Success depends a lot on the relative loudness of the noise to the signal you want to keep, and to the frequency spectrum it occupies --- noise that overlaps the same frequencies you want to keep, will always be a problem, obviously. I have used Soundsoap to remove a low-intensity rumble of background conversations from a lav-miked interview that had a good signal-to-noise ratio with good success. Nice thing about it is you can invert the signal and hear just what you are removing, when making your selection. There either is, or was, a higher-cost "pro" version that I have not used. I have used both the Windows and the Mac versions, and they both worked fine. The PC version had some bizarre authentication process that was a pain, but this was several years ago, probably it's ok.

[Rick Reineke]

Bias' Sound Soap was a decent affordable NR plugin. However Bias has just recently "cease-operations", so even if your are able to get the software, registering/enabling it could be an issue. Forget about any updates at this point. There's a lot of unhappy Peak users out there as well, as it was one of the very few audio 'editing' software app.s for Mac.

[Jase Tanner]

Tom

I've got the RX 2 plugin, the basic one. I recently edited something that was shot by a number of different people, one of whom really had no idea what he was doing. I don't mean to sound too harsh, simply calling it the way it is. Camera mounted mic, air conditioner full tilt. Great interview content wise, painful audio. Had to be used.

I did what I could with it, which wasn't much. The NR in Soundtrack Pro, which is usually essentially useless imo, didn't help at all. A project with a lot to do and not near enough time. After the fact, I remembered RX 2 which I had bought on sale but never really used. I was impressed with how well it did in cleaning up that interview. It could never be perfect given how it was miked, but a distinct improvement for sure.

A word to the wise if someone is a non US customer, such as myself. I was first charged an exchange rate that was completely unfair. I challenged it and after initially passing the buck, (no pun intended) was eventually offered a fair rate plus a $50 reduction for my troubles.