New Waves "W-43"/ Cat 43

[dr.sound]

New "Waves" plug in:
Noise Reduction Audio Plugin for Video | W43

A modern day software version of the Dolby Cat 43.
If it works like the original then I too will buy one.

[Dallas Taylor]

I've never used the Dolby CAT43. For those of you who have, how does this compare to Cedar/WNS?

I use Mercury, and I'm curious when I would opt for the CAT43 over the WNS?

[Sonsey@mac.com]

The price is certainly right! $300.00 Native, $600.00 for TDM! I think I might just have to talk my boss into getting us at least one of these...

[Big Andy]

Would this do anything my dns one couldn't do?

[charles maynes]

the CAT43 and 430 have a unique sound and a fast and easy to use interface. The Waves plugin is also claiming zero latency, which is pretty impressive- there are some other things out there which can do similar stuff- like Wave's C4, McDsp's ML4000 and TC's MD3. but W-43 seems to be giving a UI that is faithful to the CAT.

[dr.sound]

The trick to good "dialog" is using various noise reduction tools and having each do just enough so you don't "throw the baby out with the bathwater"!

As much as I do like the DNS 2000 or variations, I don't use it exclusively.
Even the guys mixing “traditional” use a combination of tools.
A Dolby Cat: 43 and 430 are two tools seen at most stages.

I mix “only in the box” so I haven’t used a Cat 43 or 430 in years.
I will demo the new Waves 43 and see how it works.


Like always, to each his own.

[Big Andy]

I just used the W43 a couple seconds ago.... it is no where near as useful as the C43.

It does very very minimal Noise Reduction, it actually sounds a little like a EQ. I was trying to really hard to get it to do something great, but it was not doing much but killing my dialogue.

Also, the threshold setting didn't seem to do anything. I was laughing because i couldn't hear any difference in setting completely up or completely down. I tried using it in very dynamic and non dynamic passages and nothing changed.

Cedar is way better even considering the money. I can get better results with my C4 than with the W43.

If anyone else test drives it, please let me know what your findings are. Maybe I just got a bunked download.

[philper]

How different would this be from the WaveArts Multidynamics plug? They look similar, although this one is much less flexible.

phil p

[Matti]

And WNS, I would be happy to hear some comments of these in real world

Matti

[BIGBANGBUZZ]

Originally Posted by Big Andy

It does very very minimal Noise Reduction, it actually sounds a little like a EQ. I was trying to really hard to get it to do something great, but it was not doing much but killing my dialogue.

Also, the threshold setting didn't seem to do anything. I was laughing because i couldn't hear any difference in setting completely up or completely down. I tried using it in very dynamic and non dynamic passages and nothing changed.
.

I gave it ago, I thought it worked really well at stripping out bad hiss, i inserted before my EQ put the thresh at -3 and then pulled out the high band on a crappy lapel mic, I then re-boosted the high freq with my Q10. I had a nice hi freq with no hiss...

anyone else tried it?

[eoats]

Used the Cat43 quite a bit in the old Mag Film days on documentaries. There's a emulation in the TC 6000 that I never used much because I got better results from X-Noise. Now I get better results from iZotope RX & never seem to have to back to X-Noise. The Cat-43 seems way too out classed. I still see others sometimes use a Cat430, but it's getting less & less use.

[Matti]

RX ( and Waves ) here and access to RenoVator for really tight ones

Matti

[soundboy]

I still use my Cat. 43 for some things, and my DNS 1000 for others. I'll be interested in trying this plug out.

[stangroom]

Going to test these out tomorrow or early next week hopefully. The zero latency is really appealing, and might be quite helpful in chain with the C4. And with a $300/Native $600/TDM price point, that's not too shabby.

Then again, I LOVE me some RX. But can sometimes do without the batch processing.

chris.

[bizzle]

I am halfway through a feature mix with the W43. I predubbed the dialog a couple weeks ago (moderate to heavy noise and icky distortion) using WNS and some other plugs, vast improvement, no latency, and lots of instances.

Now mixing and using the W43 and very happy. Its not for very heavy noise "restoration" work, but it has been great for those couple noisy lines in a passage to help them match, and for overall noise reduction. Yes it works a bit like an EQ, especially with overly sibilant or screechy issues and some boomy dialog. The 4 bands are well placed for speech. I don't seem to be using the threshold control, I guess this stuff is leveled and in a useable range already. Also handy are the separate "engage" and bypass buttons, so that you can switch the effect in and out for audition purposes without messing up your bypass automation.

I would normally use the C4 for this kind of thing, but W43 is way more useful. It is a stark looking plugin compared to others, but I'll get over that. Granted we're still in the honeymoon period, but I think this one is a keeper.

&e

[bizzle]

There are different classes of noise tools, and as it has been said before (by people much smarter than I) that you will do better to use combinations of these plugs for best results. With all that in mind, here are a couple plugins that I have had luck with (and some not so much). Thanks to those of you who have suggested some of these to me..

