Noise reduction plugin that isn't Izotope?

[anton]

Hi Folks,

I just upgraded to a new M3 Max Mac Book Pro, after 10 years on my previous mac laptop. In addition to the obvious performance boost alot of my plugins don't work anymore. Some of them i am fine dropping, I don't really feel I need Ozone anymore, for example. I tend to just use a few Fab Filter and other plugins for my basic mixing needs.

I did like using the RX Spectral Denoise plugin though. That was about the only thing from the RX Suite i regularly used. I hate to buy the whole suite again and only use one piece of it. Does anyone have a stand alone denoise plugin they like?

I was looking at this one from Waves
https://www.waves.com/plugins/w43-no...duction-plugin

Thanks!

Anton

[Chipotle]

I use ReaFir, which is one of the stock Reaper plugins. But you can get it--free--for any DAW here: ReaPlugs VST FX Suite. It works well for constant background noise if that's what you want. Usage tutorial here. It isn't a full-on spectral editor for other stuff like RX. I use Reaper's native spectral editing for that.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by anton

I was looking at this one from Waves
https://www.waves.com/plugins/w43-no...duction-plugin

I think it is hilarious that Waves is still offering the W43, which is an emulation of the Dolby Cat. 43 singe-ended hardware noise reduction system.

The history of this little Gem is that it was the first professional single-ended noise reduction system offered. The "Dirty Little Secret" of the system was that the Dolby A system had just been superseded and there were lots of studios left with Dolby A frames lying around with nothing to do. At my facility we had something like twenty of them. That's the rack unit above. Some egghead at Dolby said, "Wait a minute! We can offer a little control panel to plug into the unit that will allow it to be used as a four-band expander, a noise reduction unit!" And so the gaudy orange controller with the Dolby card sticking out of it and the plug in card replacement connector were born. If I remember correctly, the Waves W43 was the first single-ended noise reduction plug-in on the market. It has the same controls and functions pretty much the same. It originally even had the orange faceplate to complete its skeuomorph representation of the Cat.43.

And now the completely hilarious portion of our show: The joke is on me. There is a Dolby Cat.43 unit sitting in the rack behind me in the control room. It hasn't been used in twenty years but we've been too busy to remove it! Seeing how we've got a pretty complete Waves suite in each control room, we might even have W43s hanging around, as well.

Bob

[keith.rogers]

I'm not sure what version of Ozone you have, but the set that I have has RX 8 in it and it has continued to work fine on Sonoma on my Mini M2 Pro. I use the standalone RX app fairly routinely for a lot of minor editing, and tend to do more "surgical" noise removal on raw tracks before mixing there because it minimizes artifacts, or at least I don't have to do as much A/B and then automation, perhaps, of a plugin. But, that's me.

I still see the ad for RX 10 at 60% off (upgrade pricing) wiggled under my nose, with the "free upgrade to 11" when it comes out. If I didn't have a working version of RX, I'd probably go for the upgrade, but, again, that's me...

Here's the URL, though it's got a LOT of additional information in that query string, which might make it not work so well with the manipulation the URL tag seems to trigger...

https://www.izotope.com/en/deals/loy...sxp3yhCB8yzxy2

[TBman]

I'm the same as Keith. I prefer doing noise reduction and squeak removal editing in my standalone Rx 10 standard and then use Reaper for everything else.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by anton

Hi Folks,

I just upgraded to a new M3 Max Mac Book Pro, after 10 years on my previous mac laptop. In addition to the obvious performance boost alot of my plugins don't work anymore. Some of them i am fine dropping, I don't really feel I need Ozone anymore, for example. I tend to just use a few Fab Filter and other plugins for my basic mixing needs.

I did like using the RX Spectral Denoise plugin though. That was about the only thing from the RX Suite i regularly used. I hate to buy the whole suite again and only use one piece of it. Does anyone have a stand alone denoise plugin they like?

I was looking at this one from Waves
https://www.waves.com/plugins/w43-no...duction-plugin

Thanks!

