Accusonus ERA 4

[Herb Sevush]

[Oliver Peters] ” Accusonus just released their ERA-4 audio repair bundle”

How would you compare it to Izotope RX7 (other than being cheaper.) ?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf

[Oliver Peters]

[Herb Sevush] “How would you compare it to Izotope RX7 (other than being cheaper.) “

I don’t have RX7, but I do have earlier iZotope plug-ins. IIRC, they usually require processing and don’t run in real-time in some hosts. The ERA plugs are real-time. Also they use a single-knob design, somewhat like Wave’s One Knob series. However, the Waves plugs focus on EQ and compression, rather than repair.

Also, the ERA plug-ins can be purchased individually and allow 3 simultaneous activations per code.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Mark Suszko]

Larry Jordan also liked this product, he gave it a review some time back.

[James Culbertson]

Izotope RX7 plugins are real-time in FCP 10, not sure about Premiere. They take time to process in Audition. I assume the ERA would take some time to process in Audition?

I’d be curious how they compare in effectiveness to the RX7 Voice de-noiser, de-clipper, and de-reverb plugins among other examples.

[Oliver Peters]

I have some of the RX6 plugs and yes, I checked today and they are real-time. However, I have had issues with them properly processing in real-time in a mix. So I either bounced out a processed track or use the external application.

[James Culbertson] “I assume the ERA would take some time to process in Audition”

Why would you assume that?

I haven’t had any processing issues with Accusonus, but I’ve mainly been use Leveler. I’ve just purchased and added the rest to the work machines. So far, testing is good.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Greg Janza]

Accusonus plugins are a much better option than Izotope RX7 if you’re using Premiere. Izotope plugins can wreak havoc on a Premiere system. There’s currently a bug with the Izotope RX7 plugins that can cause hard computer crashes if you’re working on a mac system. I haven’t used the RX7 plugins on a pc but I would suspect that the bug is cross platform.

The one way to minimize the crashes with Izotope plugins is to up the audio buffer to 2048 but even that doesn’t completely stop the hard crashes. This problem is without any indication within Premiere so it may take awhile for someone to realize that it’s the Izotope plugins that are causing problems.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tmprods
tallmanproductions.net

[Oliver Peters]

After a bit more testing and direct comparison between similar plug-ins, I would say that you definitely get good real-time results with the Accusonus plug-ins. However, they are best when you stick close to their defaults.

I do feel like I get better acoustic results with the iZotope RX plug-ins, especially with real troubled audio, like heavily clipped VO recordings. However, you do have to *apply* the RX effect (at least in Audition) before you will hear clean results. For example, with the Declip example, I can play the Accusonus, push it, and hear clean results. With iZotope, I get crackle in real-time when I push it. But after applying each effect, the iZotope sounded somewhat better to my ears and seemed to do a smoother job of rounding the clips.

For controlling vocal levels, my favorite still remains Waves Vocal Rider. I like the Accusonus Voice Leveler, but it’s basically an intelligent compressor. Vocal Rider actually “rides” its built-in faders, as the name implies. So low and high volume levels are dynamically adjusted, not compressed, thus leaving you with a more open sound.

All things being equal Waves tends to be the first place I look for audio plug-ins. However, you do have to look for their special deals to get good pricing. And you have to handle license activations if you are dealing with multiple machines.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Michael Gissing]

I’ve never had issues with iZotope VST plugins playing in real time on both my standalone Fairlight running on an aging Win 7 PC and with Fairlight in Resolve running on a more powerful PC.

[Oliver Peters]

[Michael Gissing] “I’ve never had issues with iZotope VST plugins … and with Fairlight in Resolve”

Interesting. I haven’t had great luck with third-party plug-ins in current versions of Resolve. For example, these ERA plugs are not officially supported in Resolve by Accusonus, yet they do show up. But Resolve doesn’t recognize the license authorization. Trying to add the license activation back in crashes Resolve. (Mac 10.13.6 Resolve 15).

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Brett Sherman]

[Oliver Peters] “I do feel like I get better acoustic results with the iZotope RX plug-ins”

Definitely. I tested the Accusonus when it came out and it really wasn’t even in the same ballpark as iZotope for heavy noise reduction. I tend not to do real-time processing. While iZotope RX7 does work quite well with realtime in FCP X with Adaptive Voice De-noise, the best tool for most situations is Dialogue Isolate which is not possible to run in realtime. ERA doesn’t have anything like it. And iZotope RX 7 Advanced has the Spectral Repair which has nothing like it in the ERA pack.

I think Accusonics realized the value wasn’t there at $1000 so they lowered the price. It’s a pretty good deal now. Before there was no reason to get it over iZotope RX Advanced. (I’m not a Premiere user, so admittedly there may be compatiblity issues that it solves).

[Oliver Peters] “For controlling vocal levels, my favorite still remains Waves Vocal Rider. I like the Accusonus Voice Leveler, but it’s basically an intelligent compressor. Vocal Rider actually “rides” its built-in faders, as the name implies. So low and high volume levels are dynamically adjusted, not compressed, thus leaving you with a more open sound.”

I’m not sure there’s a real technical difference between compression and level riding. Compression is really just altering the gain dependent on the level coming in. With high attack and release times it does have the effect of bringing up quiet sections and bringing down loud sections. With longer times, it’s considered a Leveler. That being said, I really like the Vocal Rider as it allows you to set a target level (which compressors don’t), so in some ways what you’re saying is true in that you don’t have to be as aggressive with gain reduction to get a fairly even output. I have to admit I am a bit surprised as to how much the faders are moving. I wish I could set it so it’s not quite as reactive.

I bought three Vocal Rider licenses for $30 each with the half-off sale. It’s still available at that price. It’s a bargain, especially if you only need it on one workstation as licensing is a very strict one machine per license.