CEDAR DNS 4 - 4 Channel Portable Dialogue Noise Suppressor
Description
The DNS 4 is the most advanced portable model in the DNS series. With its Hirose HR-10 power input and mini-XLRs for many connections, it takes up little more space than the industry-standard DNS 2 yet doubles the number of channels available.
It's incredibly fast and simple to use; the DNS algorithm requires nothing more than switching on the Learn function that identifies and adapts to the background noise, and then adjusting the amount of noise attenuation required. Notwithstanding this simplicity, it can achieve remarkable results. What's more, despite being so convenient that you can slip it into your pocket or equipment bag, it offers analogue line and ultra low-noise microphone inputs (the latter with optional 48V phantom powering), AES3/AES11 digital inputs, and both analogue and digital outputs. And, to increase its flexibility still further, it runs on 12V power so you can use it in the middle of a field as easily as in the studio or edit suite.
Retaining the near-zero latency of its predecessors, the DNS 4 is suitable for use in all situations - location recording, live-to-air broadcasting and live sound in venues such as theatres and concert halls, conference venues and places of worship, as well as in the studio.
The dialogue noise suppressors that everyone uses everywhere
CEDAR's dialogue noise suppression (DNS) technology is used on the highest quality productions and broadcasts to eliminate traffic noise, air conditioning, wind, rain, babble and general background noise from audio. It will help to compensate for unfavourable acoustic conditions and poor microphone placement, and will even suppress excessive reverberation.
It's used to clean up sound for film production, to suppress ambient noise for live broadcasting, to refresh sound libraries, and to enhance speech for audio forensic investigations. It's an industry standard that has earned a string of awards including an Emmy®, an Academy Award®, an IABM Award® and two Cinema Audio Society Awards.
The background to the CEDAR DNS 4
Noise is all around us: traffic, aircraft, the noise inside vehicles, air conditioning, wind, rain and other water noises, the noise from domestic appliances and even excessive reverberation. It annoys people, and it can render many recordings unusable. So noise suppression techniques are used to clean up noisy dialogue for film production, suppress ambient noise for live TV and radio broadcasting, revitalise sound effects libraries, and enhance speech for forensic audio investigations.
Until CEDAR's Academy Award winning DNS technology, you were forced to use processes such as low-pass and other filters, noise gates, dynamics processes, or processes developed from analogue encode/decode noise reduction systems. These often proved inadequate. Filtering is not selective about what it removes, and there is no relationship between the input and the filtering effect. Gates have no effect when the desired signal is present and lead to unnatural gaps in the signal. Other dynamics processes generate pumping, distortion and other unnatural effects, and encode/decode processes when used in this way simply act as dynamics processors.
The original CEDAR DNS process overcame all of these problems and resulted in a string of awards when implemented in our hardware (the DNS1000 and its descendents) and software products (DNS One and its siblings). Today, there's a further development of the DNS algorithm designed specifically for portability and speed of use, and this forms the core of the DNS 4 which combines portability and flexibility in a unit so small and light that you can slip it inside your pocket or equipment bag.