Cedar DNS vs TC vs RX3

[jkess]

Hi guys.

How many of you have had a chance to compare the denoising modules of these units in post? How do they stack up?

Thanks,
J

[cananball]

Depends what you are trying to do.

DNS and RX are both great but operate in totally different ways.

RX denoiser has greatly improved from version 3 and up. You can get much more dramatic reduction with less artifacts in fewer passes. Spectral repair can yield amazing results. Pops, clicks and hum, no problem. I would use most of these as audio suite plugs, with the expection of Dialogue denoiser which i do use realtime.

Cedar is a different beast all together. Best sounding mulitband expander type noise reduction out there. Very natural, little artifacts even when pushed pretty hard. Better than Waves WNS by a lot. Better than RX dialogue denoiser.

Cedar is easier to automate with it's hardware controller or mapped to a control surface.

[mgoorevich]

Cedar DNS is unique for the broadband noise reduction.
Nothing comes close to what it can do with noisy dialog tracks.
Waves is a petty forgery with their WNS and is worthless even for what they ask.
RX4 Advanced on the other hand is a great tool for different tasks. Even their Dialogue DeNoiser sound very good.

[Branko]

I really try to stay away from this "which one's the best" kind of discussions on forums, but it really hurts me when people try to pass their biased opinions as facts.
I happen to own all three mentioned plugins (DNS One, WNS and RX3) and I cannot really see such a big difference between DNS and WNS, as many on this forum claim.
2-3 years ago, I'm not sure, I posted an example of a clip treated with WNS, DNS and the original one here on DUC, asking the community to recognise which was treated with each plugin.
In most cases, what I got as an answer was some kind of arguing that the test was not valid, etc, but very few tried to guess, and the result was more or less 50%, which is equal to random wild guess.
I can also add that working with these two (WNS and DNS) is really ver different, as DNS gives good results very quickly, and is more forgiving than WNS, but with some patience, one can get very similar results from both.
My decision to work with WNS at that time was motivated only by the price difference.
If necessary, I'll create a new set of test files, so we can all have some fun...

RX is a completely different tool and their broadband denoising can be a very useful tool (especially if you want to preserve the space information!), but it creates much more artefacts if pushed hard. Also, their Dialog denoiser sounds very dull, especially when compared to DNS and WNS.
My 2cents...
p.s. as for the original question, I imagine you thought of TC "backdrop" module for M6000. If that's the case, it is way less powerful than DNS. Last time I used it was 6 years ago...

[Branko]

I just found the link to that previous thread I mentioned above:
Discussion.
For me the real fun begins at post#138.
As you'll notice, very few answered the question, most of them were repeating the "DNS is better than WNS" mantra.

[cananball]

Originally Posted by Branko

I just found the link to that previous thread I mentioned above:
Discussion.
For me the real fun begins at post#138.
As you'll notice, very few answered the question, most of them were repeating the "DNS is better than WNS" mantra.

Don't get me wrong Branko, I love my WNS, I use it everyday and think it's very capable. I don't personally own a Cedar but have used it enough to have heard a big difference.

I don't like to use the word "artifacts" with these units, I think the WNS sucks the life out of the dialogue a bit sooner than the Cedar. The DNS can be pushed pretty hard before it starts to dull out the dialogue in a destructive way

[Cheesehead]

I agree with both Branko and Cananball,
I think the difference between WNS and Cedar is slight.
But after exhaustive testing with the demos of both I found Cedar retained the transients and clarity of dialogue a little better.
WNS seemed to smear it a bit for me.
Cedar is very easy to use, once you get used to how it works.
Also it gives a very 'filmic' character to dialogue, I suppose because its been used on so many films.

What I do like from Waves is the W43, their cat 43 emulation. It can work wonders at getting rid of traffic etc. I have a bias towards 70's movies too and this was the baby everyone was using back then.

RX3 is a must have purchase for anyone in post. It can get to stuff nothing else can. I'm not too taken with the realtime dialogue denoiser but for clicks, pops, audiosuite de-noising and the spectral stuff its amazing.

Ideally you have them both, because they each do different things really well.

I've never used the TC, so can't comment.

[mgoorevich]

OK Gentlemen, whatever works with whoever preferences is fine.
I am sure we all can manage with either WNS or DNS with the same final results.
So we all biased in some way or another.
To answer the original poster's question - get the WNS because you can. Its sometimes discounted to $150 (watch PluginDiscounts, WavesUniverse, AudioDeluxe e.t.c).
TC6000 is the hardware and very expensive and not sure its worth just because of BackDrop.
DNS2000 is fantastic but still much more expensive even used than WNS.
DNS One is around $5K.

I do love my W43 when I'm after that warm 70-80 compression dialogs. But I admit if I use it I use it more as effect on the dialog bus;-)

[cananball]

Originally Posted by Cheesehead

Cedar is very easy to use, once you get used to how it works.
Also it gives a very 'filmic' character to dialogue, I suppose because its been used on so many films.

Well put and I have to agree. Cedar make dialogue sound like film dialogue.

[Branko]

I also want to make things clear - I don't use WNS any more, ever since I bought the DNS.
To my ears, WNS adds a touch of harshness to the processed dialogue, something that wasn't there before, and that never happens with DNS, which just takes away the noise, leaving the sound untouched.
Also, it may be interesting to remember that it was the original Cat 43, the Orange Box, that could be (and was) used to create that "film dialogue" sound...