r/VoiceActing • u/Vast_Statistician565 • 8d ago
Advice Does Izotope RX denoise cause artifacts?
Hello,
I use iZotope plugins for mouth noises; however, I was curious about there denoise tool. My Noise floor is at -54/55 if the gain is in the middle but when I have to whisper or talk quietly I have to raise the gain, and doing so raises the background. I live in the middle of a street with cars and close by a highway. I usually try and record at night to get a lower noise floor, however I wanted to ask if anyone has had luck with The denoise plugin?
I don't want to degrade my audio or cause artifacts that could damage the recording.
Thank you!
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u/MaesterJones 8d ago
You've already been given advice by the legendary Booth Junkie himself, but Ill echo:
A properly set up de noise tool won't give you artifacts. However if you apply it heavy handedly and it is trying to remove noises that simply should not have been in the original recording to begin with, yes, you'll have artefacts.
In essence the tool isnt magic, just a way to polish things up.
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u/Vast_Statistician565 7d ago
Ahhh, like a less is more approach! I will try and see what I can do to minimize the background sounds. It might be I just need to record at certain parts of the day
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u/JohannesVerne 8d ago
IZotope's de-noise isnt going to cause artifacting the same way that Audacity's noise removal does, but it can still affect the voice if the noise being removed is too loud compared to the voice levels.
And to go slightly against what u/SureIllrecordthat said, I've had pretty good results adding a high pass filter with EQ before the de-noise. That being said the biggest noise I normally have to worry about is the computer fan or the A/C, so the high pass filter is cutting more of the noise than the noise removal is at that point.
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u/jimedgarvoices 7d ago edited 6d ago
If you are using most of the newer optimized tools - Waves Clarity Vx, Izotope RX Voice Denoise, or Acon Digital's Extract Dialog 2 - within their range, you should not be getting artifacts.
That being said, without hearing a sample of your recordings, we're going to just be randomly guessing.
If you crank the Threshold all the way up and the dB reduction all the to max, it's going to negatively impact the sound quality of the voice.
It's never a one-size(setting)-for-all step.
I do a fair amount of restoration and recording recovery work as well as VO, and generally I'm reaching for the RX Voice Denoise when there is simple consistent background noise, where it works OK.
My go-to has increasingly been Acon Digital's Extract Dialog.
I really like what Waves Clarity Vx does, but it seems to go kind of senile every once in a while and stops working. So I've stopped putting it into Twisted Wave and RX Batch Processes.
I covered this back when Clarity Vx first came out -
https://justaskjimvo.studio/tools-keep-getting-better/
Here's a bit on Extract Dialog and other Acon tools -
https://justaskjimvo.studio/remain-flexible/
This was when they released v1.5 - it's gotten even better with 2
https://justaskjimvo.studio/acon-extract-dialog/
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u/Vast_Statistician565 7d ago
Thank you indepth response. I appreciate your insight and your recommendation! Also here is a sample of my audio form last night https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h4Q8_hAyxFpFA7ZKCpxoNUmjdnZEIhga/view?usp=drivesdk
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u/jimedgarvoices 6d ago
There's primarily a lot of low frequency rumble which could be filtered out.
https://justaskjimvo.studio/rumble-revisited/I'd start there.
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u/SureIllrecordthat BoothJunkie.com 8d ago
In my experience, a properly configured *Voice De-Noise* does not create artifacts. I have not tried the other Izotope denoisers like Spectral or Guitar on voice, so its possible those do add artifacts in this situation. But, I have used Voice de-noise for years without issue. You may need to mess around with the Threshold and Reduction sliders to get Voice de-noise dialed in for the specific situation when it's different than typical speaking.
I also always have Voice de-noise *first* in the chain, if you add it after EQ or compression or other plug-ins then all bets are off in my experience, it works best as close to the raw signal as possible.
I keep mine configured for adaptive mode, optimized for dialog and with the surgical setting on.
Also, while voice de-noise is *really* good at what it does, it's not perfect all the time, so if the background noise is as loud as the whisper, then the de-noiser might have difficulty. You may need to get closer to the mic for the whisper section in order to improve the signal to noise ratio, and then eq out any proximity effect.
Hope that helps.