5 Plugins Every Dialog Editor Should Have In 2021
Is dialog editing part or all of what you do? Either way, you need to have a suite of tools to help you manipulate the spoken word, whether it’s for Film, TV or Radio. In this article, Mike picks out 5 plugins that he feels every dialog editor should have. Some of these may surprise you…
iZotope RX 8 Advanced
With each iteration, iZotope’s RX Advanced suite of audio restoration tools just gets better and better and in my view, the Advanced version should be on every dialog editors list of essential tools. Yes, there are others to consider but none are as extensive as iZotope’s Advanced suite of tools. It can diagnose and repair audio issues in music or post-production, rebalance mixes after export, and optimize loudness, in short, it can perform the impossible.
Remove hum, clicks, pops, crackle, hiss, noise, and more from audio files
Adjust musical mix elements from a summed audio file
Perform processing on an entire library of files at once
Includes a standalone audio editor application and several module plug-ins
Although RX8 was primarily a music focussed release with the Guitar De-noise module and the improvements in the Music Rebalance module, it is very good to see that iZotope have included the Guitar De-noise module in both the Standard and Advanced versions of RX 8.
I was blown away with the Amp section, which as I show in the demo video above, is able to do a much better job of cleaning up an electric guitar part than even the improved De-hum module and it means that Guitar Denoise is my go-to module when dealing with hum and buzz. In our recent podcast, Experts Talk Dialogue Editing For Film, TV, And Radio, Damien Kearns mentioned how he also uses Guitar Denoise for removing hums and buzzes, rather than the regular Dehum module.
Looking at the other new audio restoration features in RX 8 Advanced, especially the Spectral Recovery module and the new Wow and Flutter modules, they are both very useful in post-production applications.
The Spectral Recovery module is a timely inclusion with more and more content being recorded at home often using smartphones that also tend to have a high frequency cut off. Think of all those socially distanced tracks recorded by people using their phones and now you are able to recreate the high-end frequencies that were never captured. In the ADR world, people are using smartphones to capture their ADR lines rather than go into a studio. Again with Spectral Recovery, it will now be possible to recreate the missing high frequencies.
But that’s not all. Spectral Recovery is also able to patch holes in the frequency spectrum as a result of lossy codecs like mp3s and those used by the likes of Zoom and Skype and Spectral Recovery. Making it an extremely timely new feature in RX 8 Advanced.
We shouldn’t forget the very clever tools added in previous versions of RX including Dewind and Derustle, for dealing with unwanted wind noise on-location recordings and clothes rustle picked up by lav mics.
Learn More About iZotope RX 8 Advanced
Synchro Arts Revoice Pro
Revoice Pro 4 is a great solution for completing complex editing tasks if you regularly work with dialogue and need to sync other lines to fit the picture. Revoice Pro 4 brings together advanced timing and pitch alignment technology, as well as a set of cutting-edge tuning tools and a natural-sounding vocal doubler for those working on the singing voice.
With the release of Revoice Pro v4.3, Synchro Arts have raised the bar yet again. For those working in audio post-production the stand out new feature added to Revoice Pro is Smart Align combined with a quick workflow that means you don’t need to leave Pro Tools to sync ADR to location sound.
Although Version 4.3 introduced an ARA version of the Revoice Pro link plug-in for Logic Pro users so providing instantaneous transfers back and forth between Logic Pro 10.6.2 or higher Synchro Arts haven’t abandoned Pro Tools users by providing a new set of AudioSuite plugins.
The APT processes, used to align the timing and pitch of multiple vocal tracks, now has SmartAlign. When this is enabled, it can align audio with significant gaps in the guide or dub audio. This new feature enables you to align longer performances, which previously had to be broken down into small segments.
In the demo video above, at the start, you will hear my first attempt at ADR from a video recorded on my iPhone, which I go on to show how, using the new features in Revoice Pro 4.3, I was able to replace the camera mic audio with a studio-recorded version as well as show how Smart Align deals with gaps.
As a veteran of Revoice Pro, as it has developed over the years, this latest version provides the workflow it should always have had in my book. Synchro Arts have been able to nail the workflow with an AudioSuite plugin, that drives Revoice Pro in the background with no need to have to switch back and forth between Pro Tools and Revoice Pro. You can stay in Pro Tools, select your audio and Revoice Pro preset, process the audio in Revoice Pro and drop it onto the timeline all without leaving Pro Tools.
