• Izotope Rx 4 Advanced Review Of 5
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• Izotope Rx 4 Advanced Review Of 2

Dec 17, 2014  For this review, let’s concentrate on the four new ones found in RX 4 Advanced when using RX Connect, which are Leveler, EQ Match, Ambience Match and Loudness. Ambience Match To illustrate how innovative the folks at iZotope are, let’s start with.

Less than a year since the release of RX 3, iZotope has announced version 4. So what’s new? Simon Allen finds out.

1. Apr 20, 2017  iZotope have today released RX6 Standard and RX6 Advanced and also added a new product, RX Elements which replaces the RX Plugin Pack and includes the RX 6 Standalone Editor application as well as.
2. Mar 06, 2015  RX 4 Advanced ($1,199) adds several workflow accelerators used to comply with various loudness standards and to quickly adjust level, timbre and ambience in tracks. I reviewed Version 4.0.1 of RX 4 Advanced (its plug-ins in AU format) using Digital Performer V.
3. Sep 12, 2014 Mr 'RX It' otherwise known as Mike Thornton takes a tour round all the key new features in iZotope RX4 and RX4 Advanced. IZotope RX4 Review. RX Monitor & RX Connect Plug-Ins (iZotope RX 4.
4. IZotope develops award-winning audio software and plug-ins for mixing, mastering, restoration, and more. The truth is, with iZotope RX, you can fix all sorts of previously impossible problems. Here are six tips to get you out of a dialogue bind. Read More How to Use Dialogue Match. Neutron 3 Advanced.

iZotope left quite a significant gap between the release of RX 2 and RX 3. In fact three years of R&D went into redesigning the algorithms and user interface of RX 3. Since its release only last year, it has quickly become the industry standard for audio restoration and has set a new precedent of what is possible. Professionals across all sectors of the audio industry, including myself, are now blown away by the options available when working with all types of audio.

Audio restoration was typically used in the post-production world for dialogue cleaning and enhancing. However, while RX 3 pushed the boundaries and quality compared to existing restoration tools, it was the platform that opened up these possibilities across all branches of the audio world.

Creative results were also possible in music and sound design in ways we haven’t had before. I spend most of my time recording and mixing music, and yet find myself ‘secretly’ calling upon RX every week and it is now one of my most important tools. If you haven’t experienced what RX can do for you as an audio professional, then you need to take a serious look.

Surprisingly, less than a year since the release of RX 3, iZotope has now released version 4. So, what can we expect and can there really be further breakthroughs in audio restoration so soon?

Overview

For those that haven’t used RX 3 before, it comes as a standalone application and a series of plug-ins for using within DAWs, providing a suite of high-quality audio restoration tools. The tools, which can either be used as different modules within the standalone application or as separate plug-ins, include: Dialogue Denoiser, Spectral Repair, Denoise, Dereverb, Declick, and Hum Removal.

When discussing my findings of RX 4 with iZotope product specialist, Matt Hines, he confirmed that there aren’t any particular further developments to RX 3’s modules and algorithms, but that RX 4 is an update that brings many more additions to this powerful tool kit. The only module/plug-in that has seen some improvements in terms of ability and sound quality is Declick. I discovered this myself when trying to repair a badly edited flute solo, which effortlessly became very smooth.

The new features include subtle improvements in the GUI, which looks great and is very intuitive to use, especially if you are au fait with other iZotope products. The Dialogue Denoiser module is now available in the standard RX 4 package as well as the Advanced, which is a hugely powerful yet simple tool for post-production and vocal tracks.

There is a new feature which most of us have seen in Pro Tools for a while now called Clip Gain, but it is really useful having this available inside RX 4 while you are processing other artefacts about your audio clip. Another small and simple tool included in this update is Reverse. Just like the Pro Tools reverse, this reverses your audio selection, but RX 4 adds a new ability. With any rectangular selection tool in the spectral display, you can reverse only certain frequencies, which offers an interesting new sound design tool.

The Hum Removal module now has an ‘Adaptive’ mode which tracks the frequency the hum is sitting on with its harmonics, adjusting the frequencies accordingly over time. This is helpful when working on multiple clips from different locations, or perhaps a tape recording where the hum frequency will change as tape stretches slightly. There are many other smaller improvements under RX 4’s skin, such as further file exporting options, and general behaviour such as movable tabs, metadata display, time code rulers, etc. These all add up to a clearly more refined and developed product.