Multiband Expanders (with or without snapshot thresholds):
C4 - general, light duty TDM, RTAS
WNS - deep tweakable, moderate to almost heavy noise removal, like the Cedar, low latency TDM, RTAS
W43 - general light to moderate, some magic sauce TDM, RTAS
Roland SN550 - outboard, sounds nice, general duty, 5 bands, "60 cycle" removal sounds weird, pin 3 hot, set and forget, hardware insert
Roland SN770 - 7 bands, buried menu settings, "snapshot" button, a multiband gate? not so handy, hardware insert

Noise profile removal:
WaveArts - Master Restoration - versatile, very tweakable, can get complex, easy to automate on a track, can do heavy work, some latency RTAS
Waves X-noise - not using anymore, artifacts TDM, RTAS
iZotope RX - not practical on tracks, good for heavy stuff especially whines and ringing tones, AudioSuite
Waves Z-noise - impossible latency on tracks, good for adaptive noise removal, works sometimes for removing music from dialog tracks, tweak the noise profile eq for results, AudioSuite
BNR - don't bother, last resort, move the threshold up for better results TDM

Other
Q10 - 10 bands of steep notching, filters can resonate a little to help find target freq. TDM, RTAS
Waves De-Esser - if you have nothing else and a lot of hiss, pull the threshold all the way down and see what happens, recover some highs with an eq, TDM, RTAS
Waves X-Crackle - distortion removal, TDM, RTAS, etc.
Waves Trans-X - remove peaking distortion or bad transients TDM, RTAS
SPL De-Verb - removes reverb from tracks (most of the time), RTAS

This is by no means a comprehensive list, there are tons of other plugs out there that I don't own or have much experience with, so maybe some other people can chime in.

&e

ps, Sorry for being so Waves-centric, but their plugins really work for me.

[BIGBANGBUZZ]

Originally Posted by bizzle

I am halfway through a feature mix with the W43. I predubbed the dialog a couple weeks ago (moderate to heavy noise and icky distortion) using WNS and some other plugs, vast improvement, no latency, and lots of instances.

Now mixing and using the W43 and very happy. Its not for very heavy noise "restoration" work, but it has been great for those couple noisy lines in a passage to help them match, and for overall noise reduction. Yes it works a bit like an EQ, especially with overly sibilant or screechy issues and some boomy dialog. The 4 bands are well placed for speech. I don't seem to be using the threshold control, I guess this stuff is leveled and in a useable range already. Also handy are the separate "engage" and bypass buttons, so that you can switch the effect in and out for audition purposes without messing up your bypass automation.

I would normally use the C4 for this kind of thing, but W43 is way more useful. It is a stark looking plugin compared to others, but I'll get over that. Granted we're still in the honeymoon period, but I think this one is a keeper.

&e

+1 for me to, i'm just playing with Demo on a series, I'm not yet in the budget for a Cedar or WNS. I think it works great at removing some noises, hi freq white noise especially from some crappy lapels and camera mic.. Works well on rumble too, For the tricky stuff I'll use Izotope as well.

[Justas]

Originally Posted by bizzle

There are different classes of noise tools, and as it has been said before (by people much smarter than I) that you will do better to use combinations of these plugs for best results. With all that in mind, here are a couple plugins that I have had luck with (and some not so much). Thanks to those of you who have suggested some of these to me..

Multiband Expanders (with or without snapshot thresholds):
C4 - general, light duty TDM, RTAS
WNS - deep tweakable, moderate to almost heavy noise removal, like the Cedar, low latency TDM, RTAS
W43 - general light to moderate, some magic sauce TDM, RTAS
Roland SN550 - outboard, sounds nice, general duty, 5 bands, "60 cycle" removal sounds weird, pin 3 hot, set and forget, hardware insert
Roland SN770 - 7 bands, buried menu settings, "snapshot" button, a multiband gate? not so handy, hardware insert

Noise profile removal:
WaveArts - Master Restoration - versatile, very tweakable, can get complex, easy to automate on a track, can do heavy work, some latency RTAS
Waves X-noise - not using anymore, artifacts TDM, RTAS
iZotope RX - not practical on tracks, good for heavy stuff especially whines and ringing tones, AudioSuite
Waves Z-noise - impossible latency on tracks, good for adaptive noise removal, works sometimes for removing music from dialog tracks, tweak the noise profile eq for results, AudioSuite
BNR - don't bother, last resort, move the threshold up for better results TDM

Other
Q10 - 10 bands of steep notching, filters can resonate a little to help find target freq. TDM, RTAS
Waves De-Esser - if you have nothing else and a lot of hiss, pull the threshold all the way down and see what happens, recover some highs with an eq, TDM, RTAS
Waves X-Crackle - distortion removal, TDM, RTAS, etc.
Waves Trans-X - remove peaking distortion or bad transients TDM, RTAS
SPL De-Verb - removes reverb from tracks (most of the time), RTAS

This is by no means a comprehensive list, there are tons of other plugs out there that I don't own or have much experience with, so maybe some other people can chime in.

