WRITTEN BY KIRSTY YU
DIALOGUE EDITOR, BOOM BOX POST
As an animation dialogue editor, I usually work with clean and high quality recording files. However, in the past two years, the pandemic changed my work routine in a big way. The files I received are mostly recorded by the voice actors themselves at home. Some files are recorded from a bad microphone position, some are recorded in a reverberant space, and some have hum in the background. I spend a lot of time cleaning up the recorded files as best as I can, so I’m always on the lookout for a good noise reduction plug-in. DNS One from Cedar has a good reputation from a lot of mixers and dialogue editors, so I gave it a try.
User Interface for Cedar DNS One.
Cedar DNS One has a quite simple design. The LEVEL control on the right tells how much noise is present in the input. The six faders represent six frequency bands distributed from lower frequencies to higher frequencies, and it determines how much you want to process in each band. The six range selectors on top of the faders are for you to select which part of the audio you want it to be concentrated on. And the last LEARN button on the right corner is for DNS One to calculate the noise level and determine suitable band levels.
Settings from Cedar DNS One “Learn” function.
I tried it on three different files. The first one has a loud noise floor:
I used the easiest setting on this one which is to let DNS One itself learn the full range of the file. The result is actually really good, so I didn’t change any suggested settings.
The second file I tried is a bit worse than the last one. It has a noisy background plus a high frequency humming. So this time I set the range to M+H (mid-high frequencies), and after it learned the file, I adjusted a couple band faders to get the best result.
Settings with M+H range selected.
Here is the result:
For the last file, I tried a recording that has excessive reverberation.
To reduce the reverberation, first I set the range to L+M (low-mid frequencies) because it’s almost always the frequency range that contains the most reverberation. Then, I set all band gain to -24dB to ensure DNS One applies the maximum suppression to the tails of the sound. The last thing I did was to audit the suppression level. I always start on the minimum position and increase the level fader slowly to find the most appropriate amount I want it to suppress.
Settings with L+M range selected.
Here is what I got:
From my experience, Cedar DNS One does a great job. It sounds natural, is easy to use, and is good for both editors and mixers. I hope this helps you know a bit more about this wonderful plug-in!