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Community Tip - Using iZotope RX3 For Difficult Speech Edits

With the support of iLok, more tips & tricks from the community. Here is one from David Finnamore….  

Everybody knows that iZotope’s RX Denoiser does a brilliant job of removing broadband noise. But its plug-in version also excels in a perhaps unexpected way in dialogue and other spoken word editing. When material that was recorded in an ambient environment needs to be edited, there are often verbal stumbles we’d like to remove, but attempting to do so sounds awkward because the room reverb from the stumble rings into the following word(s) that are needed. Making the edit results in a sudden appearance of reverb from sounds the listener hasn’t heard, which is disconcerting, to say the least. Here’s how to handle that.
1.  In Pro Tools, open the Audio Suite Denoiser plug-in and set it to the best quality algorithm. Select the last syllable or two of the material that needs to be removed - the stuff that’s causing the reverb you want to get rid of.
2.  Press the Learn button. That will define the harmonic character of the unneeded sound as noise. Extend the selection to cover the range over which the offensive reverberation occurs. Set the Noise Reduction to around 6 to 12 dB, depending on how heavy the reverb is, with a smoothing factor of 1 or 2. Press Render.
3.  Crossfade the original with the processed audio and adjust the shape and length of the fade such that the least amount of damage is done to the audio you need, while keeping the unwanted reverb below the masking threshold.
4.  Then do your edit as desired. With a little practice, it’s possible to remove almost any problematic ring transparently.

If you would like the chance to win a stormtrooper iLok, courtesy of iLok, send in tips you think no one has thought about.  Please don’t just send shortcuts which are easily found elsewhere, or pull ideas from the manual; instead, be creative about your tips & tricks. Please use the Contact Us page to send us have your tips.