iZotope RX8 released [now with examples]

[Guy Rowland]

https://www.izotope.com/en/shop/deals.html

I usually buy a new version of RX8 with barely a second's thought, but this time I'm quite underwhelmed. There are a few nice-to-haves, some welcome improvements, but I don't see very little I can't already do, which is really disappointing given the scope of what COULD be done. The one exception is Spectral recovery I guess, that might occasionally come in handy. (Oh forgot - also the wow and flutter, but so incredibly rare to find it now, its pretty niche).

Upgrade for me is $299 - think I'll wait for a discount that will inevitably come at some point.

[soundbylaura]

Around $251 at JRRShop with coupon "GROUP" (for upgrade from Advanced to Advanced).

I'm going to get the upgrade.

[wst3]

I have the basic version, and there is nothing in the new version that appeals to me, they will have to work a little bit harder to separate me from my cash<G>!

[lofi]

If any are on the fence, have a look and see if you are entitled to upgrade to the new post bundle (I think it’s version 5).
There are some nice additions such as Atmos Reverb’s and loudness controls.
Probably unnecessary for most but perhaps not for all.
Looking in my iZotope account the price is the same as a RX only upgrade.
Best,
/A

[Guy Rowland]

I have the same upgrade price for the post bundle, but since I have the previous version the only new thing in it is RX8, so effectively it's the same thing. The post bundle used to have a load of Pro Sound Effects credits that was dead handy, but that's gone now. Ah well.

[lofi]

I have the same upgrade price for the post bundle, but since I have the previous version the only new thing in it is RX8, so effectively it's the same thing. The post bundle used to have a load of Pro Sound Effects credits that was dead handy, but that's gone now. Ah well.

Ah, for me are the reverbs and other plugins new things.
Well there you go.

Best,
/A

[Mike Marino]

What are you all finding that you use RX8 on (or for)???

I bought RX back in 2012, I think? I bought it for possibly cleaning up some samples as a sample editor for Colin/8dio. They ended up having some others who were already versed in that sort of thing....so I've never really used it for much. Just curious where/how you're all using it.

[Guy Rowland]

What are you all finding that you use RX8 on (or for)???

I use it quite a lot with audio recordings, especially vocals - clicks, pops, specific Ss - but there is still a problem with using Connect in Cubase. (There seems to be media management issues when you send just a range via DOP, and it gets confused about what clips it is using, undoing previous fixes). If it were more reliable in Cubase I'd use it more often on midi - Sable is notorious for its clicks and bangs that is quite trivial to fix in RX, but workflow-wise tortuous in Cubase. So I find myself working around problematic samples instead of making a horrible sound and fixing them. Sometimes I render out the Cubase session as audio to mix in PT, and then its a joy to work with, tidying up all kinds of imperfections.

But 98% of my RX work is in Post using PT. Here I use it more frequently than any other plugin - De-click, Diaglogue De-reverb, Spectral Repair, Dialogue Isolate, De-wind, De-everthing. I was working at Pinewood recently and they asked in advance if I needed any specific plugins, and RX7 was top of my list, really the only essential. On that studio show I was doing all the usual clicks, coughs and noises off, but its surprising how often I manipulate actual words - taking out stutters, plurals, all manner of voodoo. It can be really helpful on edits when one word rolls into the next - it's a piece of cake if one side of the edit has an Ess sound, I delete all the rest of the audio signal except the Ess, and the resultant edit is silky smooth.

So for me it's an essential tool for post, highly desirable for recording audio with music, occasionally desirable for working with samples.

[Rdrane]

The spectral recovery feature sounds particularly interesting - never seen a plugin for that before (is there anything else out there that compares?). It's the one thing tempting me to upgrade from RX5.

I'm editing a podcast right now and a guest's microphone is missing most content above 10k, so this could be useful.

Has anyone tried it?

[Mike Marino]

Thanks for the explanation, Guy. Using it as I suspected then. Quite a powerful tool it is! I'll have to consider trying it out on more things, especially within the saw

@Rdrane: Haven't used it in that way before but I have used it to clean up podcast audio getting rid of things like ground/mic hum and other extraneous noises.

[Rdrane]

@Rdrane: Haven't used it in that way before but I have used it to clean up podcast audio getting rid of things like ground/mic hum and other extraneous noises.

Thanks Mike. I use RX for the same reason - it's by far my favourite software for fixing audio issues. I might try the trial then and see what the spectral recovery is all about.

[Guy Rowland]

Yes, spectral recovery does look like the most useful feature - well worth a trial if you have that sort of problem audio.

[Guy Rowland]

I finally picked this up as part of Post Production Pack 5. There was a sale on (surprise!), I had some credit with Audio Deluxe and the exchange rate was relatively favourable, so I caved.

I'll do a proper update in the coming days when I've really put it through its paces.

[Guy Rowland]

Wow and Flutter module

A first impression of the Wow and Flutter module. I don't have much material to try this on, but someone did send me an old recording of their band a year or two back which had some horrible pitch drifts. Now this is quite an ask for the new Wow and Flutter module, which doesn't claim to handle random pitch shifts as such - either fast warbling or slower cyclical stuff, and this is neither. Nevertheless, no harm in trying I thought. I set the Wow controls to slowest and max effect. This is an offending section of the original, the worst moments are 27s and 38s:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ciumgqcqdjob ... l.wav?dl=0

Now here's the auto-fixed RX8 version

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qducz742twxpc ... 8.wav?dl=0

Pretty good, huh? Not completely fixed but certainly considerably improved. There is a mode where it renders tone over the waveform so you can see what it's done, that's quite interesting.