Not only has Smart Align and the Quick APT AudioSuite plugin enabled this really simple, yet powerful, workflow, Synchro Arts has also been able to resolve the challenges of how to handle gaps. Before V4.3, you had to make sure there weren’t any unexpected gaps, or it was unable to work out what to do. Now with Smart Align, it handles the gaps perfectly.
Learn More…
Sound Radix Auto-Align Post
Auto-Align Post is an AAX AudioSuite plug-in for Avid Pro Tools, designed to automatically correct the delay and comb-filter phase issues occurring when mixing a recording of multiple moving microphones, such as in the case of a shoot set-up using a boom microphone in addition to actor’s lavalier microphone or multiple on-set microphones.
Until Auto Align Post was released, phase/time aligning multiple moving microphones was a tedious, time-consuming job that often required several ear-twisting days to complete. Not anymore.
Sound Radix built on their proprietary technology in the Auto-Align plug-in, to develop an algorithm that makes phase/time correction of a moving multi-microphone recording of an entire film a matter of a few clicks and a short coffee break.
As someone who mixes audio for self-shooters, I often get the sync audio as 2 tracks, the camera mic and a personal lav mic on the talent. My workflow has been to go through the clips and select which one sounds better because I couldn’t use them both because of varying timing differences between them.
To give Auto-Align Post a good workout, I created some test content in a church, which gave me a reverberant sound field to see how Auto-Align Post would handle less than ideal source material. I used a static shotgun mic representing the camera mic and a personal lav mic on myself, as the talent, recreating the typical workflows I have to deal with.
With Auto-Align Post from Sound Radix, because it can fix the timing differences dynamically throughout a clip, I can now use them both together, and in the video above I show how.
in our podcast on all things dialog, Chris Roberts summed up perfectly what Auto Align Post means to a dialog editor…
“We used to do a lot of that kind of phase align by eye but only where we needed to do it, but you can’t phase align everything by eye and ear or we'd be here at Christmas, it's a non-starter, but that little brilliant, Auto-Align Post is fantastic.”
Learn More…
Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms
Liquidsonics, the company behind Seventh Heaven and Lustrous Plates reverb plug-ins developed a reverb plugin more focussed on the post-production sector with their latest reverb Cinematic Rooms, offering exquisite sounds, powerful tools and full Atmos compatibility.
Cinematic Rooms is a reverb dedicated to the intense acoustic demands of surround room simulation. The advanced surround workflow tools allow you to design acoustic spaces with simplicity. Available in two editions, both support channel formats from stereo up to 7.1.6 for use with the latest Atmos bed workflows.
I was asked by Liquidsonics to produce a brief video guide (above) to help users to get started with Cinematic Rooms. The way small rooms are created in Cinematic Rooms means that you don’t end with comb filtering as you reduce the size of the room, which normally results in the early reflections bunching up on top of each other and producing comb filtering. Not in Cinematic Rooms, you get crystal clear small rooms.
In our recent podcast on Dialog Editing, Damian Kearns talked about how he uses Cinematic Rooms…
“Any reverb that I need to add to Franken edits to make things sound finished or not cut off, I'll either do through iZotope’s Dialog Match, or I'm also favouring a mono instantiation of Cinematic Rooms by Liqidonics because it sounds so good. It really is a reverb above anything else and I will use that effectively as a reverb replacement for the things that have got chopped off, so that things you don't sound blunted.”
Learn More…
Liquidsonics Cinematic Rooms Announced - A Powerful Dolby Atmos Compatible Reverb
Sound Particles
Sound Particles is an immersive 3D CGI-like standalone application for film, TV, VR and game audio production. Introduced in 2015, Sound Particles offers unique workflows, increasing creativity and reducing the time needed to create and record complex sounds in virtual 3D environments.
For many years now, we have experienced what CGI has done for film production, enabling scenes to be created that were either too costly or just impossible to create. Even though sci-fi is an obvious candidate for CGI, enabling the creative team to bring the imaginary worlds to life, CGI has also found its way into all kinds of film genres to create backgrounds etc.
What if we could do this with audio? What if we could create an army from a handful of sound files. With Sound Particles, you can do just this.
Just as CGI can create huge visual scenes that would not be possible or not cost-effective, with Sound Particles we can do these kinds of tricks with audio.
We found that it is best to start with some simple setups, to get a handle on how Sound Particles works, like a flypast with one sound source, then build on that with an emitter setup with multiple sound sources flying past the microphone, as we demo in our exclusive Sound Particles Demo and Tour video above.
