Looking for advice on audio restoration plugins for Premiere Pro CS5.5

Adobe's Audition would be a good choice, since you can now roundtrip from Premiere. Audition has some very good restoration tools. We also use iZotope's RX 2 , but it's not inexpensive, and I have a hard time determining if it's any more adept than Audition.

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"98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing 'F1'."
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

I am an RX2A user here. It works suprisingly well in Premiere but for anything detailed, I'd process the audio outside of Premiere in a dedicated application like ProTools, Logic Pro or the like.

There are other "restoration" plugins as well like the Sonnox ones, but they cost as much as RX2 Advanced.

There is a trial of RX2 but I don't know how the trial works in "plugin" mode. However, I will say that it's been worth every penny. I started out with RX1 when it was released now 5+ years ago and haven't looked back.

The Declipper alone is worth the price of admission with all sorts of media coming in from people who don't monitor audio while shooting. It can often pay for itself in a single job (and in our case did!)

However, and back to your case, if you don't like the round-tripping workflow, the plugins will at least provide some help, but remember that 3rd party plugins don't work on individual tracks, only Submixes and the Main out. So just something to keep in mind when you're wondering "where are these plugins?!"

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There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It's all learned. - Bruce Ediger

[Erik Mickelson] "Pro Tools??? Skip it, Avid will charge you an arm and a leg to get to the point Audition is at(integrated with Premiere). Does it even have native noise reduction at the spectrum level? Pro Tools doesn't even import OMF's without a $1000 plug-in.


ProTools 9+ did away with the DV Toolkit requirement and thus any ProTools install (no LE anymore) will import OMF. Just had to clear that up.

As a long time mixer - my preference is to work outside of the NLE for detailed audio work, but I do understand that's not viable for every workflow and sometimes you just need a simple job finished within the editor.

It does look like Audition has a capable set of tools, but since the OP asked for plugins that work in Premiere, that's what the bulk of the answer was for. :)

Good luck all!

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There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It's all learned. - Bruce Ediger

Hi everyone, thanks for some really great answers. It's sounding like Audition is the way to go, since it already has the toolset I need, without needing to purchase additional plugins. I really appreciate the suggestions about roundtripping. I wasn't aware of this workflow, and I'm checking out some tutorials now, to get a better feel for it. Although I'd hoped to complete everything in Premiere, since time is an issue, roundtripping doesn't look too time consuming.

[Jeff Pulera] "Addressing the core of the issue, how was the scene miked? It sounds like you are trying to work with on-camera sound. Typically, you would choose ONE audio source and stick with that while switching camera angles. It is going to sound strange if the audio switches with the video."

Hi Jeff, everything was boomed with a Sanken CS-3E short shotgun. I had some student volunteers running boom, but they didn't always boom as close or on axis as they should have. Also, the whole piece was shot in a kitchen, no carpet or curtains, so there's some reverb to contend with.

Alright, I'm making some good progress now. I've done some testing with the Audition roundtripping on a rough edit, and I'm really happy with the results. My workflow is to export my Premiere sequence to Audition, through Edit -> Edit in Adobe Audition. Then I do my work in Audition, and then Multitrack -> Export to Premiere Pro.

Now, here's where I'm a bit confused. Once I've exported my Audition sequence back to Premiere Pro, all the individual audio tracks are merged into one continuous track. I feel like I'm going to run into a challenge if I need to do some fine tuning on the edit, and I fall out of sync with the continuous track I've created in Audition. Perhaps I should be saving the audio portion of my workflow for the very end, once I've finalized my edit. Any advice?

Thanks to everyone for your responses so far. You've been very patient and helpful, and are teaching me a lot.

I should add that there aren't that many third party 64bit VST plugins that work well with PrPro. If you need to work with a lot of audio effects your best bet is to go the Audition route. Best way to do that is to lock your cut, take your audio to Audition for mixing and then bring your mixed stems back for output/export.

David
AllinOneFilms.com

[Petros Kolyvas] "For example, RX2 advanced plugins and Ozone 5 advances plugins only show up on the list in all of our Premiere Mac installs (3x) on the submix and master busses."

Petros, I'm not running any Izotope plugins with PrPro and I'm also not on a Mac. But Every VST plugin that I've managed to get showing in the Audio Effects list also shows in the track drop down menus in the mixer.

Now getting plugins that work is a trick in itself. Generally the more complex and graphical ones do not. Even if PrPro recognizes them they don't hold their settings.

David
AllinOneFilms.com