New Software Review: Dialogue Match by iZotope

iZotope’s Dialogue Match could save you hours of manual work in post—can this simple but powerful plugin find a home in your arsenal?

Picture this: you’re sitting at home, watching one of your favorite TV shows. You’re wrapped up in the story, taking in every line of dialogue when out of nowhere comes that one line that sounds completely different from everything else. Bad ADR!

It takes me out of the story every time. Even my partner at the time, who had no sound experience at all, picked it out right away. Mismatched dialogue and ADR is one of my biggest pet peeves in post production audio. Worst of all, even the general TV consuming public with no audio experience can hear the difference.

Fortunately, there have been a few important advancements in audio-post technology that are helping solve this problem once and for all. One of my favorites is Dialogue Match by iZotope.

Features and Use

Dialogue Match is an Audiosuite plugin for ProTools that combines three modules: EQ, Reverb, and Ambience, allowing you to quickly and efficiently match the sound of dialogue tracks to one another with remarkable accuracy. Dialogue Match currently sells for $599 on its own, or is part of iZotope’s Post Production Surround Reverb Bundle, Post Production Suite 4, and RX 7 Advanced Reverb Bundle.

This very simple plugin requires virtually no learning curve, but packs a powerful punch. You simply load a reference track in ProTools and then load your target audio. Dialogue Match analyzes your tracks and builds a sonic profile that includes an adjustable EQ curve, reverb, and ambience tone.

Those who are already RX users may be very familiar with iZotope’s Ozone EQ Match and Ambience Match modules which I’ve covered extensively in my review of RX 7. As mentioned in this instructional video from iZotope, the Reverb module, which sounds fantastic, is a collaboration of iZotope’s brand new machine learning technology along with technology from Exponential Audio, a recent acquisition of iZotope.

I tried Dialogue Match in a few different scenarios. I first used it on some ADR tracks I had recently mixed for a feature film. I also used it in two different documentary projects, and finally on a podcast project.

For ADR work, Dialogue Match can be a life saver, no question. Having easy access to EQ, ambience and reverb makes Dialogue Match a true one-stop shop for ADR work.

In the few tests with ADR recordings for feature film work, Dialogue Match’s capture of the production audio provided mixed results, which did require some trial and error to find a quality sample to work from. Depending on the source material, I found the reverb that Dialogue Match provided to be fairly hit or miss. Realistically, if you’re doing ADR it usually means that the source audio isn’t good to begin with, which naturally means it’s likely to be problematic as a source sample for Dialogue Match (and is more of a fit for iZotope’s RX product)—so it can be difficult to get a clean reference track. Having said that, with trial and error, I was able to get excellent results that matched the tone, ambience, and reverb style of my on-set audio very nicely.

Here is an example of one line of dialogue from a feature film I worked on where we looped the second half of the line because an actor had dropped a tray of silverware or something similar over the word “everyone” which muddled the line in the mix. In this example, you can hear the original production audio, the dry ADR recording, and finally the ADR processed with Dialogue Match. This took only a few minutes to get right and provided an excellent fix that most listeners would likely never be able to tell was looped.

For documentary work, Dialogue Match has proven to be incredibly useful. Quite often, I will run into a scene where a piece of dialogue is cut in from the same character, but perhaps from a different off-camera shot, sometimes with a different mic, or in a different room altogether. These kinds of “frankenbites” can be difficult to make work as a fluid edit. With Dialogue Match, this process becomes so fluid and streamlined that it cut my work down substantially. iZotope’s Ambience Match module continues to be one of the most useful pieces of audio voodoo I’ve ever come across. It has saved me so many times, and makes matching and “glueing” documentary dialogue together incredibly easy.

Finally, I used Dialogue Match to place a third party who was tracking for a podcast with a guest and a host in a separate studio into the same room virtually. With a studio setting, Dialogue Match created a very clean profile that I was able to tailor to my guest’s audio track.

I spoke with my friend and colleague, Los Angeles-based sound editor and mixer Lawrence Everson, about Dialogue Match and he echoed many of my thoughts about this plugin. He shared in my appreciation for the A/B listening feature which allows you to reference your original capture audio versus your Dialogue Match audio in real time as you tweak.

Lawrence told me: “Dialogue Match is simple and intuitive. I really enjoy how easy it is to sample and compare the original reference audio to the audio you are trying to tweak to match. That easy A/B option within the plugin is genuinely useful. I also like that the three modules (EQ, Reverb, and Ambience) can be switched on and off at will, although in my workflow I’d rather have them separated out rather than one-and-done all together. (For example, having ambiance split out to a separate fill track rather than rendered in with the dialogue, etc.)”

Overall, I found that Dialogue Match does require some trial and error and patience, but the results can be truly remarkable.

To Be Critical

The functionality of Dialogue Match is fantastic, no question. However, with a $599 price tag, it’s a tough sell for RX users who already have access to the EQ Match and Ambience Match modules. Most of the engineers and mixers I spoke to, including Lawrence Everson, who already own and use iZotope RX, raised significant concerns about paying for a plugin that duplicates much of the functionality already built into RX. Perhaps there is a concession to be made by iZotope to offer Dialogue Match at a substantially reduced price point or as a bundle to those who already own RX if there are no plans to build this product into RX as a future module.

Functionally, I do find some room for improvement as this is the first version of the product. It would be helpful to have the ability to process finished dialogue separate from the reverb, which would give the re-recording mixer more flexibility at the final mix stage.

I also found some discrepancy with my settings and how they were rendered back to Pro Tools sometimes after making a tweak in my Dialogue Match settings. Occasionally, I would find a sound I like, render it back to Pro Tools and then decide to change something, re-render back to Pro Tools, and the sound would be wildly different.

Summing it Up

Dialogue Match is a welcome addition to a small but growing list of audio post production tools that substantially reduce the time it takes to perform crucial, yet tedious audio tasks. I think Lawrence and I both agree that this is a rare iZotope product that I would not currently call a “must-buy” but, I suspect this plugin will only continue to improve over time!

Dialogue Match is a helpful addition to an ever-growing list of audio post production tools that help improve workflow and productivity for key time-consuming tasks.

Zach McNees is a Brooklyn-based producer/engineer/mixer and live recordist whose work includes Björk, Rob Thomas, The Gregory Brothers, Pixies, and many more. Zach’s post-production work includes House Hunters International (HGTV), VICE (HBO), All-American Makers (Science Channel) and the award winning documentary short “For The Love of Dogs”. Get in touch with Zach at http://www.zachmcnees.com.

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