Anton

Anton so I assume you mean some of your plugins or the version you have are not Apple silicon native ? If that is what you mean you should be able to run your DAW in Rosetta mode
Open your applications folder on your Mac then right click (or Control Click in MB) on the DAW icon and then click "Get Info " then midway down the page there should be a Box that says "Open in Rosetta" you then should be able to load any plugin that worked on your old Intel Mac

[anton]

Bob, so you are saying the W43 is old technology? Shows how much I know, i guess.

Keith, i was trying to avoid installing Rosetta on the new mac, as I assume that will be much less processor efficient. But I'll admit I have not looked into it much. Perhaps its ok for occasional things?

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by anton

Keith, i was trying to avoid installing Rosetta on the new mac, as I assume that will be much less processor efficient. But I'll admit I have not looked into it much. Perhaps its ok for occasional things?

Kevin here ----I believe it is already installed, at least it was on my M1 Pro MBP and is selectable to be opened on a per App basis

I don't know it may well not run as efficiently as the native silicone version apps ? And I do not know how much less efficient if at all OR if matters or not for most DAW recording and mixing

Also I believe (but do not know) that as far as needing Rosetta to run on Apple silicone I would guess Rx likely still needs Rosetta to run in "stand alone" if it is not an updated Silicon native compatible version

[anton]

Thanks! Oops yea I meant to say Kevin. For my uses, solo guitar, its probably fine i guess. I'm exactly stressing my CPU running a ton of plugins. :

Maybe ill just pony up and buy the next version of RX sometime soon, since its on sale.

[keith.rogers]

Originally Posted by anton

...
Keith, i was trying to avoid installing Rosetta on the new mac, as I assume that will be much less processor efficient. But I'll admit I have not looked into it much. Perhaps it's ok for occasional things?

Seems like it came installed, or perhaps it was installed as a part of migrating apps/files from the old [Intel] iMac to the new [M2] Mini. I was never explicitly prompted to install it, and everything worked from the start. Certainly for offline work, even bouncing, but especially video rendering, it's still much faster than the iMac (which was purchased because the 2012 Mini was taking hours to render videos!).

p.s. The RX sale price ends May 14.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by anton

Bob, so you are saying the W43 is old technology? Shows how much I know, i guess.

As I recall, when we finished the transition to non-linear in 2003 and bought into Waves, their emulation of the Cat 43 was waiting for me there. Oh, and here is ours:



Oh, I'm not one who insists on the latest plugs, either. I'm pretty happy with the iZotope RX 10 suite and use it about every day.

Bob

[DupleMeter]

Originally Posted by anton

Hi Folks,

I just upgraded to a new M3 Max Mac Book Pro, after 10 years on my previous mac laptop. In addition to the obvious performance boost alot of my plugins don't work anymore. Some of them i am fine dropping, I don't really feel I need Ozone anymore, for example. I tend to just use a few Fab Filter and other plugins for my basic mixing needs.

I did like using the RX Spectral Denoise plugin though. That was about the only thing from the RX Suite i regularly used. I hate to buy the whole suite again and only use one piece of it. Does anyone have a stand alone denoise plugin they like?

I was looking at this one from Waves
https://www.waves.com/plugins/w43-no...duction-plugin

Thanks!

Anton

I like a few, but it depends on what you need it for. So many of them are geared towards post production & focus on separating a voice/dialogue from background noise. Plugins that fall into this category: Waves Clairty, Accentize dxRevive Acon dialogue:isolate, Clear, etc.

There are some general noise reduction plugins that work for broadband stuff: McDSP NR800 & Waves WNS are both good here.

But for Spectral editing you have limited choices. Steinberg Spectral Layers & Izotope RX seem to be the 2 I have direct experience with. They're both good, but not cheap.

[Doug Young]

For what you do, Anton, I don't think there's a cheaper substitute for RX. You should have a loyalty upgrade, tho, and it does sometimes go on sale for even cheaper prices. It looks like they're offering RX10 at 50% off right now, with a free upgrade to 11 when it comes out, for example.

[anton]

Thanks for the input Doug. It looks like i can upgrade to RX 10 Standard for $100, so that makes the most sense.

[sdelsolray]

Originally Posted by anton

Thanks for the input Doug. It looks like i can upgrade to RX 10 Standard for $100, so that makes the most sense.

Last month, I updated my RX 9 Standard to RX 10 Standard for $99 and I’ll get a free perp license for RX 11 Standard when it is released.