iZotope RX7 (plus up to 50% off sale)

[Guy Rowland]

It's that time of year again. No details at all yet as to what's in RX7, but I'll be amazed if I don't get it - just the new stuff in RX6 pretty much rescued an entire series I worked on recently.

In the meantime, there's an up to 50% off sale on the various RX6 versions and upgrades, plus a free upgrade to RX7 on release. All the usual resellers seem to have the deal, which runs to September 11 (some retailers saying 12). According to Pro Tools Expert, the 11th/12th will be the day RX7 is released.

Example retailer page - https://www.timespace.com/blogs/offers/ ... ade-to-rx7

[wst3]

uh-oh, Guy and I might be in agreement here????

I was late upgrading to RX6, I was really quite happy with RX5, but yeah, there are some neat tricks in 6, and I will probably download the demo for 7 when it arrives.

For anyone doing sound design or audio post for video I can't think of a better toolkit (well I can, but I don't know anyone that can afford CEDAR<G>!)

[cyoder]

Glad to have this brought to my attention! I've been in need of an upgrade to RX Advanced and this seems a good time to make the investment.

Guy, do you perchance have links for some of the other retailers that are running this promotion? I've been looking for others besides Time+Space and haven't been able to find any (at least based on my Google search criteria). Mostly just looking for one that offers financing of some kind...prefer to buy outright but I'm strapped at the moment.

EDIT: Answered my own question: purchasing from iZotope directly is what I'm looking for.

Best,

[Guy Rowland]

Jrr Shop, Audio Deluxe and Best Service all have the sale (though the first two are US-only I think).

I'm probably going to get an update from the Post Production bundble thing for£175 or so. that seems a very good deal upgrading from RX6 Advanced *(an even better deal for US customers).

[heisenberg]

Guy and other Cubase/Nuendo users, I have an older version of RX but haven't upgraded. In the past year or so, Nuendo and RX didn't play well together at all. Does anyone know if this has been fixed so you can use it as a plugin?

[Guy Rowland]

I think I’ve only ever used RX as an offline process in Cubase. It works, but it’s pretty clunky next to Pro Tools Audio Suite. Do the plugins not load at all, Andrew?

Pretty sure there’s a demo available of RX if you want to be sure.

[heisenberg]

Thanks Guy. Yes, I should just check the demo!

[Guy Rowland]

A little more info up and a cute video:

✓ Automatically remove noise, clipping, clicks, and more
✓ Reshape the intonation of dialogue to rescue or improve a performance
✓ Remix vocals, bass, and percussion
✓ Isolate or even remove vocals from a stereo mix
✓ Tackle audio issues that appear with multichannel support up to Dolby Atmos 7.1.2

...and much more!

https://www.izotope.com/en/lp/rx-7-pre-sale-pps2.html

[Guy Rowland]

Well, I have it. First off the mark, go me. Not up on the website yet, but if you've bought or upgraded, it should be in the Product Portal.

My first impression is for post work it's not quite as big a leap as the past few. Dialogue Contour is - as is so often the case - a mixed bag. Sometimes it was seamless and brilliant, other times glitchy or unconvincing. A quick trial of Music Rebalance was interesting - it has 4 groups, voice, bass, percussion and other. While it wasn't up to a clean acapella or background (the expected watery artefacts and bleed throughs), it was helpful for more subtle changes, in much the way I've found dialogue isolate. Genius often at 5db, a mess at 20db. The Repair Assistant I'm not sure is all that useful, it takes its time (much like in Neutron) and then you can further tweak from its suggestion. By and large I think I'll carry on the old fashioned way as it'll likely be quicker if you know your way around.

The manual says performance and preview adjustments to the algorithms have been made, but only in Dialogue Isolate and De Rustle. Thus far I've been playing with the new goodies, but I'll be putting it through its paces on a real job pretty much immediately.

