Amsterdam, September 10, 2013 – With IBC approaching next week, one of the most pressing issues facing post production professionals is how to create and deliver high quality audio tracks in an increasingly ‘noisy’ modern world. Next week on September 15th, sound designer, audio producer and post production expert Mike Thornton will address these challenges, and explain how iZotope’s new RX 3 audio restoration software can help overcome audio issues in post production with unprecedented efficiency.
During his showcase appearance at CPUG Amsterdam SuperMeet during IBC, Thornton will give his 20-minute stage presentation Rescue Bad Audio from the Cutting Room Floor in Amsterdam’s Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky on Sunday night between 7:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. — product demonstrations will begin at 4:00 p.m. Following is a brief preview of what attendees can expect, according to Mike:
What are some of the modern challenges post production professionals face in maintaining integrity in their audio?
One of the biggest challenges we are all facing is that there are less and less sound recordists being booked to record audio, so very often these tasks are left to production assistants, cameramen or directors rather than audio engineers. The reality is that these people can’t be expected to do everything at once and achieve an optimal result. What we see time and time again is that the sound suffers accordingly. As a result, very often, lower grade sound arrives in the edit room and now we can address this with intelligent tools such as iZotope RX 3.
What about audio coming from ‘controlled environments’?
In my opinion, the world is getting noisier and noisier. So even if you have good sound recordists on location to capture the audio, trying to get a truly quiet soundstage is quite a challenge and becoming next to impossible. Television studio floors on ‘light entertainment shows’ are incredibly noisy, for example. There are very often lights with motors in them, projectors, fans and other gear that introduces more acoustic noise. That means that the audio coming into the microphones is already substandard, even though there are good quality microphones on the set positioned by professionals. All of these things together mean that more and more of the audio we see in post-production is noisy, and we’ve got to deal with this. These are the kinds of challenges we see post professionals dealing with on a daily basis.
What are some standout features of the RX 3 audio restoration software?
First, it’s the Dialogue Denoiser, which operates in real-time. Until now, denoising was something that the software had to learn based on a specific noise after you assigned it a “noise profile.” Now, RX 3 reduces the background noise in real time, without adding any significant latency. The low latency aspect is key, because if you are working in television, you need to keep everything in sync. The Dialogue Denoiser is also incredibly easy to use.
What about the Dereverb module?
This is another key product feature, because very often you have situations where non-professionals are recording and maybe the microphone is further away or positioned differently than a professional would have had it. Or perhaps the recording was good, but just captured in an overly reverberant facility, such as a church. With RX 3, iZotope has made it incredibly easy to reduce or remove reverb altogether. You get the RX 3 to learn a bit of the audio with the reverb, and then RX 3 provides recommended settings that would be needed to remove it. This gives the user a tremendous starting point, making it all the more easier to achieve a great result. The Dereverb and the Dialogue Denoiser are the biggies for me, but there have been other improvements right across the board. iZotope has worked very hard at improving the GUI as well, and this helps tremendously with the overall user experience.
Why is ‘ease of use’ so important?
It comes down to the old adage ‘time is money’ — if it takes me three hours to clean up the audio, chances are the client won’t want to pay for it. If I can do this in ten minutes though, the client is delighted and everybody is happy. One of the problems we have in the industry is diminishing budgets and how much time people are willing to devote to a project. We are very often constrained in post production and have limited time to finish a program. So we have to make good decisions about what we can do in the time we have available. If there is a tool such as RX 3 that enable us to do a really good job very quickly, then our client is happy because they get a great finished product. And we get more work!
About Mike Thornton
Mike has worked in the broadcast audio industry for his entire working life, some 35 years. He has worked with Pro Tools since the mid 90s, growing up with it when it could record 4 tracks on a good day with a following wind! He has been recording, editing and mixing documentaries, comedy and drama for both radio and TV, as well as working the occasional music project. Adding to all that, Mike has provided 24/7 Pro Tools support for 15 years, as well as being a broadcast audio consultant & trainer and is deputy editor of Pro Tools Expert.
About iZotope RX 3
RX 3 is an industry-leading audio repair solution for audio engineers, post production professionals, broadcasters, podcasters, archivists, forensic specialists, videographers and more. Work up to six times faster than before thanks to processing enhancements and a redesigned user interface. Remove or reduce reverb, clean up dialogue on the fly, recall session details with the new RX Document format, and much more with the new RX 3.
For more information on RX 3 and RX 3 Advanced, please visit: http://www.izotope.com/rx3
About iZotope, Inc.
iZotope makes innovative products that inspire and enable people to be creative. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, iZotope has spent over a decade developing award-winning products and audio technologies for professionals and hobbyists alike. Used by millions of people in over 50 countries, iZotope products are a core component of GRAMMY-winning music studios, Oscar and Emmy-winning film and TV post production studios, and prominent radio studios, as well as basement and bedroom studios across the globe. Through a robust licensing program, iZotope also powers products made by industry partners such as Adobe, Avid, Microsoft, and Sony.
