iZotope just released version 8 of its RX audio-repair-and-editing suite. As with previous versions, the new RX brings a boatload of new and powerful features for post-production, music production, podcast production and more.
As usual, RX comes in several price tiers, based on the number of features: Advanced ($999 introductory, $1,199 regular), Standard ($299 introductory, $399 regular) and Elements ($99 introductory $129 regular). If you own a previous version of RX, you can log in to your iZotope account to check out upgrade pricing.
On the music side, the biggest news in RX 8 is the new Guitar De-noise module (Advanced and Standard). It features separate sections for reducing amp noise, finger squeaks and pick noise. All three are extremely useful, but the finger-squeak feature, in particular, is a huge time-saver.
In the past, one would have to use RX’s Spectral De-noise, which is a brilliant module but requires selecting and eliminating glitches, like squeaks, one at a time. With Guitar De-Noise, you dial in your preferred settings and then render the entire track.
RX 8 introduces Loudness Control (Advanced and Standard), making it easy to adjust an audio file to meet specific loudness standards. You can set such parameters as LKFS (LUFS), True Peak, Short Term LKFS, and a tolerance level for the targets. Then render the file, and you’re good to go.
Read more Product of the Week: Universal Audio Apollo Solo.
IZotope also revamped the Music Rebalance module (Advanced and Standard), which can separate key elements of a mixed audio file or readjust their levels for vocals, bass, percussion and more. For example, if you needed to reduce the drums a smidge.
Post-production folks will appreciate the new Spectral Recovery module (Advanced only). Designed for bringing clarity to poorly recorded spoken-word audio, it restores frequencies from 4 kHz and higher. Also new is a Wow and Flutter module to correct issues from files transferred from tape and vinyl.
Particularly if you have a wide computer monitor, you’ll be happy to know that the number of audio tabs you can have open at a given time in the standalone RX has risen from 16 to 32. What’s more, iZotope revised the Batch Processor (Advanced and Standard) and De-Hum module (all versions). The latter now has independent frequency reduction bands.
RX is a standalone editor, but, depending on the version, you also get many of the modules as plug-ins. You can compare the features of Advanced, Standard and Elements from this page in the RX manual.
I’ll be doing a full review of RX 8 for an upcoming issue of Mix