Oh, and Insight 2 is there too. That looks like a big update, a major UI refresh and new features. I'll be checking that out.

[Guy Rowland]

Here's rough and ready example of what to expect from music rebalance when pushed to the max, using an old KT Tunstall track which is hopefully familiar to everyone. This is using the highest quality algoirthm, but only using a 192k mp3 as a source, which might well make a difference. .Here's what to listen out for:

1. All settings flat. 0s
2. No vox 8s
3. No Drums 15s
4. All settings flat 22s
5. No Drums 28s
6. Other only 33s
7. Drums only 28s
8. Bass only 44s
9. All settings flat 48s
10. Vox increased by 5db. 53s

https://www.dropbox.com/s/241dbebew2ui0 ... t.wav?dl=0

It's amazingly clever that it works anything like this well, but of course has plenty of problems when pushed to this extreme (I always like testing to extremes to know what to listen out for). Fascinating though it is, I'm not sure how useful any of this is in our world, as unsuprisingly it doesn't sound as a good as remixing. DJs and remixers will go nuts for it. Might save some blushes for old rough mixes maybe when the sessions aren't available?

[Mike Greene]

Here's rough and ready example of what to expect from music rebalance when pushed to the max, using an old KT Tunstall track ...

That's really impressive. I've always just stayed with RX Standard, but this time pulled the trigger for Advanced. It was an impulse decision and I was later regretting, but now I'm feeling better about the decision. Some of those features are really amazing.

In a related story, a couple weeks ago I bought something called "RX Elements" in a Flash Sale for $29. We use RX Standard a lot for Realitone, and it's a drag constantly bringing iLoks from one room to the other, so I figured for 29 bucks, RX Elements was worth a try. I have yet to use it, and I'm not totally sure what it actually does, but as I was upgrading my main RX Standard license to Advanced a couple days ago, I wondered if maybe I could get a second RX Standard license by upgrading from my $29 RX Elements. The upgrade page specifically said the 6/7 upgrade deal had to be from RX Standard, but I clicked Buy Now anyway and ... it worked! I got a second copy of RX (Standard) for only $149!

Then ... I looked more carefully at my account and realized I already had a second copy of RX Standard. It was a copy of RX 4 from years ago that I had somehow forgotten about, and that's what got upgraded, not the $29 copy of RX Elements. I'm such a doofus sometimes. RX Elements was a waste of 29 bucks and there's now a 0% chance I'll ever bother installing it, but at least it's nice knowing that I have two copies of RX 6 (one Standard, one Advanced), which is what I wanted anyway.

[Guy Rowland]

This might be more headslappingly bad news for you Mike, but check out the licensing terms. You can authorise any iZotope product up to THREE times simultaneously, and one of those can be an iLok!

*mind blown*

It took me 2 or 3 years to figure that out, if it helps you feel better...

BTW, one other really great thing in RX7 is dialogue de-reverb, which seems to be a new algorithm. More for post than music-use I guess, but it sounds really slick compared to both the old module and Unveil.

[Mike Greene]

This might be more headslappingly bad news for you Mike, but check out the licensing terms. You can authorise any iZotope product up to THREE times simultaneously, and one of those can be an iLok!

Now that you say that ... I'm remembering that being the situation! (Although I though it was two authorizations.) I could have easily authorized the B-Room Mac, then another authorization on an iLok, all with one license, with one authorization to spare. D-oh!

I am seriously such a doofus sometimes. On the bright side, at least the money is going to a company that's doing great work.

[Guy Rowland]

Probably the best licensing policy in the business from a user standpoint, even better than Kontakt because you can have it on an easily portable iLok to just plug in anywhere AND on a laptop dongle-free.

That rebalance thing... I don't know what I'm seriously going to use it for, not least because the quality is never quite good enough, but it's amazing it works as well as it does and it's just plain fun. As I say, DJs and remixers are going to go nuts though, a whole new market for RX I suspect.