Now you might be wondering why we have included Sound Particles in this list of tools for a dialog editor. In our recent Dialog Editing podcast, Damian Kearns made Sound Particles his find of the week saying…
“I recently discovered Sound Particles 2, even though it has been out for a while now, which amongst other things does have the ability to thicken out a dialogue Wala and turn it into a wall of sound. So I've been using that, this past week and absolutely loving it just thickening up dialogue bits for backgrounds and stuff like that.”
Learn More…
EQ And Compression?
You might also be wondering why we haven’t included any EQ or compressor plugins. There are two reasons for this…
We tend not to do that much EQ and compression, especially as dialog editors, that is something we leave to the re-recording mixer.
Because post-production sessions often move from place to place, we tend to use the stock plugins for maximum compatibility and transportability.
Other Tools
A dialog editor’s toolbox isn’t just about plugins so it would be remiss if we didn’t mention some of the other software in the toolbox…
Kraken Dialogue Editors Toolkit - This has quickly become an essential tool for many Dialogue Editors. The Mac OS application works in step with Pro Tools, offering enhancements to workflows and solutions to problems that Dialogue Editors encounter regularly. In this article, expert dialog editor, Chris Roberts shows what Kraken Dialogue Editor’s Toolkit can do, and why this monster has become such a powerful ally…..
EdiLoad from Sounds In Sync is an application that allows sound editors and mixers to perform a variety of crucial and time-saving tasks. From re-conforming (re-cutting) a Pro Tools session when picture changes occur, to conforming (assembling) location WAV files in Pro Tools, EdiLoad can streamline the workflow of any film or television sound-post production.
At its heart EdiLoad contains powerful functions that can manipulate edit lists through its filter, batch modify and cleaning controls. With its ability to import and export Pro Tools sessions, new workflows can be created to automate repetitive tasks or enable new processes on custom productions.
PG PT Session - When it comes to capturing ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement), otherwise known as Post Sync Dialogue, one of the ways to make it easier to run an ADR record session is to have accurate ADR cuesheets that detail exactly what needs to be recorded and why. It’s the job of the ADR supervisor to prepare the ADR cuesheets and bring them to the ADR record session.
There are several fantastic tools out there, like EdiCue from Sounds In Sync and ADR Master from Non Lethal Applications, which offer a full suite of tools for the professional ADR editor or facility. However, they are quite expensive, which makes them unobtainable for many freelancers, small studios or independent filmmakers who may only need to make ADR cuesheets a few times a year.
Cue the free tool PG PT Session. Originally designed for creating music cue sheets by Pete Gates, it has evolved into a powerful tool for generating ADR cuesheets. The software uses cleverly formatted clip groups in Pro Tools to cue the foley, which can then be imported into PG PT Session when you are ready to generate your cuesheets.
Over the years, Pete has continued to add features to make the software more comprehensive and easier to use, including the addition of the PT Remote, which adds a floating window that lets you easily program information into clip groups in your Pro Tools session.
SoundFlow - 9 years ago SoundFlow started as an app for creating extra shortcuts for Pro Tools. 3 years ago Christian launched it as a product with 103 shortcuts for Pro Tools. A year later, they had turned Soundflow into a platform with the release of SoundFlow 2, in which you could build your own scripts and develop your own workflows. Commands could be triggered from the keyboard, external hardware devices, MIDI controllers, touch surfaces or be integrated into existing scripting.
SoundFlow 3 enabled regular users to be able to build their own automated macros and workflows in DAWs like Pro Tools as well as iZotope RX, Soundminer, in fact, any macOS application. This version also added deep integration with the Stream Deck, which is a 15 button hardware device with LCD screens behind every button, enabling users to be able to design their own dynamic ‘Decks’ inside SoundFlow that react to what you are doing, as well as providing access to all of SoundFlow’s integrations. You can read much more about SoundFlow in our comprehensive article.
In the following 9 months, the team continued to develop SoundFlow releasing no less than 7 point updates culminating in the release of SoundFlow 4, which has brought more new features including iOS and Android apps, Tthird party apps available in the SoundFlow Store and direct integration with Stream Deck.
In Conclusion
There you have it, 5 plugins dialog Editors should have as well as some suggestions for other useful tools to consider too.
What do you use? How does it help you? Please add to the conversation with your suggestions and how they help you when editing dialog.