This is what I did for him last year, before this tool was around, manually doing pitch tweaks in RX7 (and some EQ too)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/etbs7rxxs5nzm ... l.wav?dl=0

I definitely fixed the 27s horror show slightly better, I think we both did about equally on the 38s one. But it did more smaller fixes than I did, so maybe the auto-mode wins on points? Bearing it mind it's not really what its designed to do, I think it's pretty impressive. I'll have to see if I can dig out any more traditional wow and flutter horrors from anywhere - if anyone has anything that want me to run through it as a test, do PM me.

Voice De-noise

This is a pretty impressive one-click fix for general shoddy recording. Here's a short vocal snippet of me in my Garden studio, a long way from the mic, aircon running and lawnmower in the garden outside:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yyy5ylvyst2xy ... l.wav?dl=0

Not pretty, is it? Next I ran it through Vocal Denoise, set to a mighty 15db reduction without caputuring any noise profile (set in adaptive mode). Literally one click fix.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lin2hu8i7n7qu ... e.wav?dl=0

That's pretty impressive. Now to really make it work, I ran it through 50db of Dialogue-Dereverb (this module was in RX7)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8f059a8h6eoyo ... b.wav?dl=0

Now yes, I can hear some artefacts here, but imo they are far less irritating than the boxy room sound which it really has helped with. I could get away with this in context as a VO I reckon - not all it should be, but far better than it deserves to be.

I'll do some more tests in the coming days, but have to say those are pretty impressive starts.

You wouldn't believe how often actors and presenters can literally phone it in now. I've often got them to record a memo on their iPhones, send it over, throw it into RX, EQ match etc and for just a few words no-one would ever know. C'est incroyable.

[Guy Rowland]

Music Rebalance

Here's a video I just did of a couple of MP3s - not perfect quality by any means - put through the New And Improved Music Rebalance. Now, it's not always this good, but this seems pretty astonishing to me. First it's Amy Mann's Stupid Thing, then Ella Fitzgerald's S'Wonderful. Note - in RX8 it can separate the 4 stems automatically for proper mixing, when you need to just subtly alter an overall mix.

Note - I'm obviously being brutal here so you can here it working hardest. Artefacts are barely noticeable if you're mixing the stems and tweaking just a few dbs.

[Piet De Ridder]

If I didn't hear it with my own ears, I wouldn't believe it. That is pretty sensational.

[Guy Rowland]

Quite something isn't it?

I think they've really improved reverbs and echoes on vocals. Also the bass is way better. This example from Everything Everything's Kemosabe is very impressive. Even if the solo'd quality is far from perfect, especially the bass, the way it's separated that kick boom from the synth bass is bloody incredible.

[Guy Rowland]

Guitar de-noise

This is an entirely new module, and one I increasingly looked forward too. Cubase is so bad at media management on its Direct Offline Processing I'm increasingly avoiding it altogether, and this module exists as a real time effect, side-stepping the whole issue.

I'm most interested in de-squeaking. Don't get me wrong, I do like a good string squeak, it is part of the humanity of the sound. I typically just want to tame it a bit. That's possible already just using basic tools offline with time and patience, but AFAIK this is a first to handle it in real time.

Here's a real world 4 bar phrase of a solo'd fairly graunchy and flanged bass guitar (FYI the phrase it doesn't start on the downbeat):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1iwzhg1n0fmz3 ... l.wav?dl=0

First I set the sensitivity at around 3/10, and reduction at 8:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vnx7gksj7q68h ... n.wav?dl=0

Then I turned the sensitivity and reduction all the way up:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v4tifbi6metjd ... n.wav?dl=0

I can't ask for more than this. The last example gets rid of every squeak completely I think. The middle one feels a nice balance of just taming things but keeping the humanity.

The amp module deals with general noise from guitar amps. All I have is plugins, so I used a very high gain preset from Guitar Rig 6 for this, and turned off the gate. To my surprise, it doesn't touch the hiss at all even on highest settings, but does address the buzz. I guess other RX plugins cover the hiss. This example is just a few seconds of the background noise, with the unit being switched in and out. It's subtle but you can hear it working.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vvlvoyr1l0va0 ... e.wav?dl=0

Finally the pick module. This is just a couple of bars of one of the Variax acoustics. Here's the original:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h5c6bkcbfv59o ... l.wav?dl=0

Next a mid point just taming the aggressive edges:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l31lxwavvocjw ... m.wav?dl=0

Finally full-on, everything turned up to 11

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0whyvnhzd3ujj ... x.wav?dl=0

I guess it has its place, but it really just seems to be a bespoke transient designer so doesn't feel like anything especially startling.

Of the three, it is the squeak module by far that earns its keep for me.

[Guy Rowland]

I am helping a friend this week with a video of a school musical that had to be recorded outdoors with no parents because of Covid. RX8 won't make it win any craft awards, but you can hear the words now over the Luftwaffe and force 12 gale over half the mics that didn't have the right windjammers. I can't say Dialogue Isolate in RX8 has improved much in this iteration even though they say it is supposed to, but it was pretty remarkable to begin with.

The extraordinary thing though is that Music Rebalance. For the songs, the backing music was played in reasonably loud. I put it into Rebalance and took everything but the vocals out almost entirely on the little mixer, and it was remarkable. Almost entirely clean singing. pretty much artefact-free.