iZotope RX5

[Phil O]

First - apologies in advance if this is posted in the wrong place. I thought it would be appropriate as I use this as a DP pliug-in.

I recently upgraded to iZotope RX5 from version 1. This morning I used it on some real clicky finger picking guitar tracks. It did an amazing job with no artifacts that I can hear. There was no way to get a good sound during tracking. It was just a matter of the player's technique. Clickity clack, thump, clickity. Some of that is just part of the charm of acoustic guitar, but this was obnoxious. With RX's de-click tool I was able to dial in just the right amount to make them into respectable sounding tracks. I am really impressed with this release.

Phil

[mikehalloran]

Yea, me too, although RX 4 is quite good for that.

I was planning to skip this version but once I demo'd the De-plosive tool, I have to have 5. Izotope hit this one out of the park. Unfortunately, it's part of the Advanced version only. I have some old tracks that have never been right. De-plosive made them perfect in a couple of minutes.

I'm certain that very few of us need RX Advanced but I do enough audio restoration to justify it for myself. Problem is that RX 4A does nearly everything I need – except that. I'm going to have to upgrade. Damn!

[mhschmieder]

I delayed on writing about RX5 because anything I wrote would have been in extreme anger, until this morning.

I have had an ongoing struggle with RX4 Advanced that didn't resolve after many hours of trial and error in uninstalling, trashing preferences, etc. And then I didn't get my RX5 Advanced license or any response for almost two weeks after paying. Adding insult to injury, an additional $100 discount was offered after I'd already paid but before I had a license to use.

Anyway, aside from the regret over not procrastinating (so I would have saved money), I FINALLY have an installed and authorized version of RX5 Advanced that also authorizes all AU and VST plug-ins (for the first time in well over half a year; RX4 wasn't updated past NOV 2014).

I never heard back from the vendor on ANY of my inquiries but AudioDeluxe did take care of my missing RX5 Advanced license at their end, at least. But it did take several restarts before plug-in authorization finally ironed itself out. It no longer provides user feedback as before, so it may be that RX5 was working all along (RX4 was clearly broken in this regard). I think they expect most people to just own a few plug-ins; whereas I own almost 700. So they probably think progress feedback is irrelevant. It probably takes about an hour for full validation; kind of like older versions of DP.

Well, now that the anger and frustration period is past, I can say that RX5 Advanced is DEFINITELY worth the upgrade, for the enhanced and improved editing control, the new features, Dialogue Mode, De-plosive, and other stuff I've already forgotten whether it's new or not (since RX4 is still only a year old and I haven't done any audio restoration in that time; just mastering and conversion).

I can't yet say whether the $600 (now $500) is worth it for the suite though. I forgot that the Loudness Control doesn't work as AU or VST; I consider it bad business to sell a "suite" of products that aren't mutually compatible with the same formats. Maybe eventually I'll get PT as I did Logic, for the few things I need it for. Can't imagine buying an Adobe audio product (the other format that Loudness Control supports -- the justification is that only "real-time processing" works for this sort of algorithm).

I may or may not ever use RX Final Mix. But I DEFINITELY will have a use for the sound effect library access, as animal sounds in particular are hard to come by (even via Sound Dogs), as most are human-produced or synth-programmed. I can't yet put a monetary value on that "extra" though.

So, proceed with caution if considering the package upgrade, but don't even think twice if going just for the RX5 (or RX5 Advanced) upgrade on its own.

I may do some long-deferred dialogue cleanup this weekend, time permitting, to check out the new de-plosive and dialogue modes.

[mikehalloran]

Dialog Denouser was part of the regular version of RX 4 — if may be improved for 5, I don't know. An earlier version was in RX 3 Advanced.

De-plosive is part of 5 Advanced stand alone app only. The instructions are not intuitive — heck, they barely exist. Anyway, it's the floating panel that controls De-plosive, not any of the controls on the window where you have dropped the sound file. You'll see what I mean. Apply the effect and, if it's too much or too little, Undo, then tweak the controls a bit and try again. Fast and easy. Worth the price of admission by itself.

Because De-plosive is part of 5 Advanced only, I don't know if the upgrade from the standard version of RX 4 to 5. But you can download and find out.

[mhschmieder]

I pretty much only use RX Advanced in standalone mode, but it's good to know the de-plosive is only available there, in case I wasted time looking for it as a plug-in.

Sometimes I will pull RX into DP if I have an in-place bounce I want to do as a destructive edit and don't want the hassle of re-importing and saving the results somewhere else first.

[mikehalloran]

Dehum and Denoise work very well as a plugin though, for really bad tracks, stand-alone is better. I like that, in Advanced, the tools are available as separate modules and you have access to more features.

[labman]

I can't yet say whether the $600 (now $500) is worth it for the suite though. I forgot that the Loudness Control doesn't work as AU or VST; I consider it bad business to sell a "suite" of products that aren't mutually compatible with the same formats.

Thank you thank you thank MH!

I was just about to get the suite upgrade instead of ADV upgrade. No AU or VST! What a joke. A cruel one.

[mhschmieder]

The funny thing is, we all talked about it when it came out, but it looks like I'm not the only one who forgot it was only for ProTools and Adobe products, by the time they bundled it in the Suite Upgrade.

RX Final Mix is available in all formats, however. I haven't used it yet, but maybe I'll find it's an ideal tool vs. other tools (from iZotope and others) when dealing strictly with restoration work and music-for-video (usually for me, the two are one and the same, as no one seems to know how to manage gain staging when recording to their handheld devices).