Advanced Highlights

Above I’ve mentioned most of the new features found in RX 4, but it’s the Advanced package which sees the most notable additions:

EQ Match

This is an incredibly useful tool, which again the likes of post-production engineers and creative personnel in music and media will hail as a eureka moment. This module will analyse the EQ of clip and then process a different take, which might have been on a different mic for example, to sound the same. There has been attempts from other manufacturers but, believe me, this is incredible. It’s so easy and fast to use, while also considering nuances and differences such as distance from the mic.

Izotope Rx 4 Advanced Review Of 5

Ambience Match

As the name suggests, this new module effectively turns the Denoiser in reverse, to take the environment noise from one audio clip and apply it to another. It will also allow you to create long sections of constant ambient noise to connect between edited dialogue from where you might not have enough free ambience to utilise and edit.

Leveler

Drawing on the power of the new Clip Gain feature, RX 4 Advanced will automatically process the dynamics of a vocal or dialogue clip. Lifting the quiet parts as well as softening the louder parts around a chosen loudness gives a far more natural result than simple compression or limiting. The resulting audio file can then have less master limiting applied and feel less ‘squashed’. A very fast way to balance out vocals.

Loudness Compliance

Taking the loudness measurements from your audio, this will process your audio to fall in line with industry-standard loudness specifications. In RX 3, we were only able to see what our loudness measurements were with iZotope’s Insight plug-in, but RX 4 will process whole final mixes to be compliant with your network’s specifications.

Complete Integration

For me, this is one of the biggest updates with this release. The way we work with RX has changed. The standalone application is still there, and so are most of the plug-ins that RX 4 and RX 4 Advanced offer. What’s new are the additions of the ‘Connect’ and ‘Monitor’ plug-ins to create a complete round-trip workflow with any host DAW or video editing software.

Launching the Connect plug-in from your host application allows you to send any clip of audio to the RX 4 standalone application where it’s so much easier to work with RX utilising all the different modules within one window. Once you’ve made your adjustments you can then send the audio back to your host application and render it in place. The Monitor plug-in is there to facilitate a simple auditioning path while working in the standalone app as an alternative sound output option. This is particularly beneficial for Pro Tools HD and HDX users when running Pro Tools software – typically you want to monitor the audio from RX out of the same hardware.

This is a massive improvement that simplifies clunky windows and multiple instances of RX into a more powerful and simpler workflow. I can see that for a lot of users, this could be the main reason for upgrading to 4 from 3. However, I also have my reservations about this new method. The result of this workflow change is that we’ve lost the spectral repair module as a separate plug-in which I was using as a Pro Tools audiosuite plug-in. I think this is a shame, as there are some occasions when I want to just ‘nip’ out a small sound using spectral repair on one clip, which now takes slightly longer as you have to set up the ‘connect’ and ‘monitor’ paths as well as the standalone app.

Conclusion

What I love about RX 4 is the way that iZotope has utilised its very powerful and impressive sounding DSP in further useful and creative ways. iZotope fully understands the success that was RX 3, and have further exploited the possibilities of their algorithms that are helpful and inspiring. The new tools have further enhanced what can be achieved with troublesome audio. RX 3 cut production time by sometimes avoiding the need to re-record, or time consuming and expensive ADR sessions. RX 4 has now saved the time we spend in RX through its improved efficiency. These are a great set of new features and the whole package is more refined and sophisticated.

iZotope RX has a well-deserved reputation for being the de facto standard in audio repair programs. Many audio engineers and forensic specialists rely on its many powerful tools, which can run either in the stand-alone RX program, or as plug-ins in AU, VST, RTAS, and AAX formats. Now in its fourth incarnation, iZotope RX 4 comes with several new features and modules I’ll be discussing here.

RX 4 comes in two versions: RX 4 and RX 4 Advanced. While RX 4 Advanced includes all the new features I’ll be reviewing here, RX 4 now includes the Dialog Denoiser (formerly only available in Advanced), as well as Connect, Monitor, Clip Gain, export regions, and updated file format support.

