Accentize’ dxRevive and DialogueEnhance are two tools which, on the face of it, appear to do similar things. In this article and video, Paul Maunder considers the different strengths of the plugins and the types of audio scenarios in which they’re each best used…

Accentize dxRevive and dxRevive Pro provide some of the most impressive speech restoration currently available. They not only reduce noise, but also restore missing frequency content. This is beyond what a typical de-noiser plug-in is capable of, and the results speak for themselves. I’ve been able to use dxRevive to restore voice recordings which would otherwise be unsalvageable.

dxRevive isn’t Accentize’s only plug-in which is suitable for cleaning up and processing dialogue. DialogueEnhance also falls within this category, but one question which comes up from users is ‘Why would I need DialogueEnhance when dxRevive is so effective at improving problematic dialogue recordings?’. It’s a fair enough question. In actual fact, the two plug-ins are quite different, and each one is suited to specific tasks. Let’s consider the strengths of each.

dxRevive and dxRevive Pro

dxRevive should be considered a speech restoration tool rather than just noise reduction. Sure, it does reduce or remove noise, but it also uses speech re-synthesis to restore missing frequency content, recover clipped audio, reduce reverb and eliminate codec artefacts from the likes of Skype or Zoom recordings.

The standard version of dxRevive uses Accentize’s Studio algorithm, which is designed to make the recording sound as though it was recorded in front of a high quality studio condenser mic. dxRevive Pro includes this algorithm too, but also offers additional algorithms called Retain and Natural, which are designed to leave the original character of the recording intact. This is often the preferred option for dialogue editors who want to clean up location dialogue without changing its tonal quality.

Both dxRevive and dxRevive Pro are excellent choices when working with particularly problematic dialogue which has a lot of noise or excessive reverb present. Whenever I’m working on recordings which just can’t be salvaged by other means, my usual course of action is to use dxRevive Pro. One nice feature in the pro version is the multi-band option which allows you to apply the processing selectively in up to 4 different frequency bands.

One thing that should be noted about the dxRevive plug-ins is that they do apply EQ and compression under the hood. However, this is done in a fully automatic fashion which can’t be adjusted manually.

DialogueEnhance

DialogueEnhance is quite a different plug-in to dxRevive. It incorporates 4 different processes into one plug-in. There’s noise reduction, compression, spectral correction and a loudness boost function .

The noise reduction uses an automatic noise estimation, which does a good job at differentiating noise from dialogue. When used in moderation, it’s a very good solution for reducing the noise by a few dB.

The dynamics section is an automatic compressor. It’s designed for dialogue, so the automatic settings do a good job at getting it right. When needed, it can be switched to manual operation, allowing you to adjust ratio and threshold yourself.

The spectral correction section is essentially an automatic equaliser designed to correct spectral imbalances in speech recordings. It’s particularly useful when several different dialogue recordings are present on a track, or running through an aux, and you need to achieve a balanced EQ across all of them. When switched into manual mode, it’s a 3 band EQ with high and low shelving curves and a peak/dip curve.

The loudness boost part of DialogueEnhance allows for automatic level adjustment, based on a user definable target LUFS level. The good thing about the automatic mode is that it will adjust the output level if the audio varies in level over time. There is also the option to switch it to manual mode, where the output level can be set at a fixed value.

Dialogue Enhance is great for overall processing of dialogue. By incorporating 4 types of processing, it allows you to process dialogue conveniently in a single plug-in rather than using several separate ones. DialogueEnhance is designed to work on recordings which are already reasonably good, as opposed to dxRevive which is for restoration of poorly recorded dialogue.

As a point of technical interest, Dialogue Enhance consumes less CPU and is less delay intensive than dxRevive. DialogueEnhance incurs 2048 samples of delay vs 3880 for dxRevive (At 48kHz).

One important point to reiterate about the dynamics, spectral correction and loudness boost functions within DialogueEnhance is that they can be adjusted manually if required. This means that you have finer control over precisely how the processing is applied, allowing the result to be tailored according to your exact requirements.

Conclusion

dxRevive and DialogueEnhance are two tools with different strengths. dxRevive excels at restoration of bad dialogue recordings, either those with highly problematic noise or reverb, vintage recordings or those made via systems which use lossy audio codecs. In dxRevive Pro there are multiple algorithms to choose from, but the processing is fairly automatic other than the capability to control the overall amount of processing.

DialogueEnhance, on the other hand, is best suited to everyday dialogue processing. This includes reduction of noise, but it doesn’t restore missing frequency content like dxRevive does. What DialogueEnhance does do though, is also provide compression, spectral correction and a loudness boost. Each of the 4 processes within DialogueEnhance can be toggled on or off as needed, unlike the EQ and compression in dxRevive, which happens automatically in a non-adjustable way.

Personally, I use both dxRevive Pro and DialogueEnhance in equal measure. My choice of which one to use is dictated by the quality of the recordings I’m dealing with. To hear some examples of both dxRevive Pro and DialogueEnhance in action, and to hear more about my thoughts on when to use one over the other, check out the video above.