Order to apply VST plugin effects added in Adobe Audition to improve voice quality?

Audio Software Adobe Audition
1

Hi,
I’m using some plugins in Adobe Audition to improve the audio in my talking head video clips - interview clips (2 voices). My goal is to ultimately improve the voice quality and clean up noise. The VST plugins include Accusonus ERA_DeEsser, ERA_PolsiveRemover, ERA_ReverbRemover, and ERA_VoiceLeveler, and iZotope RX6 Voice De Noise. I also am about to start using WAVES DeBreath as suggested by Mike Russell.

Can anyone suggest the order in which I should apply these? I would think that you can easily screw up some aspects of what you do if you process in an inappropriate order?

Also, I would be doing some EQ and Nomalization after - assuming this makes sense?

Thanks,
Gord

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Hi @gisman and a warm welcome to the community!

Those are some great plugins to use. You know that the Accusonus ReverbRemover is now a native effect in Adobe Audition CC 2019? It’s called DeReverb and may save you adding a 3rd party plugin.

As for an order to apply it really depends and others may argue another way around. Although, I’d generally start with the noise reduction plugins first as you have the cleanest signal with no compression or EQ manipulation of the noise.

Then, when everything is clean I’d follow up with EQ and any voice level or compression plugins.

I’m interested to hear if anyone would do it differently to this?

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Thanks for clarifying that the noise reduction stuff should be sorted first. I was thinking that this kind of order might work: deal with these elements first, after sorting out the noise - Accusonus ERA_DeEsser, ERA_PolsiveRemover, ERA_ReverbRemover, and ERA_VoiceLeveler, and then do the EQ, followed by normalization - does that make sense? Should any compression/limiting be done also at the end of the workflow, before normalization? Again, I’m just focused on dealing with talking head audio on video at the moment.

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+1 for Mike.

Let’s rethink a moment. Getting a clean audio source is the key here.
Spend time eliminating issues before you press the record button.
A pop shield is your friend, A pre-amp is your saviour. Record dry.
Take a room tone sample of about 10 seconds and save for later.

I prefer to use Plugins to enhance rather than a cure.
When you have clean audio, then it’s time to produce some awesome audio.

As a side note, when you listen to BBC Radio 4’s live voice production, it’s 99% perfect 99% of the time. Mic technique plays a big part in the talent’s performance.

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Quality advice from @The_Tone_Arranger.

Get it as good as you can to start with.

No need for ERA_PolsiveRemover.

No need for ERA_ReverbRemover.

Then you can go about enhancing instead of fixing :clap:

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Thank you for the tips. I see that focusing on these plugins is not where I should be focused. I’ll definitely work on getting the source as clean as I can :slight_smile:

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The right mic for the right situation.
With Talking Heads, have you considered using Lavs instead of directionals?

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Contain Mic Rustle to a minimum by placing the cable inside layered clothing. Remove clinking jewellery and drink flavoured water to reduce mouth clicking. Use a dog clicker out of shot to add edit markers for easy identification in post editing.

Dog Clicker

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Yes I have one, and use it as well. I’m also using my Zoom H5 with the shotgun mic mount and it works great!

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Not much really more to it except to learn how to use the Spectrum View.
I’m sure @Mike must have a video somewhere of using the healing process.

Could you upload a 20 second demo sample of a raw recording for S/N comparison?

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I’m not having specific problems at the moment, I was more interested in learning more about workflow in applying these types of plugins - if there was an order to things. Most of what I do is talking head video from LIVE interviews on YouTube, or me screencasting to produce tutorial videos.