The Look and Feel

If you’ve used RX in the past, you’ll be right at home in RX 4. All the common tools are right where you’d expect them to be. But now, RX 4 has the same crisp appearance found in other iZotope programs, and is a darker slate grey.

The appearance of RX 4.

Connect and Monitor

Izotope Rx Tutorial

iZotope are the first to admit that the Spectral Repair plug-in workflow was a little messy. So they’ve created ‘round-trip’ plug-ins called Connect and Monitor. With them, you can be working in your host application and send audio to RX, apply any RX editing (rather than just Spectral Repair), then send the audio right back to your host.

The Connect and Monitor control panels.

This new workflow is incredibly powerful because you don’t have to leave your DAW for RX editing. No need for different file versions or names; All the processed audio gets placed right back into your host. It works so well that the ReWire option has been removed (you won’t miss it), and the Connect control panel even prompts you through the workflow. The Monitor plug-in routes the RX audio into your DAW so that you can hear your repair work. (Pro Tools users use Monitor on Aux tracks, while VST and AU users will use it on Audio tracks.)

Clip Gain, Export Regions, and File Formats

While most DAWs have it, RX 4 has a new Clip Gain editor. This is especially useful for temporally modifying the gain of a file when in the stand-alone app. You can also create regions within a larger file, then export them as a series of smaller individual files. And speaking of saving, RX 4 supports more file formats including BWF (Broadcast WAV Format), AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format), Ogg (Ogg Vorbis), and FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec.)

New Modules

On the right side of the stand-alone UI, you’ll find a larger number of modules including Leveler, Loudness, EQ Match, and Ambience Match, but the Spectrum Analyzer module has been relocated to the View menu. (RX 4 Advanced comes with the Insight plug-in, which provides even more detailed audio visualization.)

Leveler Module (RX 4 Advanced only)

The Leveler module works a bit like a compressor, in that it tracks the amplitude of the file. But instead of processing the actual level, it creates a very detailed volume envelope (see Clip Gain above), which can be used to smooth the level, or further modify manually to craft the level over time.

The Leveler module (far right) and Clip Gain envelope.

Loudness Module (RX 4 Advanced only)

The Loudness module is similar to a mastering limiter. It has two basic controls: True peak (in dB) and Integrated loudness (in LUFS, or Loudness Units Full Scale), and can be used to increase or decrease the loudness of a file. When you select the Loudness module, it displays helpful information about the loudness of the currently loaded source file.

EQ Match Module (RX 4 Advanced only)

If you’ve ever recorded a two-shot interview and were forced to use two different microphones, you’ll love the EQ Match module. Wine downloading on mac. It learns the EQ curve of a source file, then applies that curve to a destination file. I tested EQ Match on two tracks, one with a Sanken COS-11D (my favorite lavalier mic) and the other with a Countryman B6. The results were fantastic. EQ match easily corrects for variables like mic placement and tired vocal cords, too.

The EQ Match control panel.

Izotope Rx 4 Advanced Review Of 2

Ambience Match Module (RX 4 Advanced only)

Voice-over and ADR (Automated Dialog Recording) engineers have always been challenged to match the room or environment noise of an original recording to that of replacement dialog recorded in a virtually noiseless studio. The Ambience Match module makes this process a breeze and works especially well in a DAW with Connect and Monitor. First, you’ll ‘learn’ the room tone from an on-location source file. (You don’t need to select a separate noise print file because Ambience Match only looks at the noisy component of the source.) It then generates an ambience noise print file, which can then be applied to a file in RX, or can also be sent into your DAW via Connect. It’s extremely fast, and truly simplifies your ADR workflow.

The Ambience Match control panel (far right) and processed audio.

Conclusions

There are more improvements in RX 4 than I had space to write about including file information display, improvements to the time rulers, and more. There’s only one thing I wish iZotope would add: Encoding in AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) format. While it’s nice to have Ogg and lossless FLAC support, neither is as widely supported as AAC. Be that as it may, the new modules and workflow improvements in RX 4 make it a no-brainer upgrade. Granted, if you’re buying Advanced for the first time, it’s a healthy investment. But you simply cannot find a better audio repair program anywhere, and iZotope continually strives to offer innovation to even the most demanding of customers.