&e

ps, Sorry for being so Waves-centric, but their plugins really work for me.

Good list!
When I'm in a hurry and have to quickly remove hiss, I find myself still using good old X-Noise.

[JLiRD808]

This is the last good NR plugin thread so I hope no one minds me bumpn it.

W-43 64 bit version just hit $64 today. Anyone else care to comment or suggest some alternatives?

I recorded some great acoustic guitar & vocal artists when I was younger but I wasn't paying attention to noise back then. I was using an LDC in an untreated room and there's tons of just ambient room noise/hum/hiss.

I've never used NR before. Is W-43 a good place to start? I'm assuming no one plugin will magically fix everything and that there's various 'techniques' for the different types of noise. Isnt there a technique where u grab some of the noise (when the musics not playing) and use that to EXTRACT the noise from the rest of the track?

Any help would be appreciated......I'd like to get these older tracks cleaned up!

THANKS!!

[tom_lowe]

it's $64 for a reason, not a patch on CEDAR DNS One (obviously) or iZotope RX2

[Dan Smith]

Originally Posted by JLiRD808

This is the last good NR plugin thread so I hope no one minds me bumpn it.

W-43 64 bit version just hit $64 today. Anyone else care to comment or suggest some alternatives?

I recorded some great acoustic guitar & vocal artists when I was younger but I wasn't paying attention to noise back then. I was using an LDC in an untreated room and there's tons of just ambient room noise/hum/hiss.

I've never used NR before. Is W-43 a good place to start? I'm assuming no one plugin will magically fix everything and that there's various 'techniques' for the different types of noise. Isnt there a technique where u grab some of the noise (when the musics not playing) and use that to EXTRACT the noise from the rest of the track?

Any help would be appreciated......I'd like to get these older tracks cleaned up!

THANKS!!

I've done some restoration on old demos, tapes etc for clients and I would suggest the Izotope RX2 package. It's a bundle of 6 plugins/standalone app that has much more versatility than the w43. The w43 is wonderful but only in certain situations (ie what's already been discussed here) where as RX is much more flexible. Obviously there is a price difference and the w43 might be all you desire considering the price. Download the demos and see which you'd rather have.

[Whitecat]

Originally Posted by tom_lowe

it's $64 for a reason, not a patch on CEDAR DNS One (obviously) or iZotope RX2

It's a completely different tool.

I haven't got Cedar around here but I probably use W43 just as often as RX2.

W43 can be really good on the right material and with the right threshold settings. I mean really good, IMO. Low CPU and zero-latency means that I can slap them on noisy DX channels usually from the very beginning of a mix.

But as with all NR tools, sometimes it doesn't work at all. Totally depends on what you need to achieve. I also think that it's about a thousand times more useful than the WNS-1 which I have never succeeded to make useful.

For $64 I'd definitely do it - I think I paid $99 on a previous special and it's easily earned back every penny for me...

[charles maynes]

for the right application W43 is an amazing tool- at 69 bucks, it is a no-brainer in my mind.

[Jesse Peterson]

I own WNS

Do I need W43?

[Whitecat]

Originally Posted by Jesse Peterson

I own WNS

Do I need W43?

At the price it's at I would. Again, they're different, but I've found W43 to be far more useful. YMMV of course, but it's "only" $64 (and probably a bit less from a dealer).

[pethenis]

Bought it just now, slapped it on some not so noisy production dialogue, but don't hear the magic yet. RX for the heavy stuff here, C4 for the gentle stuff and WNS for the, erm, medium stuff but rarely. ( bought after having demoed the DNS One, you get what you pay for I guess....)

Originally Posted by Whitecat

At the price it's at I would. Again, they're different, but I've found W43 to be far more useful. YMMV of course, but it's "only" $64 (and probably a bit less from a dealer).

[insomaniac]

Have you guys found the W43 can do things that C6 can't do in terms of multiband NR? I'm A/B'ing the two right now, and it seems that whatever I can do with W43 I can also get done with C6 set to an agressive multiband expander/gate.

[Vytis]

In which situations would this complement or 'do more' than my Cedar DNS1000? I've tried the demo and it sounded more like an EQ to me. Perhaps I'm not feeding the right material. At its current price I'm tempted still.

[charles maynes]

its not aggressive at all in my experience with it- it seems to work best with material that does have a reasonable of modulation as well- and sometimes, you might need to use a trim plugin ahead of it to boost the signal level. It is quite gentle, and generally pretty smooth sounding.

[Jesse Peterson]

I picked up c4 and um225/6.